Quote Originally Posted by skipper View Post
To be honest this has not been the case for me. I'm not saying you are wrong. I'm just saying what makes sense to me in my situation. If I'm not leaving the yard to check my dogs I have no clue what the competition is. To me this is about winning shows. Not making stories at home on how good and game your dogs are. I rather show 3 dogs from a litter with 2 of em being average then just showing the best one. I learn 3 times as much by showing all 3 of em. This is just how I see it. Getting as many shows as I can and winning as many as I can. If I get my ass kicked, I learn something from that too. Not leaving the yard will make you blind very fast.
No one ever said don't leave your yard to check your dogs. The entire idea of checking dogs is to simply do that: Check them. Most of the times during shows, there is no checking of dogs going on. You have one average dog beating another average dog with one quitting in 40 minutes. The difference is that someone lost money on an average dog just because they wanted to show a dog. It's not because that dog was the ideal match dog. It is simply due to someone wanting to match dogs. That is the category that most people fall into, and at one time, I was with you in that boat.

My philosophy changed over the years. I decided that if I were going to put my time into showing a dog, I'm going to take a match quality dog. The days were over where I was just gonna take a dog just to take one. The average dogs can be found out pretty quick just by the schooling process, and where they fall after that is where they fall. It doesn't take you matching a dog to learn anything about your dog aside from whether it can win or not. A person can learn a lot more about 2 dogs of equal size and abilities WITHOUT being conditioned than they ever can with them being conditioned. You're taking an advantage away from someone that has a lot more conditioning experience than the other, and the dogs are getting a chance to sort it out themselves with what they have. It's not about making up stories. It's about knowing the truth, and the truth is something man can never change. He can attempt to hide it, belittle it, but he can't change it.

What makes someone blind is a lack of an eye for a quality dog. Objectivity about what you think you own and what you actually own is what helps a person to see.

Black Hand, what a dog shows you under extreme pressure is what it is. There are no luxuries involved when things aren't going your way whether it's at your house or some other house. That's exactly why a person should make it a habit to take their dogs to other places so they never run into that situation. A person can eliminate a lot of variables if they put their mind to doing so.

The truth is there for all who really want to see it, and yes, when I started seeing the truth in dogs, it was very bitter indeed.

We swallow greedily any lie that flatters us, but we sip only little by little at a truth we find bitter. ~Denis Diderot