On the subject of show presentation, I'd like to suggest that for every rule there is an exception. I am absolutely in agreement with the idea that Cavaliers should be shown naturally and self stacking, however, I do believe that, occasionally, this rule may be broken. For example, many years ago I showed one of my dogs at the Silver Jubilee in Kentucky. He did self stack and had won many specialties and BIS at All Breed shows doing just that but on that particular day I looked at him and just felt that the way he was standing looking up at me didn't do him justice. He was such a lovely dog I decided that the win was not as important to me as seeing him show to his best so I knelt down with him. I did not "top and tail" him but dropped his leash and knelt about 3 or feet in front of him. This showed his beautiful profile as he stood totally self stacking and wagging his tail and I was happy with that even though I was the only handler in the ring on my knees. There wer 230 plus dogs entered so there were a whole lot of people in that ring. The judge obviously felt she could not overlook him in spite of the "handler error" and he came away with the Breed win. Also, if I had a pup in the ring for the first time and the stress was too much for him, if I couldn't settle hm without my hands on him then I'd get down to comfort him. The judge would be well within his/her right to overlook the pup in favor of those self stacking and I'd live with that rather than allow this one incident to possibly ruin the show career of a promising pup. I realise they should be trained before they get there and usually they are but sometimes the unexpected just happens. Just another opinion :-) .
Chris Gingell Caruaidd Cavaliers ========================================================= "Magic Commands": to stop receiving mail for awhile, click here and send the email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?body=SET%20CKCS-L%20NOMAIL to start it up gain click here: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?body=SET%20CKCS-L%20MAIL E-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] for assistance. Search the Archives... http://apple.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ckcs-l.html All e-mail sent through CKCS-L is Copyright 2002 by its original author.
