Best in Show

There’s a fine line between a hobby and a mental illness.

Some hobbies are fine. Stamp collecting’s fairly harmless, as is having a pet rabbit.

At the other end of the scale are the wealth and sanity destroying hobbies; equestrian, ocean yacht racing, owning racehorses.

Then you’ve got showing dogs, which attracts people who are, let’s just say different.

Go to any dog show across the country and you’ll be treated the full autism rainbow in all its glory.

That’s not to say dog breeders aren’t nice people. They are. Strange, but nice.

For treacherous, even dangerous traits, you need to attend a chicken show.

Poultry fanciers are just plain evil. Even at a chicken show in a small town, you’ll hear of poisonings, abductions and death threats. These people take their birds seriously.

In contrast, dog owners, like the objects of their affection, are mostly harmless.

I know everybody’s entitled to a hobby. But I’ve never understood why people would pack up the pooch and drive halfway across the country to attend a dog show in some obscure village.

I was intrigued by this behavior. Short of engaging a psychoanalyst to explain it to me, the only sure way to find out was to immerse myself in doggie culture.

Last weekend I did.

To make a start I needed to do three things.

First, watch ‘Best in Show’ a dozen times.

Next, there was the paperwork to deal with.

Dogs Queensland’s charter runs to thousands of clauses, at least four of which deal with false identities.

So the original plan of registering Klaus Von Stieglitz as a handler, and turning up wearing a black suit and monacle wasn’t going to work.

As an aside, Dogs Queensland has a 14-person ‘Dog of the Year’ committee, with its own tome of rules and regulations. 

Finally, there was the issue of obtaining a dog.

Any dog won’t do. It needs to be of a certain breed, and have specific characteristics.

Eventually, I managed to borrow a dog which I will call Freyja for the purposes of this article. Apparently she is a show dog of some repute, of a breed called the Norwegian Muscovy Hound or something similar.

I’d entered in a class called ‘working dogs’. I’m not sure how accurate that is.

There were corgis, for example. I’d never seen a corgi in the flesh before, and assumed they were only found at one of the Queen’s palatial residences. The corgis at this show looked pampered and sleek. A bit like the Prime Minister, and not unlike Malcolm, I suspect they’d never done a day’s honest toil in their lives.

Then we come to the Old English Sheepdogs. The handlers were busy turning them into enormous puff balls, aided by industrial quantities of hair spray.

Hair spray is a basic commodity at dog shows it seems. You’ll see more hair spray action here than you would at a Bon Jovi concert.

I wasn’t sure how Freyja was meant to compete against a corgi, let alone an Old English Sheepdog, but one of the officials (after scolding me for patting another competitor’s Flemish Beaver Dog) put me right.

First, the puppies of a single breed are judged, followed by bitches, then the male dogs.

The winner of each round then faces off against the third placed dog from another category, who then enters a parallel competition against the second place getters from the week before. I think that’s how it went.

So after the Norwegian Muscovy Hound puppies were tried, tested (and most found wanting), it was my turn.

I was required to flounce around the testing area at a modest jog, before presenting Freyja for inspection by the large, 60-year-old female judge. All judges at dog shows are large, 60-year-old women. It’s in the regulations I think.

Despite being a multiple prizewinner in the past, Freyja was in no mood for close inspection on this occasion.

When the judge tried to inspect her teeth, she bared them instead. The judge did the same; for ten frightening seconds, the two bitches faced off, fangs drawn, waiting for the other to strike.

The judge won. Then I was sent off.  Without a prize, obviously.

The prizes aren’t much, anyway. If you get through to the final round without dying of exhaustion, you can win a blue ribbon, but most importantly, you get bragging rights over the people in the next tent, who will be looking sullen.

I learned a lot last Saturday. I don’t pretend to understand how the judging system works (short of outright bribery). Nor do I have a clue why anybody would wish to own seven dogs of the same breed, particularly a nasty little animal like a Maltese Terrier.

As I was leaving, a lady who would probably have been called a steward had I been at a horse race asked for a quiet word.

My pink shirt was, she suggested, a bit ‘flamboyant’ for country Queensland. And next time, I should remember to wear a tie.