Show number 5 - Conformation and obedience.

Show 5, confirmation and obedience.

Day 1 – We had obedience first at 10:30am, since my husband was the one who was taking her through, he was nervous. When the time came for him to enter the ring, I was pretty nervous too, I think the only one who wasn’t nervous was Sienna and really it was all about her today and just how good and obedient she is, a talent show rather than a beauty pageant like conformation! So anyway, it seems like it took forever for her to have her turn and I think she was tired but she did alright. She could have done better but for her first time out, I think she did just fine…….until the sit/stay – this is where she is to stay in a sitting position while her owner/trainer stands about 30 feet in front of her. She is not to move. Well, Sienna was bored I guess and she decided she was done and got up and slowly walked over to Michael and then sat right beside him – this disqualified her, bummer. So we high tailed it out of there to make it in time for the show ring.

Here I took over and now she needed to pay attention to me. Well, she had been working with dad all morning and I think she was a little off. I was a little off too, it had been a long day and to be quite honest, I really don’t enjoy the show ring and Sienna doesn’t really care for it much either. It’s not fun for the dogs, they run around a circle, have a judge feel them up, run down and back and then the judge picks a winner. Well, we were the only ones in the ring so we took blue, then we went up against the other winners and left empty handed again.

Conformation is a subjective beauty pageant. Some days the dog with all the Chessie qualities win and some days it the dogs with the darkest fur, sometimes it the dogs with the curliest fur, sometimes it’s the judges favorite handler, I’m not sure. This I do know, Sienna, for as beautiful as I think she is, doesn’t have the broad chest and head that Chessies are known for. Perhaps someday she will have those traits but for now, she really doesn’t stand a chance unless I get a judge that likes my cleavage or prefers skinny chessies.

Day 2 – Pretty much the same as day 1, except that this time she stayed for the full time in the sit/stay. She didn’t qualify though because she didn’t get enough points overall.

I’m not even going to mention the conformation ring – why bother.