May 21, 2023 • 41 mins
You know those shows where people wearing sensible shoes jog dogs around in circles? They actually represent the pinnacle of a long and complex path to glory for dogs and their owners. Join Chuck and Josh as they peek inside the American dog show in this classic episode.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everybody, it's Josh and for this week's select, I've
chosen our twenty twelve episode on dog shows. You know,
I've always wondered what the deal is with dog shows?
How do you compare a poodle to a Pekinese to
a Parfa Geffen? I made that last one up regardless,
it turns out there's a whole fascinating world going on
beneath the surface of dog shows. And if you just
(00:21):
sit back and enjoy the step, you'll learn all about it.
Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey,
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me
(00:43):
as always as Charles W. Chuck Bryant. And that makes
this stuff you should have. The podcast Indeed, about dogs
my favorite topic. Yeah, that's one of them. What else
I don't know? Dogs? I'm one of those people that
like dogs more than many humans. Sure, so, as you know,
(01:05):
and so you know, all the dog shows I'm not
real big on. I love watching dog shows, yeah, I
just I've never gotten into them. I know there's criticism,
there's controversy, but I don't care about that. I just
I'm kind of bored watching them. I never get bored.
It's almost like, um, watching a fractal screensaver or something.
It sucks me into that level of like just zoned altitude?
(01:30):
Is it point? Is it appointment television for you? Like?
Do you make a point every February something? I think
I think last year it was Valentine's Day? Yeah, okay,
it's early February. Yeah. Last year when a little Pekinese
one in Malachi, I think I remember seeing that dog.
Look at that dog, it's basis mushed beyond cute. Look
(01:53):
at that hair. So apparently, Um, if you want to
blow up the Twitter verse with angry tweets, you can
talk politics, yeah, you can talk religion, or you can
hold the Westminster Dog Show and select a best in show.
People get pretty upset. Man, people went crazy last year.
(02:14):
So like, um, what like you commenting or just in
the Twitter universe? People on Twitter? Okay, yeah, no, I'm
just a fan. I don't. I don't during the show, no, no, no. Um.
I live tweet very infrequently. It's it's tough on the thumbs. Sure, um,
but so Maliki, this little cute four year old Pekinese
um one best in show and um people were really mad.
(02:38):
They called it um a mop cousin it Haeraldo Riverez
mustache a wookie snooky for some reason, maybe just because
it rhymes with wookie, and that's what they were going for.
They had just been watching Jersey Shore who knows, um,
but Maliki is no slouch. Um it had won one
hundred and fourteen Best in Show awards. Wow, only four
(03:01):
years old, so this thing's been mopping up the competition.
Oh man, I just made myself shiver. Yeah, but people
were crazy, they they One guy said he was a
fan of the Dalmatian. He said, I'm done with these
dog shows, and I think that happens every year show exactly. Yeah,
there's a lot of people who feel very passionately about
(03:22):
dog shows. There's plenty of people like me who love
to just zone out and watch them. Sure, and then
you know, there's people who just don't know anything about them.
And that's what we're here for today, to explain everything
there is to know about how dog shows work. That's right,
and this will either be really interesting to you or
you made just zone out like Josh does watching the
(03:43):
Westminster Show. You know, though, um, I don't think we've
ever released an uninteresting episode maybe they have uninteresting titles,
but you go on and you listen to it, it
will interest you. I defy you right now, Steve. You
should know listeners who haven't listened to every single episode,
so we'll call you the twenty eight percent. Yeah. Um,
to go out and find an episode that sounds boring
(04:04):
in the title that you've not heard and listened to it,
and I guarantee you you will find it interesting. It's
the it's just that thing. Yeah, one comes to mind.
College football rankings interesting to me, But boy, our listeners
are not into college football. But was it for the
most part boring? Was it really not interesting? There's nothing
interesting in there. I think if you're not into sports
(04:26):
at all, then it was probably really boring. Gotcha, But um,
we'll avoid that one. Yeah, or the guarantee is void.
But hey, if you're into sports, you'll love it. No.
I think on the other end, if you were into sports,
it was like, will you guys mess this up? Or
you forgot this? Yeah? Wow? Yeah? Oh and hey, by
the way, congratulations we are now an award winning podcast.
(04:48):
We got a stitchy? Is that what they're called? That's
what I made up. Mark Marin had to call our names.
He hosted these Stitcher Awards last night. Oh really Yeah,
he won one himself for a Best Episode. Yeah, we
nominated for that too, for we were one that I
didn't think was like an accidental invention. Yeah, I mean
that was okay, but I would have picked a different
best episode. I think it was the sacram bit that
(05:08):
really led us into that. Sure on the toast, Yeah, um, okay,
So anyway, dog shows, Yeah, um, conformation shows, not firmation
confo r are what we're going to talk about for
most of the show, and that is purebred dogs competing
(05:30):
against other purebred dogs, almost exclusively based on physical attributes. Yeah,
that's the Westminster dog show that you see every year
at Madison Square Garden. Yes. Um, it's just yeah, what
the dog looks like, and basically it's appearance, its body structure,
and then to a lesser extent, it's dude. Yeah, it's attitude,
(05:55):
it's a character because that also what they're trying to
do here. If you've ever watched a part of this,
and I love that this Who wrote this one, Jay McGrath,
oh Old Jane, I remember her? She wrote that have
you ever been channel surfing and come across one. I
feel like a lot of people that is their entrance
(06:15):
into the dog show world is they're flipping it around
in February and they go, oh, yeah, that thing right
where the Christopher guests movie, Yeah mocked. I'll watch a
few minutes of that, and I've done that, and I've
always been like, I don't get it. How are they
judging these other dogs against each other? It's a very
good question, and we're here to tell you how. Yeah,
because you know you this little Pekinese went up against
(06:37):
things like Great Danes and Dalmatians and Doberman's and all that,
and it still beat them all. And the way it
did that is how they judge any kind of confirmation show.
They judge the dog by the standards of its breed,
and then the dog that most closely fits those idealized standards, yeah,
wins these very specific register I'm gonna say registered standards. Yeah.
(07:02):
So let me give you an example. I was looking
this up. There's a and the AKC has developed these
standards from information taken from breeders. That's right, and um
they for example, the Lakeland terrier. Um. One of the
standards is its attitude, right, and it has The Lakeland
terrier has quote a bowl gay and friendly with a
(07:22):
confident cock of the walk attitude. So this this is
the kind of thing that the akc sits around us. Yeah,
basically I love that. Uh. In England they have different
standards that see American Kennel Club and they have a
different show called Crufts cru ft S and there's is
(07:45):
a little bit different but we'll get to that later. Yeah,
we'll talk about that in a little bit. For the
most part, we're focused on Westminster and the AKC. So
in addition to attitude, yeah, character traits, um, there's all
those physical traits that the akc UM has made tain
on each breed. So for example, balance and not how
well the dog stands up, although the gate is important. Yeah,
(08:08):
if you're talking like falls over, that's probably a bad sign.
But yeah it's yeah, it's not gonna win next this year. Um.
Balance is what we would call symmetry for humans. It's
the overall proportions of its shape and size. Yeah, like
that Scottish terrier is really pretty, except boy, look at
those ears. The size of its butt. Yeah, you're out, sorry, Scottie.
(08:30):
Weight size eyes and again eyes is size and shape
and color. Yep, if you got that one wonky eye,
forget about it unless you're an Australian shepherd. Yeah, they are.
They supposed to have one. I think they're supposed to
have a blue and a brown and blue and a brown.
Everyone I've seen has. Yeah, but what does the aksey say?
I don't know. They don't care what sloves like you
(08:50):
when I think the head shape, of course, ears, muzzle, whiskers,
thickness of whiskers is one really yeah, I would think
they'd be an indicator of poor health. What bit they
had bad whiskers, thin whiskers, riddle whiskers. I think you
you want nice stout whiskers, like a centimeter thick each. Okay,
(09:15):
that's probably the standard for any breed. This is the
JK C. Yeah, teeth. You always see them checking out
the teeth. Um. You don't want any kind of weird
scissor bite or I guess certain breeds have the underbite. Yeah,
a lot of them do. The breachyal CARDI Yeah. Our
own Jerry's dog, Charlie I recently learned, has a bit
(09:40):
of a little underbite and sometimes the lip will get
hung and the little bottom teeth are just kind of
jetted out there. It's very cute. It's very cute. You
want to go over and like adjust the lip, so
here you go. Yeah. I like dogs that have like
teeth sticking like cheese us. Yeah, boxers too, right, boxers, um, pugs,
(10:01):
Pekinese out of that one. Yeah, they all have that.
It's it's like brachial cardie. It's like anything with a
smushed face usually has an underbite as well. Okay, teeth,
all right, we just said teeth tail, I mean um,
shoulders and these these dudes are feeling. These judges are
feeling these dogs as well, like muscle and bone, like
(10:24):
they're trying to get under the fur. Ye to judge
these things. So one of the big things your dog
has to learn very early on is to let strangers
feel him up. Yeah, in all sorts of uncomfortable places. Yeah,
you don't want your dog snapping at this guy when
he fondles your dog. And if your dog snaps at
the judge and then falls over, just just go home.
