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Chasing That Last Major It seems that lately the majors in my area have been so close and breaking consistently, even at specialties. This is very frustrating for those of us needing majors! Even more frustrating is the situation where a dog is singled out and thus only needs majors. I’d like to touch on these scenarios in this column. In my opinion, the term “singled out” does not give a good connotation. It makes me think that the owner of this dog will be entering a lot of shows where they cannot show their dog and will thus lose entry fees. If they do show their dog and win, taking single points they don’t need, they will be subjected to criticism from fellow exhibitors. So many shows are iffy majors and so the owners enter the shows, only to have the shows not pull majors. Even worse are those majors that are right on the number needed or only a couple over. Those are the shows that the owners of the singled out dogs try desperately to find out ahead of time if the major is going to hold so they don’t have to send their dog if it will definitely break. All too often, they don’t know about the absentees, they send their dog, and the majors break anyway so the dog is not shown. My plan for avoiding the singled out dilemma is to only enter shows I believe will be majors once my dog has 6 or 7 single points. If my dog has one major, then I would stop entering in small shows when they have 9 or 10 points. That way, if the shows I enter expecting majors are NOT majors, I can still show my dog. I currently have a bitch with one major and 10 points so I’m looking only for majors for her. Sadly, even the specialty weekend I just attended had majors that broke every day as well. I believe that all of the winners still needed singles, though, and I know of at least two dogs who are now “singled out” after this weekend. And I also know of many singled out dogs brought to the show that weren’t shown as well. I have been pretty fortunate that I’ve only had one dog in the “singled out” position. I did follow the plan of only entering shows that pulled majors but eventually picked up those last two points. I did enter a rather distant show that didn’t pull majors and so I didn’t even go with my bitch that still needed singles simply because I didn’t want to drive that far for singles, so I technically did lose that entry fee. There was only one weekend after that where I had to make a decision on showing my singled out bitch. At this show, it was one bitch short once all the absentees were counted and there was one bitch special who was at her last show for awhile because she had blown coat. I spoke with her handler who encouraged me to show as this bitch had not been winning for the last several weeks. I also discussed this with many of the other exhibitors and they all seemed supportive. As it turned out, I took reserve and the bitch that won took the breed, even over the male specials, so the major held. My bitch ended up finishing at her next show with a 5 point specialty win, so I never had to lose entry money. I was fortunate. There are times when it is considered appropriate to show a singled out dog when the major breaks. One would be if there is the chance of a crossover major in the other sex even if there is no major in your own dog’s sex. People do not fault people for trying for a crossover major. Another is if it is only one short (maybe two) and there is a special (or two) of the same sex that aren’t winning like crazy. If the specials are top winning specials that have been cleaning up week after week, it is probably not a good gamble to show your singled out dog in hopes of beating the specials and will most likely anger your fellow exhibitors if you do show and don’t pull off the long shot. Afterall, you’ve just taken points you didn’t need that someone else DID need. As I mentioned above, I did show once when the bitch special would make it a major, but only after consulting with her handler and knowing she had NOT been winning lately at all. I have actually seen specialties where the winners both days were singled out dogs and the majors were not there in either sex. Your opinion may vary from mine on this (and that is your right) but I consider it bad sportsmanship to take points you don’t need. If you don’t have a problem with this, please know that most exhibitors do dislike this, and will most likely be miffed with you for taking those points, especially if their dog was awarded reserve. Believe me, there was a lot of negative talk about this when it happened even though the owners are wonderful people. I really think that we should all
try to remember these unwritten rules of sportsmanship when we get to this
difficult scenario. Perhaps because I have been able to avoid this dilemma, I
may not fully understand the feelings of owners of these singled out dogs. But
watching many of my friends agonize over shows that might pull majors and see
them bring dogs that never get to go in the ring because the majors broke, I
know most handlers do honor this system. I applaud them. As always, I encourage anyone with ideas on issues I’ve discussed, or issues they would like to see addressed, to please share their thoughts with me. I can be reached at shilogr@yahoo.com Thanks so much! |
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