Who doesn’t love a title?
It’s why celebrities give their unfortunate offspring such soul crushing, toe curlingly faux ‘noble’ names as “Prince” and “Sir Carter”. Some people have even given up their citizenship in a country routinely ranked as the best in the world for the sake of a title. Of course in that case, Baron Black of Crossharbour found that his title was not exactly an advantage among his fellow inmates in prison, so he didn’t seem to have too many qualms about relinquishing it in order to reclaim his Canadian citizenship, post-lockup.
Still, a title just has a certain panache doesn’t it?
Ch. Gemstar’s Auberon CD sounds so much more romantic than just plain “Toby”, or even “my beloved Toby”. I also enjoy namedropping his dad, Am./Can. Ch. BIS Corsair’s Gaiter CDX.
The “Ch” stands for champion. The BIS is “Best In Show”. I’ve explained elsewhere how a dog earns those title.
The CDX stand for Companion Dog Excellent and is an obedience title, one of many given for “Performance Champions”, based on a dog’s skills rather than its looks.
The Canadian Kennel Club (CKC), American Kennel Club (AKC) and United Kingdom Kennel Club (KC) divide all recognized dog breeds into seven Groups. Five of the Groups ae clearly working dogs, pointers and hounds and such. But almost all the dogs in all those groups were bred for some sort of work. The CKC and AKC “Non-Sporting” Group contains breeds who originally worked for their living, like the Boston Bull Terrier and French Bulldog (bred for bull baiting) and Dalmatian (a versatile dog originally bred as a dog of war and for hunting, although we know them for their work clearing a path for the horses pulling firetrucks).
The Poodle was originally bred to be a retriever or gun dog.
“Kill Fifi, kill that pheasant!”
Even the generally aristocratic layabout Toy Group includes parvenus with working histories. The Brussels Griffon started out as a rat catcher, although it’s not something they like you to mention in polite company.
They feel they endure enough ridicule as it is.
While there are many who deplore the fact that breeding for looks has almost wiped out the working ability of most breeds , dog clubs do what they can to encourage owners and breeders to participate in activities that showcase the ancient skills.
Kennel clubs offer tests where the dog simply demonstrates that he has the nascent ability to become a herding dog or a tracker, for example.
You will then be able to point to your dog’s certificate and/or title as incontrovertible proof that, “If [your dog] had ever learnt, [he] should have been great proficient.” (Apologies to Jane Austen.)
The list of performance titles is a long one. My personal favourite is ME, awarded to dogs like Dachshunds that burrow into the ground to find their prey.
It means “Master Earthdog” and I think we can all agree that it is a freaking awesome title to put on a weiner dog.
Aw, who’s a good little Master of Earth then?
Donald McCaig sniffs at such practices, calling them “faux trials” whose only purpose is to reward owners with titles that are meaningless. I have to admit that on first glance some of the titles on offer do bear a parlous resemblance to the gold stars and trophies given to school children for just showing up. Canine Good Citizen? AKC Trick Dog? Really?
But take a closer look. First of all, many of those ‘for fun’ modern programmes are open to mixed breed dogs, not just purebreds.
Secondly, those programmes encourage people to train their dogs and to participate together with them in fun activities.
Training is hard. Too many people give up on it. So personally, I’m a fan of anything that gets a dog to focus on its owner and learn stuff.
Anyway, events in which dogs do tricks or dock dive or run an agility course? Sign me up. They’re terrific fun for dogs, handlers and spectators.
Anything that gets owners off the couch and into a milieu where the dogs can exercise whatever residual instincts they have for such work, is a good thing.
Other performance titles are undoubtedly more serious and venerable. FC (Field Champion) and TD (Tracking Dog) title owners have been proving their breed instincts in the field for over a century.
Masters of the earth aside, obedience is the classic among these competitions, and the most commonly seen at dog shows. To earn the titles CD (Companion Dog), CDX (Companion Dog Excellent) and UD (Utility Dog), a dog must be purebred, although unlike conformation, spayed and neutered dog can participate. (That’s why the Good Citizen and Good Companion competitions got started for all dogs, purebred or not.) The purebred obedience trials are typically open to all breeds.