It's all over. What did they say invest in show
(10:47):
when the dog broke his gate the one guy, So
we might as well just taken a dump right there
on the floor. So yeah, Michael McKean said that he's awesome. Um.
And then of course there's coat length and texture and color,
and very much like thoroughbred horses, there's accepted colors for
each breed. Yeah, you got a dog that's blue and
it's supposed to be a golden retriever, you got problems. Yeah,
(11:07):
if you got a blue Retriever, you have many problems.
Although you could probably make some money taking it around
the country taking an old timey circus. Where you can't
make money is by winning the Westminster Dog Show. Yeah,
it's a good point. You would think that these these
things offer like big cash prizes, but they don't. It
is really about prestige and being one of those dog
(11:28):
show people, like you know, wearing that ribbon and getting
that trophy. Sure, wearing sensible shoes and you know, learning
to walk very fast. That's least because your gate matters
is a human right, you know. So you put all
this together, right, and these these judges know the standards
for the breeds and when they're looking at this these dogs,
(11:49):
they're saying they're matching it up to their mental catalogs
they have. And then the ones that most closely match
the idealized version of their breed, like we said, wins boom,
and that's how you get the the little you know,
lasso opso or the Peakinese that can beat out like
a Great Dane or a German Shepherd or something like that.
(12:10):
That's how they compare them. Yeah, and that's only been
going on since I say, only since nineteen oh seven.
Previous to that, and this has been going on at
Madison Square Garden in a New York City since eighteen
seventy seven. Yeah, big time. They didn't have a best
in show at all until nineteen oh seven because they said,
you know, how do we codify this right? And they did.
(12:32):
They figured it out and it's really Jane says, it
sounds confusing, but once I spell it out, it's simple.
But it's still a little confusing. Yeah, it took me
a couple of times to figure this out. There's just
a lot of seat ups. She does a great job
of explaining, and it's just there's a lot to it.
So you want to you want to explain this. The
Westminster Dog Show, we should say, is the pinnacle, the
(12:52):
peak in the United States for any dog. But there's
a long road ahead of it. Like we said, Alicky
the winner of twenty twelve show had one hundred and
fourteen best in shows under its belt. Yeah, and Jane
called it the super Bowl. I would say it's more
like an All Star game if the All Star Game
counted for something very picky, you know, because it's all
(13:15):
these all stars from the different breeds, from all these
shows making this final. It's like the the Little League
World Series for dog great, It's like the Chess. It's
like Bobby what's his face? Fisher almost said, Bobby Riggs.
Mans be like kind of story who Bobby Riggs? Bobby Fisher?
(13:36):
Oh yeah, sad. Did you ever see Searching for Bobby Fisher?
It did? It was great movie. Here's back. And then
you know, of course, um that song one Night in Bangkok. Yeah,
it's from a Broadway show and I can't remember what
the Broadway show is, but it was based on Bobby
Fisher in his life and now he moved to Asia
and just devolved into madness. That song is about Bobby Fisher,
(13:59):
and that was from a Broadway show as far as
I know. Yes, And then the pop version was just
rerecorded by whoever that was possibly by the original composers.
But for the radio. I thought one night in Bangkok
was about you would think never mind, I was gonna
bring up all you had to do is just in there. Yeah,
(14:19):
who's a Gary Glitter? That's what I was thinking. Yeah,
I don't think so. I think he got in trouble
in Bangkok, if you know what I mean. He did,
and he recently got in trouble with the whole Jimmy Saville.
He was part of that too, apparently, So gross man,
what a sidetrack that was? So um Okay. To be
(14:40):
a champion, right, this is what a dog games for.
It is to be a champion. That's right, Because if
you're a champion, you get to add as a prefix
to your name. Yeah, like I would be c then
Chuck if I were a champion dog, Yeah, you'd be
Chachuck Chachuck. All right, So let's walk everyone through this, right, Yeah,
(15:02):
all right. To be a champion, you got to get
compile a certain number of points, and you earn these
points at different dog show competitions around the country that
are not the Westminster Show. Yeah, and from different judges. Right,
you got to get at least fifteen points from three
different judges or at least two major wins from separate judges,
and a major win is one where you can earn three,
(15:23):
four or five points, and that's when you can get
the right as a champion just for that little show though, right,
or no, for the compilation of those shows. Yeah, yeah, right,
(15:51):
So when you get this, when you get to become
a champion, when you have I think it's fifteen points
and two major wins from separate judges. Yes, you're right, Um,
you you get to this point. Also, like you said,
it's not Westminster, it's these little specialty shows. Sure, And
I don't mean little to diminish, and I'm just saying
compared to Westminster, they're much smaller. It's not on ESPN
(16:14):
and there's specialty shows. Well, it's on the OHO, I'll
bet us. These specialty shows are based on m specific breeds, right,
so you'll go to like the Chihuahua Show or um,
the the Lakeland Terrier Show and the dogs are separated
between male and female. And we can say the B
(16:36):
word in this one because that's what it's called. It's
my new band name, by the way, what winner's bitch?
Okay um? And uh, they're the males and the females
are then separated into six different classes. Yes, you've got
the puppy class, the twelve to eighteen month old class. Yeah, novice.
(16:56):
So those are dogs that are um six months or
older that haven't won any points yet, haven't won any
first place prizes, so they can be a little older,
but they're still rookies as far as the competition stage goes, right,
and six months is the minimum age to compete in
an AKC show. Yeah. Below that, you're just there's no way. Yeah,
they're too dumb, too unpredictable. Bread by exhibitor is a
(17:20):
class of dogs where the person showing the dog is
also the breeder. Yeah. The breeder, by the way, is
the owner of the dog's mother. Right. There's American bread,
which is any dog born in the US USA, and
then there's open. The open class is open to any dog,
and this is the only class that any dog that's
already become a champion, Yeah, can compete in. In the
(17:42):
specialty show, oh they are, Yeah, that's the only class
open to them. Okay, because they could just mop up
all the other classes, they have to face any takers, Okay.
In the open class, all right, it's a good way
to put it. Yeah. So they divide it up by
male and female. The males go first, and they, you know,
inspect all the males as they do at any of
the shows. You know what that means, findling. You give
(18:03):
them the award ribbons first through fourth place, and you
don't get any points at this point though. The first
place winners of the male class have to compete for
the winner's dog. The female's class compete for winners bitch man,
you want to say it. I've said it twice now
I don't want to say it. I find it difficult
to say. Oh really, it's just the connotations are sure.
(18:24):
You know, I've never used that word, uh, in like
anger about someone that's it's a it's a very rough,
it's horrible word. Yeah, And I don't I don't. I
don't think that makes me a good person or anything.
But there's just a couple of things that like I
wouldn't call my worst enemy, and that's one of them. Gotcha,
I don't have any enemies. What am I talking about?
So you've got the winner's dog and the winner's bitch
(18:47):
yep um, and uh, this is this is the point
where they start, um, winning awards, winning points points. I mean,
I'm sorry, Um, so this is all all these different
dogs have been weeded out by the different classes. And
then there there you've got the out of all these
six classes of the male cad male version, in the
(19:07):
female version, you have winners, right, and then there's so
this is where the points start being awarded. Then there's
chances for more points in the same show. Any champion
can come along and take the winners on for um
best in show or best in breed. Yes, and you can,
and you compile extra points depending on how many dogs
(19:28):
they beat out. So if you beat out a bunch
of more dogs, you can turn up to five points, right,
five is the most. And remember a major win is
three to four or five points in a win. Yes, okay, Um,
so you can win some by being the winner's dog
or the winner's bitch. You can the champions can take
those guys on in the best of breed and then
between those two the winner's bitch and the winner winner's dog,
(19:51):
there's another walk off I guess, yeah, and um they
can win point whoever be two And then there's the
best of opposite sex. Yeah, that was the best of winners, right,
and then the best of opposite sex, which it says
the best dog of the opposite sex, of the best
of breed. Yes, so whichever dog, whether it's the winner's dog,
the winner's bitch, or any champion that took him on.
(20:12):
And one yeah, the best of breed. Say that's a
male that wins, right, And there's another category for the
winners that's females or vice versa, the opposite best of opposite. Basically,
it's like we got all these points sitting around, let's
let's get rid of some good point. Or or it's like,
did you ever go to camp and like run a
(20:34):
race but you ran terribly, but you still got a
ribbon that just said participant. Yeah, maybe it's like that.
That's like every race ever r in the same here.
