Welcome To My View

What Is Campaigning Really About?

Campaign, Promote, Advertise and Introduce

Why would anyone want to campaign a dog?  It is very expensive.  It requires being on the road every weekend or hiring a professional handler to keep your dog out, and to be certain they are putting the needed emphasis on your dog.  Campaigning means spending a lot of money on advertising, graphic artists and photographers.  What kind of person would invest so much in a dog?

We wish that there were no need to campaign a dog.  In a perfect world everything would be equal and every dog would be judged only on their breed standard. There would be no politics involved and every judge was deemed impartial and fair.  Unfortunately, that isn't the show world today.

I can only speak to why Lyle and I started campaigning Cara this year.  We are six months into the year and I am certain that we have family members and friends that think we have lost our minds.  They may be right!

Here are our thought processes in making the decision to campaign Cara:

•    Cara was finished in the USA and Canada and was much too good to retire and too young to breed
•   She is as fine a Standard Wirehaired Dachshund showing presently and could be very competitive
•    We love our breed and would like to see Standard Wirehaired Dachshunds have a bigger presence
•  We love showing her and she loves the ring
•   We are serious about the sport and either we are going to be serious competitors or we should go back to playing golf every weekend
•    Lyle and I make a great team and we love the time spent with our dogs at the shows.    We like new experiences and the challenge

Is Cara perfect?  No.  There are no perfect dogs.  There is a possibility that a Standard Wirehaired Dachshund is laying on the family room rug somewhere that could give all the show dogs currently out there a run for the title, but due to his owner not having an interest in conformation, or does not have the available money to spend on showing his dog or prefers to enter Earth Dog events, we will never meet that dog.  So, we don’t kid ourselves that Cara is the absolute "be all-end all" in the Dachshund world.  However, I do believe that she is worthy to be shown and she has what it takes to be #1.

Lyle and I are probably strange, because we are genuinely happy when a worthy competitor wins.  We understand their happiness, because we love to win. We get it.  Above all else, we are good sports.  We respect the other dogs being shown or campaigned, and we know that we are all aiming for the same prize and we all are sharing the same goal.  We hope that at the end of the year, it can be said that we were worthy opponents that conducted themselves with good manners and sincerity.  

We are not wealthy.  Nowhere close.  We are a regular working class couple willing to sacrifice most luxuries to be able to pay for campaigning.  Getting a hamburger out is a rarity, now.  I agreed to make my wardrobe last for another year.  I have learned to accessorize my wardrobe to change it up.  Lyle has given up going to dinner and the movies with his buddies twice a month.  We are eating Mac and Cheese without hot-dogs, with hot-dogs  with tuna and with chopped chicken.  We don’t smoke, seldom drink alcohol and unless you consider taking your dog in the ring each weekend gambling, we don’t gamble.  After our bills are paid, every cent we can scrape together goes to the campaigning cost.  We just pray that no one in our family dies, because Lyle would have to wear a  suit that has bait stains and smells like Roll Over, and I will have to wear that tired pair of black slacks everyone has seen, but has been disguised with various accessories.

There certainly have been lessons to learn.  There is more to ad design than you would think.  Ads are expensive, and it is hard to know if you are getting a decent return on the investment.  It is thrilling to see that first ad in print. We have ads in Canadian Dog Fancier and Canuck Dogs website.  We have done some ads in show catalogues and we are considering a few other publications.  We must make sure to get the best audience for our money.  We can’t be wasteful.   Scheduling shows is another trick.  Travelling is the biggest expense.  On top of all the expenses, we bought a travel trailer this year.  After we did the numbers crunching, it was more cost effective to pay for the RV rather than hotels and restaurant meals.  The other bonus of the RV is that we eliminated the need to load and unload dogs twice daily in a vehicle to travel from the hotel to show site.  It is so nice to be right adjacent to the show rings.  We can groom under our awning in the summer.  We have a place to rest during the day and we can socialize with friends in the evenings.

