So excited: I'm going to Westminster

[roadie gal]

My aunt took me to a couple small local dog shows when I was little. It was a lot of fun. I love looking at the breeds and finding out about them, but if I ever get a dog, I'll almost certainly go rescue.

There are some really nice breeds out there and some that we just had to shake our heads over. Honestly, except for color there are a lot of terrier breeds that looked exactly the same to us.

One of the fascinating thing about seeing the dogs in person was seeing their relative sizes. You just can't tell that on TV. For example, the bearded collies are a lot smaller than we expected and the otterhounds are much larger.

We have 2 purebred collies (Lassie type collies, not border collies). When we decided to get a dog we had very specific needs and wants. Among other things, we needed a dog with little or no prey drive since we have cats. All of the rescues up here are mixed with huskies or wolves or other high prey drive breeds. We just couldn't take that chance with our cats. So we decided to go with a purebred dog with the thought in mind that we'd have a better chance of getting what we needed in terms of personality and drive. This worked out well for us. Under other circumstances we'd probably have gone for a pound puppy. (I'd never heard of a breed rescue until I got the first dog and got interested in dogs in general.)

[malkin]

...All of the rescues up here are mixed with huskies or wolves or other high prey drive breeds. We just couldn't take that chance with our cats. So we decided to go with a purebred dog with the thought in mind that we'd have a better chance of getting what we needed in terms of personality and drive. This worked out well for us. Under other circumstances we'd probably have gone for a pound puppy... (I'd never heard of a breed rescue until I got the first dog and got interested in dogs in general.)

Very true. And most of the rescues here are (pit) bull terrier mixes. Sad to think that their people probably couldn't manage them.

Really, I do have my dream dog, and have had for years. I'll whisper it if you promise to think only good thoughts for when the time is right... Shhhh! Don't tell....http://entlebuchers.net/

[roadie gal]

Very true. And most of the rescues here are (pit) bull terrier mixes. Sad to think that their people probably couldn't manage them.

Really, I do have my dream dog, and have had for years. I'll whisper it if you promise to think only good thoughts for when the time is right... Shhhh! Don't tell....http://entlebuchers.net/

There used to be an entlebucher that lived around the corner from us. He looked like a small Swiss Mountain Dog. Nice dogs.

[indysteel]

Is anybody watching the competition this year? I always enjoy the show! I grew up with terriers and while I like other dogs, I always seem to pull for a dog in the terrier group to win Best in Show (the Scottie and Westie, in particular). I do love that fox hound that won the hound group though.

[Possegal]

I watched! I felt I owed it to my newly adopted 8-yr old bullmastiff. She barked a few times during it.
I love some of the things the ring announcer, as well as the TV ones, say. The TV one said something about the working group being the "slobbery-est" group. Made me chuckle.

As a kid we used to go to a dog show in Pittsburgh every year, and we got to go back where the dogs were waiting and being groomed. It was awesome.

[jobob]

Darn, I missed it! Oh well.

[roadie gal]

The rough collie that we thought should have won for the breed last year did win this year. The group judge didn't give him a second glance, but he was a VERY nice dog.

I was OK with the Affenpinscher winning, but I was rooting for the German Wirehair Pointer.