Basically I had a trophy once that just it was
a sad face. Really Yeah, there's a baseball back it's
kind of sitting at the foot of the kid with
his head hung down frowning. Yeah. I played church sports,
so we didn't. They didn't do a lot of trophies
(20:57):
even in church leagues. Like the ultimate victor of the
churchley got a trophy, but they weren't big on like
ribbons and trophies. The ultimate victor of the Church League,
I would imagine is Salvation. Yeah, we all won, okay,
so then you've got your Best to Breed winner and
then that dog can then advance to a group show
where all these best of Breed winners compete aka or
(21:21):
AKC Westminster. Right. So to make that point, when you
are at a specialty show and you're aiming for Westminster,
which I imagine every dog there is. Oh sure, you
want to win Best to Breed. You can win points
and become a champion through winning other stuff like best
of Opposite Sex, best of winners, winners, dog winners, bitch right, yes,
(21:42):
But to move on to the next level, you have
to win Best to Breed of that show, and you
have to win a bunch I imagine that's right. And
at this point half of our listeners are delighted in
half their eyes are rolling back into their head. Man,
we just explain the heck out of that. I agree.
So we're at Best in Show. Yeah, the movie. That's
(22:05):
such a good movie. If you've not seen Best in
Show the Christopher Guest film, yeah, just go out and
see it right now. Yeah, just stop. I think it's
streaming right now. I'm sure it is. Yeah, it's really good.
It's hard to pick out a favorite part of that movie,
but the scene that always pops up to me when
Parker Pozzy is trying to get a replacement was it
(22:27):
a b a little be stuffed animal and she can't
find it and the guy's trying to help her. He's like, well,
this is yellow and black and it was like a
parrot or something. I can't remember at all, But she's
just like my hero. Yeah, that's great, she's very good.
All right. So, um, a little bit on the AKC.
There are several hundred dog breeds in the world, but
(22:49):
the AKC only recognizes a little over one fifty, that's it.
And they separate those into groups. And yeah, the AKC
loves categorizing, breaking putting dogs into categories and breaking them
down and then putting them into new categories. Yeah, and
that's what they do here. And the poor dogs are
just like, what can treat? Can I get a bacon strip?
(23:12):
Or what squirrel? Um? Okay, sporting dogs this one um. Obviously,
these are dogs that are good for hunting, pointers, retrievers, setters,
and Spaniels. Yeah, those are good dogs, great dogs. Um Hounds, beagles, bloodhounds, docsins.
I like hounds except for the baying, the howling of
the how oh my god, yeah a beagle of you
(23:32):
never heard like a beagle, No, never had a beagle
or that much. They are loud and insistent, really insistent.
Super cute puppies though, possibly the cutest puppies of any breed.
I think. Yeah, those and uh, oh man, what's the
one I'm thinking of? The little puff balls. It's a
it's an Asian dog. The little puff balls Maltese. Now,
(23:54):
like is it a little dog? Yeah in the end, yeah,
but like the puppies are little puff balls and they
stay a little stay stay uf balls like oh Pomeranian. Yes, yeah,
those are pretty cute puppy. Yeah. They don't even look real.
It looks like squeeze them. It should make a little noise,
right they do? They do? Yeah, you don't want to
do that, okay. Um. Working dogs, we're talking Great Danes, Rotwiler,
(24:14):
Saint Bernard's dogs who are hardy and they even you know,
are used as working dogs like search and rescue stuff
like that, right, um. And then there's terriers that chase rats.
Did they maybe even fight? Um cobra or two? Uh?
Those are little Schnauzers Scottish terriers also known as Scottie's Yeah,
(24:36):
bull terriers, which you would recognize as Spuds mackenzie. Yeah, man,
those things are weird looking. My buddy Clay just got
a giant Schnauzer. You're big. Well, this thing is like
six months old and he's already as big as my
biggest dog. Yeah. He's like just wait all you see.
His name is Bro. He's like, what do you see? Bro?
At the end of this he's going to be enormous.
(24:57):
How how big is he expected to get? Wait? Wise,
I don't know, but really big. He's awesome, very very
fun dog. Yeah. Just like for a dog to be
that young and that big, they don't have control of
their limbs yet. So Bro would just go running downstairs
and just like face plant and then get up and
you know with the happiest expression behind his little eyes
that you can see like that. Theyre what else? Toy dogs? Yeah, Chihuahua's, poodles,
(25:22):
pugs and how do you pronounce it? I always said, shitzu?
Is it chizu chiu? Chesu? Non sporting dogs. I guess
these are the intellects. This is a catch all breed
when you don't have unifying characteristics, which is kind of sad.
The one unifying characteristic is these dogs don't play. They
don't play bulldogs, Dalmatians and the American eskimo dog, which
(25:45):
I've never heard of. Yeah. It's basically like, we don't
know what to do with you, guys, so we're gonna
put you in the non sporting dog and then two
more herding dogs like Australian shepherds and miscellaneous. So remember
we said that the AKC likes to classify people dogs. Yeah,
and there's more breeds than it recognizes. This is a
group that they you can't win points, you can't win
(26:08):
any major awards, I believe. But if there's a breed
that's starting to get more attention, there's more people breeding it. Yeah.
It's like part of the process of becoming recognized. You
you start out in the miscellaneous group, so that's prerecognition
almost Yeah. Jeez. Yeah, hey man, these people are keeping
track of like this dog's cock suredness. I mean there there.
(26:32):
They pay attention to details, all right, So the best
of breeds and each of the group are gonna compete
in the group show, and then if you win that
group show, then you compete in the Ultimate I think
we skip that part, which is the All Breed Show,
and that's the All Star Game, the super Bowl. That's Westminster,
the chess match, right, the Bobby Riggs versus h Billy
(26:53):
Jean King. That's when a that's when a judge goes
through each of these groups and picks out the best
yep right, um seven groups because the eighth can't win, right,
And they basically go through and say you're number one,
you're a number two, you're number three, you number four,
and all of a sudden that number one is the
(27:14):
best in show, and the controversy erupts. Twitter goes crazy.
I'm gonna have to pay attention this year. It's yeah,
it's fun to watch. Yeah, I've never watched it where
I was like tense, oh sure, but you know I've
been like, oh that's great, or oh really that that's
that's nothing. I'm sure you find yourself rooting for certain
dogs though, yeah, yeah, yeah, there's always a dog. There's
(27:36):
always at least one if apture where you're just like,
I like that dog. Right. Uh, all right, let's talk
about the criticism of dog shows. Yeah, because there's definitely plenty.
Yeah there, it's out there. Um. One of the problems
that certain groups have is that when you're talking pure
bred dogs, you're talking about breeding. And UM, myself and
(27:59):
many others are against dog breeding because there's plenty of
dogs out there for the taking. Yeah, but they they're mutts.
That's a look out of the um. So Breeders basically
breed these dogs to acquire these or to at least
hold onto these attributes, and that means in breeding sometimes,
and that means shorter lifespans and disease and defects, birth
(28:23):
defects like Dalmatians tend to suffer from blindness and German
shepherds suffer from hip dysplasia. Yeah, and these these traits
have become associated with the breed, these standards of the
breed that the AKC maintains. Yeah, and it's kind of like, well, yeah,
but if you if you want to have a dog
that meets all these other criteria, it's also going to
get dysplasia when it's sticks. Yeah, it's just part of inbreeding.
(28:47):
It's narrowing of the gene pool. And I've definitely noticed,
and this isn't one hundred percent, of course, but all
the dogs and people I've known who had dogs throughout
the years, I've noticed more pure bred dogs dying younger, yeah,
than the MUDs. Well, supposedly they have a weaker immune system.
Like remember, I don't remember what episode it was, but
we were talking about that experiment that people sent people
(29:12):
use scents to detect an immune system different from yours,
because when you put together your immune system and somebody
else's immune system to reproduction, the kids should have a
doubly great immune system. Man, that was a long time ago.
I remember that, Yeah it was, I don't remember what
episode it was. I smell maybe maybe so. Yeah. So
(29:53):
remember a few minutes ago we were talking about the
miscellaneous category can eventually earn you status as an officially
recognized breed. Um The American Border Collie Association, the ABCA
really didn't want their dog to become recognized by the
AKC because they thought that meant well, once it's an
official breed, then that means breeding will become more intense,
(30:16):
and these dogs, you know, will suffer from all these
things that we just told you, about Yeah, they specifically
petition with the AKC don't recognize, don't recognize us, and
the AKC said, we're going to recognize. I don't think
it was maliciously, but they're like, this is what we do,
and we're going to recognize this dog as a breed. Now,
they were like, had you not asked, we wouldn't know,
but you did, so sorry. And PETA is also filed
(30:40):
an official objection against tail docking, which is when they
amputate you know, the tail. So you had the little nub, Yeah,
it's such as tails, the ears. Oh yeah, you're cropping shop. Yeah,
there's a lot of breeds that have these unnatural attributes
that you have to perform surgery on to get, yeah,
which is countering tuitive because you're talking about the idealized
(31:02):
version of a breed. Yeah, why would you have to
take some sort of technological step to, yeah, to reach
that ideal version. Like if it doesn't happen naturally, it
seems really awful. Yeah it does to me too, But
I mean I don't even declawe my cats. So yeah,
the way to go, that's the way. I But I've
got crapp all over my house. It's cat scratched. But yeah.