We like doing our own grooming and handling, so that saves us a lot of money.  There are two ways to look at owner/handler at this level.  Lyle is not as well known as the professional handlers, so we risk being overlooked.  We are still learning, so we may not do everything perfectly.  Some say in the long run it is cheaper to hire a pro handler than try to do it ourselves.  Could be true, but what fun is that for us?  We like being involved with our dogs.  We don’t want to wait for show results via text messages.  We are not doing this alone.  We are so fortunate to have a breeder that has been our mentor, trusted friend and advisor.  We have been lucky to have made wonderful friends in the dog fancy.  With their continued support, we will keep looking toward the finish line.

We got off to a slow start in Canada because we were showing in the USA at specialities and the Dachshund Nationals in St. Louis.  We will be doing our best to catch up in the points the rest of the year.  I hope you will keep an eye on our progress. 

For now, we are not starving.  We can still afford to buy gas to the shows.  We are still able to feed our dogs the best quality food.  Life is good.

Carol and Tess

French Bulldogs Canada 
By Carol Gravestock

Part 2 of 2

French Bulldog registrations in Canada have steadily increased over the past ten years. Once, we were lucky to see two or three French Bulldog litters registered in all of Canada in an entire month. Now, we see two or three dozen litters, many of them bred by the same small handful of people. Increasingly, these litters include the so-called “Rare Colours”  - more accurately referred to as the “Disqualifying Colours” from the French Bulldog breed standard.

Disqualifying Black & Tan Frenchie

The standard defines our disqualifying colours as “black and white, black and tan, liver, mouse or solid black (black means without any trace of brindle)”. The “rare colour” breeders have marketed them as “Chocolate” (liver), Black and Tan and Blue (“mouse”).   It’s almost certain that a vast majority of the so-called Black and Tan French Bulldogs are, in fact, first or second generation crosses into other breeds carrying the genes for this pattern. As for “Blue” and “Chocolate”, breeders who extensively produce black masked fawn and black masked fawn pied French Bulldogs have always known that these recessive genes lurk within their

Fawn Pied 

pedigrees. Puppies produced in these colours or patterns were simply altered and placed as pets. As breeding stock, there are links between these patterns and cosmetically undesirable traits such as light eyes and light or self coloured noses, and health complications such as coat Alopecia and systematic skin diseases. The breeders producing these colours don’t concern themselves with these issues, since they've realized that it’s possible to con the gullible, puppy-as-status-symbol craving public into paying upwards of $6,000 for their puppies.

Merle with microphahalmic eyes 

As with any fad, the market for the commonly seen “rare” colours has been decreasing (an oxymoron – common ‘rare’ colours – but when you can find Blue French Bulldog puppies on Kijiji and Puppy Find, it’s undeniable that they've lost some of their mystique). Seeking new fads, breeders have recently begun producing “rare Merle” French Bulldogs – again, no doubt by crossing in other breeds which carry the genetics for Merle patterning. Rumours have reached us from Europe of Merle French Bulldogs selling for $20,000 or more. With profits like these at stake, have no doubt that the producers of Merle will have no hesitation when it comes to breeding Merle to Merle to Merle. We’re already seeing photographs of Merle French Bulldogs with missing and malformed eyes.

All good French Bulldog breeders are saddened and sickened by this trend of fad colour breeding, with its emphasis on colours above genetics, health or breed type. This makes it even more frustrating to encounter breed judges who don’t understand our standard as it relates to colours and patterns. In Western Canada, a “Chocolate” French Bulldog recently finished its breed championship – a fact being touted by rare colour breeders across the USA, who are eager to have the chance to be able to tout “Champion Line” rare colour pedigrees. The dog in question has an almost black coat, with slight liver overtones, but his lamplighter green eyes were a certain give away to anyone who saw him that this was NOT a brindle dog. 

Conversely, a Canadian judge also recently declared that a black masked, Fawn Pied French Bulldog was actually disqualified from competition, as he defined the dog to be a “Black and Tan” specimen. This is roughly the equivalent of declaring a fawn and white JRT to be the same thing as a Rottweiler, at least so far as colour is concerned. Genetically, the two patterns do not share the same allele, and visually they are also strikingly dissimilar, making it difficult to conceive of why the differences between the two patterns should be so confusing to some judges.

