I tend to agree with Doris: There are many of us that are older and just not as involved with actual showing. I have not bred a litter in 4 years......... co-own 2 bitches that one of my boys sired..........and have a 4 year old special that we have a lot of fun with. We use a local AB handler.....we do not "fly" our dogs anywhere. An observation: Golden Retreivers have huge entries at AB shows(50-75 in the NW). They are primary breeder/owner handled. They DO NOT have a lot of specialty shows. It may be there are just too many shows to pick and choose from for the number of GSD's that are actually being shown. Here in the NW, the number of folks involved in AKC conformation showing, is at least half of what it was 10 years ago. Kay ---Kay Reamensnyder and Betty Doerpinghaus ---bedkar@xxxxxxxxxxxxx ---VISIT OUR WEBSITE:http://home.earthlink.net/~bedkar ============================================================================ POST is Copyrighted 2004. All material remains the property of the original author and of GSD Communication, Inc. NO REPRODUCTIONS or FORWARDS of any kind are permitted without prior permission of the original author AND of the Showgsd-l Management. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. ALL PERSONS ARE ON NOTICE THAT THE FORWARDING, REPRODUCTION OR USE IN ANY MANNER OF ANY MATERIAL WHICH APPEARS ON SHOWGSD-L WITHOUT THE EXPRESS PERMISSION OF ALL PARTIES TO THE POST AND THE LIST MANAGEMENT IS EXPRESSLY FORBIDDEN, AND IS A VIOLATION OF LAW. VIOLATORS OF THIS PROHIBITION WILL BE PROSECUTED. For assistance, please contact the List Management at admin@xxxxxxxxxxxx VISIT OUR WEBSITE - http://www.showgsd.org ============================================================================