But the same time, you know, Holly Fry of pop stuff,
(31:26):
she was talking about how, um she lets her cats
play on their iPad really, and I was like, you
must have a serious scratch guard because there's like cat
playing apps on iPad. Oh wow, um, And she's like,
I don't think we have a scratch guard. Well, when
cats play around like that, they'll usually don't have the
claws out. They're usually just pawing around, you would hope.
But yeah, I wouldn't put one on my iPad no way. Um.
(31:51):
I put on the little sticky things they have, like
clear tapets that you put on like your couch arm. Yeah,
and those are unsightly in collect hair and dust and
just one of the things. If you're an animal owner
with five animals in your house, it's hard to not
live with some hair. Do you have a rumba? Nah?
You should probably get a rumba. It might change your life. Yeah.
(32:12):
I'm in love with my vacuum cleaner, so I feel
like that would be cheating on LuxI nice. Yeah, okay,
that's so. What else was there? Oh? Joanah Goldberg had
some words about breeding, especially with the AKC. He compares
it to eugenics. Yeah, in fact, he thought it spurred
(32:35):
the eugenics movement. Yeah, we're like, oh wow, we have
this really great dog, and we should do this with humans.
I'm tired of people with epilepsy. Let's just get rid
of them. And of course you can go back and
read or listen to um is it legal to sterilized addicts? Yeah,
that was episode basically was all about eugenics. That's true.
(32:58):
He also contends, and not really contends, it's pretty obvious
that it's a beauty pageant. They're focusing on these physical
attributes and only the aesthetic matters in his opinion, and
that's not something he says. You know what, if you
want to judge a hunting dog, take it out hunting, right,
and see how it does there. Because these jogs, these jogs,
(33:18):
these dogs have jobs. You know, most dogs do have
a job of some sort, right, and let's see how
they do in their job. Yeah, like that's how you
would truly appreciate a breed and not just it's looks.
And um, you mentioned UK's cruffs. The England England's Kennel
Club runs cruffs and they do have lots of agility
(33:40):
and stuff like that. Apparently they're criticized for going too
far the other way, right, that they need to bring
back more confirmation conformation. Right. But yeah, if you if
you go to England and you're into dogs, you're going
to be very surprised because their their big show doesn't
look anything like ours. Yeah, those are the well we'll
get in to agility trials, but is that what they
(34:01):
have in there where you're running between them, you're bobbing
and weaving and going through the tunnels and yeah, obedience
stuff too. Yeah, and the AKC has these things, it's
just not part of the big one, the Westminster show. Right,
But Chuck, you would also probably appreciate England's Kennel Club,
maybe more than the AKC, because they have something called Scruffs. Yeah,
(34:22):
I want to see this televised. It's it's basically the
Cruffs for crossbreed dogs, non pure bred dogs, and it's
just adorable that they have this and they welcome anything
pretty much. Yeah. I mean, obviously you have to have
your dog trained. You can't just walk up off the street,
but as far as breeds go, you can enter your dog.
The criteria are pretty wide open, and they just look
(34:45):
for good temperament, good health, and good character, which I like. Yeah,
so we talked about agility trials. These are sometimes separate
competitions all together, and then, like you said, in England,
incorporated into the best in Show. And that's whether they're
basically doing like a little obstacle course, which is adorable
(35:07):
off leash. I mean, did you see this picture. That's
the cutest picture ever in this article how dog shows work. Yeah,
it's it's just a little terrier jumping over like a
little post and he's got this look on his face
like I'm gonna do it. He is gonna do it.
He's got his tail up. Man, that's a cute picture.
And then obedience trials are basically taking commands from the handler,
(35:30):
like you know, you got to be listening some of
the commands or just vocal some of them. You can't
speak at all, and you're just using hand gestures and
they're just seeing how well trained your dog is, right, Yeah,
that the dog can become the champion, which is the
national obedience Champion, which is got to be kind of
(35:51):
a dubious honor among dogs, like you're the most obedient
Dog in All the Land. Yeah, it's kind of like
m Kurt Russell when he was like the star of
Disney movies. It's like, hey, a movie star, but you're
also like this, you know, clean cut teeny were great
number those but even he distanced himself later He's like, no,
I'm badder than this. I'm snake Pliskin exactly. Yeah. I
(36:13):
probably forgot about those early movies. Those were awesome. I
was a big fan of those. What was it the
Kid with two White Shoes or something like that. They
were really like vanilla. Yeah, they were pretty vanilla. Yeah. Um.
So over the years, we have a few little stats.
The breed that has won the most the fox terrier
thirteen times. Not bad. Yeah. The dog that has won
(36:38):
the most was Champion Warren Remedy, who was a fox
terrier who won three times in a row in the
early nineteen hundreds. So that's pretty good. Yeah. My favorite,
it's the oldest dog to win, the eight year old
Papillon who won in nineteen ninety nine. Champion Low Ticky
(36:58):
Supernatural and the youngest ever was a rough Collie named
Longed Loyalty of Belle Haven and one on its ninth
nine month birthday and nine months. Oh it's pretty young.
Makes Bro look like an idiot. Bro is an idiot.
He's lovable though. I guess it's about it, right. Yeah,
(37:22):
I'm gonna watch this year. I'm gonna It's appointment TV
for me. Now good? That is good. I think you'll
like it. And then go on to Twitter and register
your anger or your happiness at the winner. I will
do so. Maybe I'll live tweet. Your thumbs are gonna hurt.
I gotta get our Twitter log in. I don't even
know it really well, you're the Twitter master. I just
leave that to you. I will, I will, I'll email
(37:43):
it to you. Okay. And by the way, our Twitter
handle is sysk podcast. I knew that part, okay, So, Chuck,
if anybody wants to learn more about Best in Show
and dog shows and to see this adorable picture of
this terrier jumping in mid air, man, it's a cute picture.
You can type in dog shows in the search bar
at HowStuffWorks dot com. And since I said search bar
(38:06):
in there, I imagine it's time for listener mail. But first, Chuck,
I feel like we should wish everybody a happy New Year. Yeah,
I hope you had a great twenty twelve and if
it wasn't great, here's the better days. I had, very nice,
very nice, Chuck Um, and I want to wish a
very very happy birthday to my sweet and wonderful wife.
You me, Happy birthday, Happy birthday. It's very sweet. Okay,
(38:27):
listener mail huh yes, okay, all right, Josh, I'm gonna
call this crying during music and this is from Angela
and Columbus, Ohio. I should take up buck, guys. My family,
My family would blue. Who's blue Michigan? Oh? Tough words,
(38:51):
all right, guys. Listening to Chuck talk about his experience
at Carnegie Hall made me want to share this story.
I heard a story one day about a new musical
based on a book Wicked, And I know we all
know this musical now about the Wizard of Oz. Yeah. Yeah.
I had a soundtrack for about a year or before
I saw it, and I found out there was a
Broadway Across America tour coming to Columbus, Ohio. My husband
(39:13):
and I bought tickets, went with a group of friends.
I've been listening to the soundtrack for about a year.
As I said, so I was really excited. So I'm
watching the show, really enjoying it, getting swept up in
the stage production and the acting. The music was better
than I even thought it could be. And when they
hit the main song, Defying Gravity, sung by Adina Menzel
on the soundtrack, that's when had happened. I had a
(39:35):
chuck moment, broke down, sobbing like a little baby. I
don't know if I call that a chuck moment. I mean,
I'm sensitive, but that's a pretty hilarious all right, I'm leaping.
The song itself is incredibly moving overall. There's a point
in the middle where there's a break from the action,
and before she hits the third verse, she says a
few lines, turns a last line into this incredibly cathartic note,
(39:56):
and takes off in flight. Sitting here, remember it, I'm
actually choking up. And that's where I could no longer
control myself. All through the third person was sobbing, uncontrollably loud,
gasping sobs. Both my husband and my brother in law
offered me comfort, but I could not control myself. I
cried through the end of the song and the houselights
were coming up for an intermission. My husband gave me
(40:16):
a hug, not really knowing why I was so moved,
and I still can't say why. I was a mess
and incredibly embarrassed, but it was a beautiful moment for
this touching character who speaks to me. PS. And this
from Angela and Columbus PS, I feel a sense of strengthen.
Catharsis also currently while listening to Shake It Out by
Florence and the Machine. H Well, that's a specific email. Yeah,
(40:41):
thanks for sharing your story. What was that person's name? Angela?
Thanks a lot, Angela. We appreciate that. That's pretty cool.
