Pick-a-Puppy part 1: why we care about conformation

I'm dedicating this post to those puppy people who may be wondering why we care about fronts and rears so much. Why we take the photos we do when what you'd really like to see is that goofy grin that looks like he's gonna lick the giggles out of you. Make no mistake. We love that part of all of these little guys too. In fact I can assure you the people who talk about conformation on these pages are my dear friends and everyone of them thinks that part, whether it comes with puppy breath or has grown to be the elderly gentleman sleeping at their feet, that unconditional love part, that is the best.

First let me say that comparing 3 dimensional live puppies to 2-D medium,whether drawn or photographed, or even video is a difficult process. Lighting, shadows, reflections (yes, light and hence color is reflected off of surrounding objects and cast on the surface of a dog), the dog's own markings all create optical illusions. Combine this with slight to radical shifts in posture and the dog that looks great in one photograph, or even in person, can look less appealing in another situation. We who are involved in showing dogs know this very well and use these optical tricks constantly, enhancing virtues and obscuring faults. And we kind of enjoy arguing about what we see.

As Jeri suggested in a comment on an earlier post what really tells the story is movement seen in person and putting one's hands on the dog. Which is why dogs are not awarded championships based on photos. A typical conformation judge has the dogs go around the ring together first. The dog is then usually "stacked" or manipulated by the handler to stand in its most flattering posture for the judge to then go over. She feels what her eyes cannot tell her. What is under the coat? What is under the flesh? What is the skeleton of the dog? Then the dog is moved again. The judge watches them move "down and back" or going away to see what the rear is doing and coming back toward to see what the front is doing. The dog goes around the ring alone and the judge ascertains side gait. The dogs are stacked in a line all together and the judge walks by them to see them in side by side comparison. Then they all have one last go around the ring together for one more comparison of their movement. There is a lot going on.

The youngest puppy class is 6-9 months old. Anyone can guess that the puppies we are evaluating at 8 weeks look quite a bit different than ones that are 6 months.
Are we just guessing though? In my case, probably. This is my first litter. While I pour over the standard, read books, listen to mentors I still watch and wonder at dog shows and handling classes. I am still learning how the conglomeration of 320 give or take bones with all their joints, ligaments, contracting muscles and tendons work to create that longed for grace we strive for on that go around. It takes a lot of experience and I'm "young" yet. But I have a lot of helpers out there who are better educated and are lending some experienced advice. I hope to hear their voices in the comments.

I'll be referring in future posts to The Illustrated Standard, or IS. You can view it and download the pdf file here.
The Illustrated Standard of the Cardigan Welsh Corgi

Another resource is the Cardigan Commentary International website.

I encourage anyone who is interested in performance to become familiar with the IS, even if conformation is not your thing. The expression goes "form follows function". A performance dog has to be able to work and it's the structure which enables it to perform its job well and not tire out too easily. While one can probably care little about ear carriage and a foxlike tail, one cannot argue that correct mechanics are in direct relationship to its performance. The vast majority of the conformation of a dog to the standard is about how it performs the work it was designed for.

So now bear with us as we go over photos, hopefully some video, which in no way can tell the whole truth. But until we have the technology that enables us to all go over the dogs in some form of holographic virtual reality it's the best we can do on the internet.