Within Canada, the last ten years have also seen the dramatic rise of French Bulldogs imported from Eastern Europe. While many of these dogs are exceptional examples of the breed, and have been imported by serious breeders to improve their own gene pools, an increasing number have been brought in people seeking a cheap, no questions asked source of breeding stock for their backyard programs and puppy mills. These inferior dogs are larger in size, more ‘terrier’ in type and seem to be much ‘harder’ in temperament. Many are overly dog aggressive, and an increasing number are being turned over to rescue following incidents of aggression towards people.

In the show ring, the extreme examples of Eastern European bred French Bulldogs generally carry heavy bone and large heads, but also tend to be longer in back, higher on leg, and heavier in weight. For breeders with pedigrees that tend more towards the classic “American” type, the smaller, more compact, more correct dogs can be overshadowed within the ring by these dramatically larger specimens. We hope that judges will hold the line against this trend, but understand it can be hard to find the apple in a ring full of oranges – even if the apple is the more correct dog.

The Eastern Canada French Bulldog Club offers a program of Judge’s Education Seminars on several topics, including Colour and Patterns, Breed Structure, and Movement. Hopefully, this will be a platform for long time breeders to share their knowledge with judges who hope to increase their understanding of a breed that can sometimes seem complicated to evaluate.

Interested Judge’s Groups and Breed Clubs within Eastern Canada can request a seminar via our website, at http://www.frenchbulldogscanada.com

The French Bulldog Club of Western Canada also offers Judge’s Education, and can be found at http://www.fbcwc.ca/

Carol Gravestock, Bullmarket French Bulldogs,  lives in the Village of Durham, near the Bruce Peninsula.

Carol Gravestock purchased her first pet quality French Bulldog in 1989 – a little cream bitch she affectionately refers to as the ‘gateway drug of dogs’. 

Since then, Bullmarket French Bulldogs have finished championships in almost twenty countries around the world, with numerous American, Canadian and International Champions. Carol has also bred one of only two Brindle Pied French Bulldogs to win Best of Breed at Westminster, and is breeder of the current youngest Best in Show winning French Bulldog in Canadian breed history. While proud of her show wins, Carol is equally proud that one of her French Bulldogs was invited to the Eukanuba Agility Invitational at the age of fourteen.

The co founder of Canada’s first ever French Bulldog breed club, Carol is now President of the Eastern Canada French Bulldog Club, while also serving on the board of two North American French Bulldog rescue groups. Carol is also the proud creator of the internet’s first French Bulldog specific web pages and mailing list.

She has written extensively about French Bulldog collectibles, breed history and historical owners of French Bulldogs, and on the intricacies of French Bulldog coat color genetics.

Websites: www.bullmarketfrenchbulldogs.com

I like to see people do nice things for others.  If someone does something nice for you at a show or you see or hear about something nice being done, please send me an email at djenkins@shaw.ca.   Be sure to put in the subject: Nice

We will mention that person by name in the blog.

This week's spotlight is on Joy Lynne Huntley.  Joy Lynne owns Briarhunt Coonhounds Kennel located in Woodville, Ontario.  She is a CKC and AKC judge.  

Joy Lynne answered my call for help in getting background information on Maude Bicknell.  Even though she has many projects on the go and has a very hectic schedule, she has spent thee last week contacting others for old pictures, stories and making sure she got the information to me.  

I could not have been able to properly recognize Maude without her help.  Thank you so very much, Joy Lynne.

Another example of people helping people in the Dog Fancy.    

Remember to watch for "Nice Deeds".  They are happening all around us.  Let's talk about the people helping others.   Send your "Nice Deeds" to me at djenkins@shaw.ca 
Be sure to go to Canuck Dogs, http://www.canuckdogs.com, to see all the upcoming events and to check stats.  You should  bookmark it.  That's where you will find my blog. 

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