So what do you want to say? I don't know
dog show stories? What do you think? Noah, yeah, sure,
dog show stories it is. If you want to get
in touch with this about your dog show store, you
(41:03):
can tweet to us. Remember it's SYSK podcast and of
course we're on Facebook, Facebook, dot com, slash Stuff you
Should Know and you can send us a good old
fashion email to stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. Stuff
you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
(41:26):
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hey, everybody, it's Josh and for this week's select, I've
chosen our twenty twelve episode on dog shows. You know,
I've always wondered what the deal is with dog shows?
How do you compare a poodle to a Pekinese to
a Parfa Geffen? I made that last one up regardless,
it turns out there's a whole fascinating world going on
beneath the surface of dog shows. And if you just
(00:21):
sit back and enjoy the step, you'll learn all about it.
Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey,
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me
(00:43):
as always as Charles W. Chuck Bryant. And that makes
this stuff you should have. The podcast Indeed, about dogs
my favorite topic. Yeah, that's one of them. What else
I don't know? Dogs? I'm one of those people that
like dogs more than many humans. Sure, so, as you know,
(01:05):
and so you know, all the dog shows I'm not
real big on. I love watching dog shows, yeah, I
just I've never gotten into them. I know there's criticism,
there's controversy, but I don't care about that. I just
I'm kind of bored watching them. I never get bored.
It's almost like, um, watching a fractal screensaver or something.
It sucks me into that level of like just zoned altitude?
(01:30):
Is it point? Is it appointment television for you? Like?
Do you make a point every February something? I think
I think last year it was Valentine's Day? Yeah, okay,
it's early February. Yeah. Last year when a little Pekinese
one in Malachi, I think I remember seeing that dog.
Look at that dog, it's basis mushed beyond cute. Look
(01:53):
at that hair. So apparently, Um, if you want to
blow up the Twitter verse with angry tweets, you can
talk politics, yeah, you can talk religion, or you can
hold the Westminster Dog Show and select a best in show.
People get pretty upset. Man, people went crazy last year.
(02:14):
So like, um, what like you commenting or just in
the Twitter universe? People on Twitter? Okay, yeah, no, I'm
just a fan. I don't. I don't during the show, no, no, no. Um.
I live tweet very infrequently. It's it's tough on the thumbs. Sure, um,
but so Maliki, this little cute four year old Pekinese
um one best in show and um people were really mad.
(02:38):
They called it um a mop cousin it Haeraldo Riverez
mustache a wookie snooky for some reason, maybe just because
it rhymes with wookie, and that's what they were going for.
They had just been watching Jersey Shore who knows, um,
but Maliki is no slouch. Um it had won one
hundred and fourteen Best in Show awards. Wow, only four
(03:01):
years old, so this thing's been mopping up the competition.
Oh man, I just made myself shiver. Yeah, but people
were crazy, they they One guy said he was a
fan of the Dalmatian. He said, I'm done with these
dog shows, and I think that happens every year show exactly. Yeah,
there's a lot of people who feel very passionately about
(03:22):
dog shows. There's plenty of people like me who love
to just zone out and watch them. Sure, and then
you know, there's people who just don't know anything about them.
And that's what we're here for today, to explain everything
there is to know about how dog shows work. That's right,
and this will either be really interesting to you or
you made just zone out like Josh does watching the
(03:43):
Westminster Show. You know, though, um, I don't think we've
ever released an uninteresting episode maybe they have uninteresting titles,
but you go on and you listen to it, it
will interest you. I defy you right now, Steve. You
should know listeners who haven't listened to every single episode,
so we'll call you the twenty eight percent. Yeah. Um,
to go out and find an episode that sounds boring
(04:04):
in the title that you've not heard and listened to it,
and I guarantee you you will find it interesting. It's
the it's just that thing. Yeah, one comes to mind.
College football rankings interesting to me, But boy, our listeners
are not into college football. But was it for the
most part boring? Was it really not interesting? There's nothing
interesting in there. I think if you're not into sports
(04:26):
at all, then it was probably really boring. Gotcha, But um,
we'll avoid that one. Yeah, or the guarantee is void.
But hey, if you're into sports, you'll love it. No.
I think on the other end, if you were into sports,
it was like, will you guys mess this up? Or
you forgot this? Yeah? Wow? Yeah? Oh and hey, by
the way, congratulations we are now an award winning podcast.
(04:48):
We got a stitchy? Is that what they're called? That's
what I made up. Mark Marin had to call our names.
He hosted these Stitcher Awards last night. Oh really Yeah,
he won one himself for a Best Episode. Yeah, we
nominated for that too, for we were one that I
didn't think was like an accidental invention. Yeah, I mean
that was okay, but I would have picked a different
best episode. I think it was the sacram bit that
(05:08):
really led us into that. Sure on the toast, Yeah, um, okay,
So anyway, dog shows, Yeah, um, conformation shows, not firmation
confo r are what we're going to talk about for
most of the show, and that is purebred dogs competing
(05:30):
against other purebred dogs, almost exclusively based on physical attributes. Yeah,
that's the Westminster dog show that you see every year
at Madison Square Garden. Yes. Um, it's just yeah, what
the dog looks like, and basically it's appearance, its body structure,
and then to a lesser extent, it's dude. Yeah, it's attitude,
(05:55):
it's a character because that also what they're trying to
do here. If you've ever watched a part of this,
and I love that this Who wrote this one, Jay McGrath,
oh Old Jane, I remember her? She wrote that have
you ever been channel surfing and come across one. I
feel like a lot of people that is their entrance
(06:15):
into the dog show world is they're flipping it around
in February and they go, oh, yeah, that thing right
where the Christopher guests movie, Yeah mocked. I'll watch a
few minutes of that, and I've done that, and I've
always been like, I don't get it. How are they
judging these other dogs against each other? It's a very
good question, and we're here to tell you how. Yeah,
because you know you this little Pekinese went up against
(06:37):
things like Great Danes and Dalmatians and Doberman's and all that,
and it still beat them all. And the way it
did that is how they judge any kind of confirmation show.
They judge the dog by the standards of its breed,
and then the dog that most closely fits those idealized standards, yeah,
wins these very specific register I'm gonna say registered standards. Yeah.
(07:02):
So let me give you an example. I was looking
this up. There's a and the AKC has developed these
standards from information taken from breeders. That's right, and um
they for example, the Lakeland terrier. Um. One of the
standards is its attitude, right, and it has The Lakeland
terrier has quote a bowl gay and friendly with a
(07:22):
confident cock of the walk attitude. So this this is
the kind of thing that the akc sits around us. Yeah,
basically I love that. Uh. In England they have different
standards that see American Kennel Club and they have a
different show called Crufts cru ft S and there's is
(07:45):
a little bit different but we'll get to that later. Yeah,
we'll talk about that in a little bit. For the
most part, we're focused on Westminster and the AKC. So
in addition to attitude, yeah, character traits, um, there's all
those physical traits that the akc UM has made tain
on each breed. So for example, balance and not how
well the dog stands up, although the gate is important. Yeah,
(08:08):
if you're talking like falls over, that's probably a bad sign.
But yeah it's yeah, it's not gonna win next this year. Um.
Balance is what we would call symmetry for humans. It's
the overall proportions of its shape and size. Yeah, like
that Scottish terrier is really pretty, except boy, look at
those ears. The size of its butt. Yeah, you're out, sorry, Scottie.
(08:30):
Weight size eyes and again eyes is size and shape
and color. Yep, if you got that one wonky eye,
forget about it unless you're an Australian shepherd. Yeah, they are.
They supposed to have one. I think they're supposed to
have a blue and a brown and blue and a brown.
Everyone I've seen has. Yeah, but what does the aksey say?
I don't know. They don't care what sloves like you
(08:50):
when I think the head shape, of course, ears, muzzle, whiskers,
thickness of whiskers is one really yeah, I would think
they'd be an indicator of poor health. What bit they
had bad whiskers, thin whiskers, riddle whiskers. I think you
you want nice stout whiskers, like a centimeter thick each. Okay,
(09:15):
that's probably the standard for any breed. This is the
JK C. Yeah, teeth. You always see them checking out
the teeth. Um. You don't want any kind of weird
scissor bite or I guess certain breeds have the underbite. Yeah,
a lot of them do. The breachyal CARDI Yeah. Our
own Jerry's dog, Charlie I recently learned, has a bit
(09:40):
of a little underbite and sometimes the lip will get
hung and the little bottom teeth are just kind of
jetted out there. It's very cute. It's very cute. You
want to go over and like adjust the lip, so
here you go. Yeah. I like dogs that have like
teeth sticking like cheese us. Yeah, boxers too, right, boxers, um, pugs,
(10:01):
Pekinese out of that one. Yeah, they all have that.
It's it's like brachial cardie. It's like anything with a
smushed face usually has an underbite as well. Okay, teeth,
all right, we just said teeth tail, I mean um,
shoulders and these these dudes are feeling. These judges are
feeling these dogs as well, like muscle and bone, like
(10:24):
they're trying to get under the fur. Ye to judge
these things. So one of the big things your dog
has to learn very early on is to let strangers
feel him up. Yeah, in all sorts of uncomfortable places. Yeah,
you don't want your dog snapping at this guy when
he fondles your dog. And if your dog snaps at
the judge and then falls over, just just go home.
