I have to mention a few things about my weekend.

Lets start with the weight pull on Saturday. It was fun to watch and it's amazing how much brute strength these dogs have! I have been an Alaskan Malamute owner for years and currently have a 78 pound, 8 nearly 9 year old female out of a very prestigious winner at Westminster a few years back. While she is no show dog, she still exhibits the attributes of the breed, including, well, hair. There were numerous dogs in APPALLING condition at this event! A few had scars from what looked like fights. Numerous had sores, rough looking coats, floppy ears, improper tail carriage...etc. With this breed, they are notably same sex aggressive and most of them were not fixed so ok, I get some of the scars. However, what was absolutely unacceptable was the coat condition of some of these poor dogs. Their coat is very specific in requiring a soft undercoat and longer guard hairs. A curved tail high set over their back that does not fold over too far. I can't count how many dogs had NO HAIR on their tails, NO guard hair, or numerous spots of MISSING HAIR. These dogs were in deplorable condition. It was embarrassing to see the breed represented so poorly for a AMCW sponsored event at our local humane society. We left before the pull was over because it was extremely cold out, but I was ashamed for the way this beautiful, loyal, loving and smart breed was represented.

So then today we went to the Badger Labrador Retriever Specialty Show. I showed rabbits way back when and the shows are run differently and I guess I'm not 100% sure how dog shows run. we saw so many gorgeous dogs of mostly black and chocolate. The yellows all seemed to have a soft cottony coat, and maybe it's the season, but I really didn't like how they looked. I won't comment on the size/condition of the dogs because that would be like beating a dead horse, but lets just say there was a huge variation in the body conditions of some of these dogs. What I didn't understand were all of the dogs that seemed OBVIOUSLY shorter than the breed standard. I get that bench bred labs are not supposed to be taller than APPROXIMATELY 22"-24", but some of the bitches I saw looked around 15". Maybe they were pups, but they were so large they looked like they should've been of a mature age. I did learn more about a few of the breeders we had looked at before we got Maverick (glad we didn't go with them!) and what body types/conditions we like better.

Both days were an eye opening experience in their own way!