Many people are familiar with the concept of conformation dog shows. A group of dogs goes in. The judge selects the dog that s/he feels is the best representation of the breed and things go from there. That’s not something we do (ok…we did it once). The kind of golden retrievers I have chosen to live with are not the shape or structure that would do well in the regular AKC show ring and I’m ok with that.
The Golden Retriever Club of America has created a really cool program called the Certificate of Conformation Assessment (CCA). In this program, three evaluators each spend 15-20 minutes with a dog and give a written assessment of the strengths/weaknesses of a dog compared against the breed standard. This is really cool because there are a lot of dogs that while they aren’t going to win in conformation, they are a decent representation of the breed.
Griffin did it in 2011 when the program was very new and he was the same age Tonks is now! It was a great experience, we got to meet some really cool people. The evaluators thought he needed better manners. They also thought he was a really nice young female but were less impressed when they saw he was a tiny adult male. But that’s how his whole life has been!
So what about Tonks? I was sure she would pass even though she doesn’t have a lot of hair and has straight shoulders. I did think she might get laughed at for how silly she looks. And, indeed we got laughed at. While trotting for the first evaluator she dropped and rolled like this:
It was pretty funny.
Some highlights of the day:
- An evaluator calling her a “Lean, mean, fighting machine”
- Another evaluator saying she was “as tight as a ship.”
- Meeting a half sibling who looked similar when working but not when just standing around.
- The evaluators loving the way the top of her shoulders are. One of them pet Tonks and then looked up like she had received the best Christmas present. She made others come over to feel the shoulders too.
It was a fun afternoon and interesting to hear what experienced people had to say about her. I saw quite a few other dogs who were short-coated and smaller. I look forward to opportunities to do it with other dogs in the future -it’s a great program and I hope more breeds consider creating their own versions.