It's all over. What did they say invest in show
(10:47):
when the dog broke his gate the one guy, So
we might as well just taken a dump right there
on the floor. So yeah, Michael McKean said that he's awesome. Um.
And then of course there's coat length and texture and color,
and very much like thoroughbred horses, there's accepted colors for
each breed. Yeah, you got a dog that's blue and
it's supposed to be a golden retriever, you got problems. Yeah,
(11:07):
if you got a blue Retriever, you have many problems.
Although you could probably make some money taking it around
the country taking an old timey circus. Where you can't
make money is by winning the Westminster Dog Show. Yeah,
it's a good point. You would think that these these
things offer like big cash prizes, but they don't. It
is really about prestige and being one of those dog
(11:28):
show people, like you know, wearing that ribbon and getting
that trophy. Sure, wearing sensible shoes and you know, learning
to walk very fast. That's least because your gate matters
is a human right, you know. So you put all
this together, right, and these these judges know the standards
for the breeds and when they're looking at this these dogs,
(11:49):
they're saying they're matching it up to their mental catalogs
they have. And then the ones that most closely match
the idealized version of their breed, like we said, wins boom,
and that's how you get the the little you know,
lasso opso or the Peakinese that can beat out like
a Great Dane or a German Shepherd or something like that.
(12:10):
That's how they compare them. Yeah, and that's only been
going on since I say, only since nineteen oh seven.
Previous to that, and this has been going on at
Madison Square Garden in a New York City since eighteen
seventy seven. Yeah, big time. They didn't have a best
in show at all until nineteen oh seven because they said,
you know, how do we codify this right? And they did.
(12:32):
They figured it out and it's really Jane says, it
sounds confusing, but once I spell it out, it's simple.
But it's still a little confusing. Yeah, it took me
a couple of times to figure this out. There's just
a lot of seat ups. She does a great job
of explaining, and it's just there's a lot to it.
So you want to you want to explain this. The
Westminster Dog Show, we should say, is the pinnacle, the
(12:52):
peak in the United States for any dog. But there's
a long road ahead of it. Like we said, Alicky
the winner of twenty twelve show had one hundred and
fourteen best in shows under its belt. Yeah, and Jane
called it the super Bowl. I would say it's more
like an All Star game if the All Star Game
counted for something very picky, you know, because it's all
(13:15):
these all stars from the different breeds, from all these
shows making this final. It's like the the Little League
World Series for dog great, It's like the Chess. It's
like Bobby what's his face? Fisher almost said, Bobby Riggs.
Mans be like kind of story who Bobby Riggs? Bobby Fisher?
(13:36):
Oh yeah, sad. Did you ever see Searching for Bobby Fisher?
It did? It was great movie. Here's back. And then
you know, of course, um that song one Night in Bangkok. Yeah,
it's from a Broadway show and I can't remember what
the Broadway show is, but it was based on Bobby
Fisher in his life and now he moved to Asia
and just devolved into madness. That song is about Bobby Fisher,
(13:59):
and that was from a Broadway show as far as
I know. Yes, And then the pop version was just
rerecorded by whoever that was possibly by the original composers.
But for the radio. I thought one night in Bangkok
was about you would think never mind, I was gonna
bring up all you had to do is just in there. Yeah,
(14:19):
who's a Gary Glitter? That's what I was thinking. Yeah,
I don't think so. I think he got in trouble
in Bangkok, if you know what I mean. He did,
and he recently got in trouble with the whole Jimmy Saville.
He was part of that too, apparently, So gross man,
what a sidetrack that was? So um Okay. To be
(14:40):
a champion, right, this is what a dog games for.
It is to be a champion. That's right, Because if
you're a champion, you get to add as a prefix
to your name. Yeah, like I would be c then
Chuck if I were a champion dog, Yeah, you'd be
Chachuck Chachuck. All right, So let's walk everyone through this, right, Yeah,
(15:02):
all right. To be a champion, you got to get
compile a certain number of points, and you earn these
points at different dog show competitions around the country that
are not the Westminster Show. Yeah, and from different judges. Right,
you got to get at least fifteen points from three
different judges or at least two major wins from separate judges,
and a major win is one where you can earn three,
(15:23):
four or five points, and that's when you can get
the right as a champion just for that little show though, right,
or no, for the compilation of those shows. Yeah, yeah, right,
(15:51):
So when you get this, when you get to become
a champion, when you have I think it's fifteen points
and two major wins from separate judges. Yes, you're right, Um,
you you get to this point. Also, like you said,
it's not Westminster, it's these little specialty shows. Sure, And
I don't mean little to diminish, and I'm just saying
compared to Westminster, they're much smaller. It's not on ESPN
(16:14):
and there's specialty shows. Well, it's on the OHO, I'll
bet us. These specialty shows are based on m specific breeds, right,
so you'll go to like the Chihuahua Show or um,
the the Lakeland Terrier Show and the dogs are separated
between male and female. And we can say the B
(16:36):
word in this one because that's what it's called. It's
my new band name, by the way, what winner's bitch?
Okay um? And uh, they're the males and the females
are then separated into six different classes. Yes, you've got
the puppy class, the twelve to eighteen month old class. Yeah, novice.
(16:56):
So those are dogs that are um six months or
older that haven't won any points yet, haven't won any
first place prizes, so they can be a little older,
but they're still rookies as far as the competition stage goes, right,
and six months is the minimum age to compete in
an AKC show. Yeah. Below that, you're just there's no way. Yeah,
they're too dumb, too unpredictable. Bread by exhibitor is a
(17:20):
class of dogs where the person showing the dog is
also the breeder. Yeah. The breeder, by the way, is
the owner of the dog's mother. Right. There's American bread,
which is any dog born in the US USA, and
then there's open. The open class is open to any dog,
and this is the only class that any dog that's
already become a champion, Yeah, can compete in. In the
(17:42):
specialty show, oh they are, Yeah, that's the only class
open to them. Okay, because they could just mop up
all the other classes, they have to face any takers, Okay.
In the open class, all right, it's a good way
to put it. Yeah. So they divide it up by
male and female. The males go first, and they, you know,
inspect all the males as they do at any of
the shows. You know what that means, findling. You give
(18:03):
them the award ribbons first through fourth place, and you
don't get any points at this point though. The first
place winners of the male class have to compete for
the winner's dog. The female's class compete for winners bitch man,
you want to say it. I've said it twice now
I don't want to say it. I find it difficult
to say. Oh really, it's just the connotations are sure.
(18:24):
You know, I've never used that word, uh, in like
anger about someone that's it's a it's a very rough,
it's horrible word. Yeah, And I don't I don't. I
don't think that makes me a good person or anything.
But there's just a couple of things that like I
wouldn't call my worst enemy, and that's one of them. Gotcha,
I don't have any enemies. What am I talking about?
So you've got the winner's dog and the winner's bitch
(18:47):
yep um, and uh, this is this is the point
where they start, um, winning awards, winning points points. I mean,
I'm sorry, Um, so this is all all these different
dogs have been weeded out by the different classes. And
then there there you've got the out of all these
six classes of the male cad male version, in the
(19:07):
female version, you have winners, right, and then there's so
this is where the points start being awarded. Then there's
chances for more points in the same show. Any champion
can come along and take the winners on for um
best in show or best in breed. Yes, and you can,
and you compile extra points depending on how many dogs
(19:28):
they beat out. So if you beat out a bunch
of more dogs, you can turn up to five points, right,
five is the most. And remember a major win is
three to four or five points in a win. Yes, okay, Um,
so you can win some by being the winner's dog
or the winner's bitch. You can the champions can take
those guys on in the best of breed and then
between those two the winner's bitch and the winner winner's dog,
(19:51):
there's another walk off I guess, yeah, and um they
can win point whoever be two And then there's the
best of opposite sex. Yeah, that was the best of winners, right,
and then the best of opposite sex, which it says
the best dog of the opposite sex, of the best
of breed. Yes, so whichever dog, whether it's the winner's dog,
the winner's bitch, or any champion that took him on.
(20:12):
And one yeah, the best of breed. Say that's a
male that wins, right, And there's another category for the
winners that's females or vice versa, the opposite best of opposite. Basically,
it's like we got all these points sitting around, let's
let's get rid of some good point. Or or it's like,
did you ever go to camp and like run a
(20:34):
race but you ran terribly, but you still got a
ribbon that just said participant. Yeah, maybe it's like that.
That's like every race ever r in the same here.