The obedience competition consists of a number of exercises which become more complex as the dog goes through the different title levels.
The CD trials will include heeling on and off lead, recalls, stand and stay for examination, long sits (one minute) and long stays (three minutes).
CDX trial participants will heel only off lead, do some jumps and sit and stay for longer periods of time.
At the Utility level, dogs must respond to hand signals alone, without voice commands. They must be able to perform scent discrimination by picking out articles of various composition from a pile of them that have been handled by the owner, retrieve the article and bring it back to the owner. A higher level of difficulty is added to jumps and other exercises.
Our old curmudgeonly friend McCaig refers to (at least the most basic) obedience tests as promoting “useless mechanical perfection” and objects to anyone (cough*Stanley Coren*cough) measuring a dog’s intelligence on the basis of how well they perform in such trials. I think he has a point.
Since the basic exercises never change (except for the pattern of lefts and rights and turns on the heeling exercise), are performed without distractions (except for the spectators) and repeated endlessly in rote fashion, to my mind they demonstrate more about a dog’s ability to put up with boredom and repetition than they do a dog’s intelligence. In fact, one of my favourite theories is that the more intelligent the dog, the harder it is to train her, since she will always be deciding for herself what is out there that is more interesting than lying down in one place for three minutes.
Nevertheless, such exercises do teach a dog to focus and pay attention to his handler. Critically, such tests and trials promote the learning by the dog of the basic commands that are absolutely essential in turning a rough and tumble puppy into a pleasant companion.
They are certainly more objective than conformation trials in terms of deciding success.
The standards are more easily understood and measurable. If the exercise is a long down stay, and a dog gets up and wanders off before the time limit, we all know that dog has lost marks or failed.
For that reason, my experience has been that there tends to be a lot less bitchiness among competitors in obedience trials than in conformation. Sooner or later, everyone’s dog is going to pull off a boneheaded move. It can’t be glossed over by a biased judge because it will be evident to everyone. If you’re smart, you won’t mock your competitor too unkindly when an epic fail happens, because you just know that sooner or later it will be your turn to be subjected to the laughter.
Besides, obedience competitions and agility trials are sometimes more fun when the dogs spectacularly fail.
I was taking my beloved Toby through a heel exercise at an outdoor competition on a stinking hot day. We started off with me striding confidently along, turning left and right at the judge’s commands. I heard some titters from the crowd, which soon rose to laughter. I snuck a glance down to see how far off Toby was from the correct heel position. He was nowhere in sight. I turned around to find him back at the entrance to the ring, slouching tiredly against the fence, his tongue lolling out. His every aspect said, “No, no. You go on ahead. I’ll just wait for you here.”
The judge commended me on how well I at least had responded to his heeling commands.
At another competition, I was observing a Utility trial where a standard Poodle was clearly having an off day. He balked at every signal his handler gave him. When it came time for the scent discrimination test, the handler sent him out twice and twice he came back without any object at all, let alone the one the handler had left his scent on.
When he was asked for the third time to complete the exercise, the Poodle showed his complete disgust with the whole process by delicately stepping into the middle of the pile of objects, squatting and shitting out a huge pile of poop.
“You want scent? I’ll give you scent, you controlling fascist!”
Agility, herding, tracking, field trials, flyball, lure coursing, draft dogs pulling carts, dock diving. The AKC, CKC and KC all have calendars of events.
If you’re looking for something to do with your dog, think about the whole world of fun presented by these performance trials. Remember that performance competitions are also wonderful spectator sports.
I no longer have a dog, but spending an afternoon watching other people’s dogs compete fulfills my need to be around dogs without the, you know, actual effort and expense of owning and training a dog.
Competitions take place from Alaska to Texas; from British Columbus to Newfoundland. The Manitoba and Northwestern Ontario Dachshund Club in Thunder Bay Ontario has a show. Cold Lake Alberta has a show. The River City Labrador Enthusiasts of Anola, Manitoba put on tests for Working Certificates. If you want to see those weiner dogs earning their Master Earthdog certificate you can visit Okotoks Alberta, or Metamora Michigan.
Trust me, there is a competition near you somewhere. Go. You’ll have a blast.