Basically I had a trophy once that just it was
a sad face. Really Yeah, there's a baseball back it's
kind of sitting at the foot of the kid with
his head hung down frowning. Yeah. I played church sports,
so we didn't. They didn't do a lot of trophies
(20:57):
even in church leagues. Like the ultimate victor of the
churchley got a trophy, but they weren't big on like
ribbons and trophies. The ultimate victor of the Church League,
I would imagine is Salvation. Yeah, we all won, okay,
so then you've got your Best to Breed winner and
then that dog can then advance to a group show
where all these best of Breed winners compete aka or
(21:21):
AKC Westminster. Right. So to make that point, when you
are at a specialty show and you're aiming for Westminster,
which I imagine every dog there is. Oh sure, you
want to win Best to Breed. You can win points
and become a champion through winning other stuff like best
of Opposite Sex, best of winners, winners, dog winners, bitch right, yes,
(21:42):
But to move on to the next level, you have
to win Best to Breed of that show, and you
have to win a bunch I imagine that's right. And
at this point half of our listeners are delighted in
half their eyes are rolling back into their head. Man,
we just explain the heck out of that. I agree.
So we're at Best in Show. Yeah, the movie. That's
(22:05):
such a good movie. If you've not seen Best in
Show the Christopher Guest film, yeah, just go out and
see it right now. Yeah, just stop. I think it's
streaming right now. I'm sure it is. Yeah, it's really good.
It's hard to pick out a favorite part of that movie,
but the scene that always pops up to me when
Parker Pozzy is trying to get a replacement was it
(22:27):
a b a little be stuffed animal and she can't
find it and the guy's trying to help her. He's like, well,
this is yellow and black and it was like a
parrot or something. I can't remember at all, But she's
just like my hero. Yeah, that's great, she's very good.
All right. So, um, a little bit on the AKC.
There are several hundred dog breeds in the world, but
(22:49):
the AKC only recognizes a little over one fifty, that's it.
And they separate those into groups. And yeah, the AKC
loves categorizing, breaking putting dogs into categories and breaking them
down and then putting them into new categories. Yeah, and
that's what they do here. And the poor dogs are
just like, what can treat? Can I get a bacon strip?
(23:12):
Or what squirrel? Um? Okay, sporting dogs this one um. Obviously,
these are dogs that are good for hunting, pointers, retrievers, setters,
and Spaniels. Yeah, those are good dogs, great dogs. Um Hounds, beagles, bloodhounds, docsins.
I like hounds except for the baying, the howling of
the how oh my god, yeah a beagle of you
(23:32):
never heard like a beagle, No, never had a beagle
or that much. They are loud and insistent, really insistent.
Super cute puppies though, possibly the cutest puppies of any breed.
I think. Yeah, those and uh, oh man, what's the
one I'm thinking of? The little puff balls. It's a
it's an Asian dog. The little puff balls Maltese. Now,
(23:54):
like is it a little dog? Yeah in the end, yeah,
but like the puppies are little puff balls and they
stay a little stay stay uf balls like oh Pomeranian. Yes, yeah,
those are pretty cute puppy. Yeah. They don't even look real.
It looks like squeeze them. It should make a little noise,
right they do? They do? Yeah, you don't want to
do that, okay. Um. Working dogs, we're talking Great Danes, Rotwiler,
(24:14):
Saint Bernard's dogs who are hardy and they even you know,
are used as working dogs like search and rescue stuff
like that, right, um. And then there's terriers that chase rats.
Did they maybe even fight? Um cobra or two? Uh?
Those are little Schnauzers Scottish terriers also known as Scottie's Yeah,
(24:36):
bull terriers, which you would recognize as Spuds mackenzie. Yeah, man,
those things are weird looking. My buddy Clay just got
a giant Schnauzer. You're big. Well, this thing is like
six months old and he's already as big as my
biggest dog. Yeah. He's like just wait all you see.
His name is Bro. He's like, what do you see? Bro?
At the end of this he's going to be enormous.
(24:57):
How how big is he expected to get? Wait? Wise,
I don't know, but really big. He's awesome, very very
fun dog. Yeah. Just like for a dog to be
that young and that big, they don't have control of
their limbs yet. So Bro would just go running downstairs
and just like face plant and then get up and
you know with the happiest expression behind his little eyes
that you can see like that. Theyre what else? Toy dogs? Yeah, Chihuahua's, poodles,
(25:22):
pugs and how do you pronounce it? I always said, shitzu?
Is it chizu chiu? Chesu? Non sporting dogs. I guess
these are the intellects. This is a catch all breed
when you don't have unifying characteristics, which is kind of sad.
The one unifying characteristic is these dogs don't play. They
don't play bulldogs, Dalmatians and the American eskimo dog, which
(25:45):
I've never heard of. Yeah. It's basically like, we don't
know what to do with you, guys, so we're gonna
put you in the non sporting dog and then two
more herding dogs like Australian shepherds and miscellaneous. So remember
we said that the AKC likes to classify people dogs. Yeah,
and there's more breeds than it recognizes. This is a
group that they you can't win points, you can't win
(26:08):
any major awards, I believe. But if there's a breed
that's starting to get more attention, there's more people breeding it. Yeah.
It's like part of the process of becoming recognized. You
you start out in the miscellaneous group, so that's prerecognition
almost Yeah. Jeez. Yeah, hey man, these people are keeping
track of like this dog's cock suredness. I mean there there.
(26:32):
They pay attention to details, all right, So the best
of breeds and each of the group are gonna compete
in the group show, and then if you win that
group show, then you compete in the Ultimate I think
we skip that part, which is the All Breed Show,
and that's the All Star Game, the super Bowl. That's Westminster,
the chess match, right, the Bobby Riggs versus h Billy
(26:53):
Jean King. That's when a that's when a judge goes
through each of these groups and picks out the best
yep right, um seven groups because the eighth can't win, right,
And they basically go through and say you're number one,
you're a number two, you're number three, you number four,
and all of a sudden that number one is the
(27:14):
best in show, and the controversy erupts. Twitter goes crazy.
I'm gonna have to pay attention this year. It's yeah,
it's fun to watch. Yeah, I've never watched it where
I was like tense, oh sure, but you know I've
been like, oh that's great, or oh really that that's
that's nothing. I'm sure you find yourself rooting for certain
dogs though, yeah, yeah, yeah, there's always a dog. There's
(27:36):
always at least one if apture where you're just like,
I like that dog. Right. Uh, all right, let's talk
about the criticism of dog shows. Yeah, because there's definitely plenty.
Yeah there, it's out there. Um. One of the problems
that certain groups have is that when you're talking pure
bred dogs, you're talking about breeding. And UM, myself and
(27:59):
many others are against dog breeding because there's plenty of
dogs out there for the taking. Yeah, but they they're mutts.
That's a look out of the um. So Breeders basically
breed these dogs to acquire these or to at least
hold onto these attributes, and that means in breeding sometimes,
and that means shorter lifespans and disease and defects, birth
(28:23):
defects like Dalmatians tend to suffer from blindness and German
shepherds suffer from hip dysplasia. Yeah, and these these traits
have become associated with the breed, these standards of the
breed that the AKC maintains. Yeah, and it's kind of like, well, yeah,
but if you if you want to have a dog
that meets all these other criteria, it's also going to
get dysplasia when it's sticks. Yeah, it's just part of inbreeding.
(28:47):
It's narrowing of the gene pool. And I've definitely noticed,
and this isn't one hundred percent, of course, but all
the dogs and people I've known who had dogs throughout
the years, I've noticed more pure bred dogs dying younger, yeah,
than the MUDs. Well, supposedly they have a weaker immune system.
Like remember, I don't remember what episode it was, but
we were talking about that experiment that people sent people
(29:12):
use scents to detect an immune system different from yours,
because when you put together your immune system and somebody
else's immune system to reproduction, the kids should have a
doubly great immune system. Man, that was a long time ago.
I remember that, Yeah it was, I don't remember what
episode it was. I smell maybe maybe so. Yeah. So
(29:53):
remember a few minutes ago we were talking about the
miscellaneous category can eventually earn you status as an officially
recognized breed. Um The American Border Collie Association, the ABCA
really didn't want their dog to become recognized by the
AKC because they thought that meant well, once it's an
official breed, then that means breeding will become more intense,
(30:16):
and these dogs, you know, will suffer from all these
things that we just told you, about Yeah, they specifically
petition with the AKC don't recognize, don't recognize us, and
the AKC said, we're going to recognize. I don't think
it was maliciously, but they're like, this is what we do,
and we're going to recognize this dog as a breed. Now,
they were like, had you not asked, we wouldn't know,
but you did, so sorry. And PETA is also filed
(30:40):
an official objection against tail docking, which is when they
amputate you know, the tail. So you had the little nub, Yeah,
it's such as tails, the ears. Oh yeah, you're cropping shop. Yeah,
there's a lot of breeds that have these unnatural attributes
that you have to perform surgery on to get, yeah,
which is countering tuitive because you're talking about the idealized
(31:02):
version of a breed. Yeah, why would you have to
take some sort of technological step to, yeah, to reach
that ideal version. Like if it doesn't happen naturally, it
seems really awful. Yeah it does to me too, But
I mean I don't even declawe my cats. So yeah,
the way to go, that's the way. I But I've
got crapp all over my house. It's cat scratched. But yeah.
But the same time, you know, Holly Fry of pop stuff,
(31:26):
she was talking about how, um she lets her cats
play on their iPad really, and I was like, you
must have a serious scratch guard because there's like cat
playing apps on iPad. Oh wow, um, And she's like,
I don't think we have a scratch guard. Well, when
cats play around like that, they'll usually don't have the
claws out. They're usually just pawing around, you would hope.
But yeah, I wouldn't put one on my iPad no way. Um.
(31:51):
I put on the little sticky things they have, like
clear tapets that you put on like your couch arm. Yeah,
and those are unsightly in collect hair and dust and
just one of the things. If you're an animal owner
with five animals in your house, it's hard to not
live with some hair. Do you have a rumba? Nah?
You should probably get a rumba. It might change your life. Yeah.
(32:12):
I'm in love with my vacuum cleaner, so I feel
like that would be cheating on LuxI nice. Yeah, okay,
that's so. What else was there? Oh? Joanah Goldberg had
some words about breeding, especially with the AKC. He compares
it to eugenics. Yeah, in fact, he thought it spurred
(32:35):
the eugenics movement. Yeah, we're like, oh wow, we have
this really great dog, and we should do this with humans.
I'm tired of people with epilepsy. Let's just get rid
of them. And of course you can go back and
read or listen to um is it legal to sterilized addicts? Yeah,
that was episode basically was all about eugenics. That's true.
(32:58):
He also contends, and not really contends, it's pretty obvious
that it's a beauty pageant. They're focusing on these physical
attributes and only the aesthetic matters in his opinion, and
that's not something he says. You know what, if you
want to judge a hunting dog, take it out hunting, right,
and see how it does there. Because these jogs, these jogs,
(33:18):
these dogs have jobs. You know, most dogs do have
a job of some sort, right, and let's see how
they do in their job. Yeah, like that's how you
would truly appreciate a breed and not just it's looks.
And um, you mentioned UK's cruffs. The England England's Kennel
Club runs cruffs and they do have lots of agility
(33:40):
and stuff like that. Apparently they're criticized for going too
far the other way, right, that they need to bring
back more confirmation conformation. Right. But yeah, if you if
you go to England and you're into dogs, you're going
to be very surprised because their their big show doesn't
look anything like ours. Yeah, those are the well we'll
get in to agility trials, but is that what they
(34:01):
have in there where you're running between them, you're bobbing
and weaving and going through the tunnels and yeah, obedience
stuff too. Yeah, and the AKC has these things, it's
just not part of the big one, the Westminster show. Right,
But Chuck, you would also probably appreciate England's Kennel Club,
maybe more than the AKC, because they have something called Scruffs. Yeah,
(34:22):
I want to see this televised. It's it's basically the
Cruffs for crossbreed dogs, non pure bred dogs, and it's
just adorable that they have this and they welcome anything
pretty much. Yeah. I mean, obviously you have to have
your dog trained. You can't just walk up off the street,
but as far as breeds go, you can enter your dog.
The criteria are pretty wide open, and they just look
(34:45):
for good temperament, good health, and good character, which I like. Yeah,
so we talked about agility trials. These are sometimes separate
competitions all together, and then, like you said, in England,
incorporated into the best in Show. And that's whether they're
basically doing like a little obstacle course, which is adorable
(35:07):
off leash. I mean, did you see this picture. That's
the cutest picture ever in this article how dog shows work. Yeah,
it's it's just a little terrier jumping over like a
little post and he's got this look on his face
like I'm gonna do it. He is gonna do it.
He's got his tail up. Man, that's a cute picture.
And then obedience trials are basically taking commands from the handler,
(35:30):
like you know, you got to be listening some of
the commands or just vocal some of them. You can't
speak at all, and you're just using hand gestures and
they're just seeing how well trained your dog is, right, Yeah,
that the dog can become the champion, which is the
national obedience Champion, which is got to be kind of
(35:51):
a dubious honor among dogs, like you're the most obedient
Dog in All the Land. Yeah, it's kind of like
m Kurt Russell when he was like the star of
Disney movies. It's like, hey, a movie star, but you're
also like this, you know, clean cut teeny were great
number those but even he distanced himself later He's like, no,
I'm badder than this. I'm snake Pliskin exactly. Yeah. I
(36:13):
probably forgot about those early movies. Those were awesome. I
was a big fan of those. What was it the
Kid with two White Shoes or something like that. They
were really like vanilla. Yeah, they were pretty vanilla. Yeah. Um.
So over the years, we have a few little stats.
The breed that has won the most the fox terrier
thirteen times. Not bad. Yeah. The dog that has won
(36:38):
the most was Champion Warren Remedy, who was a fox
terrier who won three times in a row in the
early nineteen hundreds. So that's pretty good. Yeah. My favorite,
it's the oldest dog to win, the eight year old
Papillon who won in nineteen ninety nine. Champion Low Ticky
(36:58):
Supernatural and the youngest ever was a rough Collie named
Longed Loyalty of Belle Haven and one on its ninth
nine month birthday and nine months. Oh it's pretty young.
Makes Bro look like an idiot. Bro is an idiot.
He's lovable though. I guess it's about it, right. Yeah,
(37:22):
I'm gonna watch this year. I'm gonna It's appointment TV
for me. Now good? That is good. I think you'll
like it. And then go on to Twitter and register
your anger or your happiness at the winner. I will
do so. Maybe I'll live tweet. Your thumbs are gonna hurt.
I gotta get our Twitter log in. I don't even
know it really well, you're the Twitter master. I just
leave that to you. I will, I will, I'll email
(37:43):
it to you. Okay. And by the way, our Twitter
handle is sysk podcast. I knew that part, okay, So, Chuck,
if anybody wants to learn more about Best in Show
and dog shows and to see this adorable picture of
this terrier jumping in mid air, man, it's a cute picture.
You can type in dog shows in the search bar
at HowStuffWorks dot com. And since I said search bar
(38:06):
in there, I imagine it's time for listener mail. But first, Chuck,
I feel like we should wish everybody a happy New Year. Yeah,
I hope you had a great twenty twelve and if
it wasn't great, here's the better days. I had, very nice,
very nice, Chuck Um, and I want to wish a
very very happy birthday to my sweet and wonderful wife.
You me, Happy birthday, Happy birthday. It's very sweet. Okay,
(38:27):
listener mail huh yes, okay, all right, Josh, I'm gonna
call this crying during music and this is from Angela
and Columbus, Ohio. I should take up buck, guys. My family,
My family would blue. Who's blue Michigan? Oh? Tough words,
(38:51):
all right, guys. Listening to Chuck talk about his experience
at Carnegie Hall made me want to share this story.
I heard a story one day about a new musical
based on a book Wicked, And I know we all
know this musical now about the Wizard of Oz. Yeah. Yeah.
I had a soundtrack for about a year or before
I saw it, and I found out there was a
Broadway Across America tour coming to Columbus, Ohio. My husband
(39:13):
and I bought tickets, went with a group of friends.
I've been listening to the soundtrack for about a year.
As I said, so I was really excited. So I'm
watching the show, really enjoying it, getting swept up in
the stage production and the acting. The music was better
than I even thought it could be. And when they
hit the main song, Defying Gravity, sung by Adina Menzel
on the soundtrack, that's when had happened. I had a
(39:35):
chuck moment, broke down, sobbing like a little baby. I
don't know if I call that a chuck moment. I mean,
I'm sensitive, but that's a pretty hilarious all right, I'm leaping.
The song itself is incredibly moving overall. There's a point
in the middle where there's a break from the action,
and before she hits the third verse, she says a
few lines, turns a last line into this incredibly cathartic note,
(39:56):
and takes off in flight. Sitting here, remember it, I'm
actually choking up. And that's where I could no longer
control myself. All through the third person was sobbing, uncontrollably loud,
gasping sobs. Both my husband and my brother in law
offered me comfort, but I could not control myself. I
cried through the end of the song and the houselights
were coming up for an intermission. My husband gave me
(40:16):
a hug, not really knowing why I was so moved,
and I still can't say why. I was a mess
and incredibly embarrassed, but it was a beautiful moment for
this touching character who speaks to me. PS. And this
from Angela and Columbus PS, I feel a sense of strengthen.
Catharsis also currently while listening to Shake It Out by
Florence and the Machine. H Well, that's a specific email. Yeah,
(40:41):
thanks for sharing your story. What was that person's name? Angela?
Thanks a lot, Angela. We appreciate that. That's pretty cool.
So what do you want to say? I don't know
dog show stories? What do you think? Noah, yeah, sure,
dog show stories it is. If you want to get
in touch with this about your dog show store, you
(41:03):
can tweet to us. Remember it's SYSK podcast and of
course we're on Facebook, Facebook, dot com, slash Stuff you
Should Know and you can send us a good old
fashion email to stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. Stuff
you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
(41:26):
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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