I adopted a puppy. His name is Prince Charming and he is a Poodle who was found wandering outside, covered with mats and ticks, and rescued by a shelter. He was on his “last day” at the shelter when he was rescued again by an amazing organization called Austin Pets Alive. He was then taken in by two foster parents. Then he came into my life. In addition to being matted and a mess he is oddly sized and his front feet splay out funny. His ears are too floppy and not the right shape. He will never, never, never, be a showdog. Too many imperfections – he does not meet his breed’s standards.
You see, show dog standards are extremely precise and often have little to do with the dogs actual health or personality. People who breed show dogs professionally go through many litters to find a single champion who fits the mold. Their standards are almost impossibly high. When we were at the pet store getting his first big batch of stuff, I saw magazines with pictures of perfect showdogs with what appeared to be photoshopping on the cover. Seriously, someone took the time to photoshop a dog.
If this sounds familiar to you then I’m not surprised, it’s exactly what we do to humans. Give one single standard of beauty that’s an impossibility for most people.
The difference between humans and my dog is that humans have somehow bought into the idea that we have to fit in to the single standard of beauty. We try to change the size and shape of our bodies, wear underpants that constrict our breathing. We risk death to get fat sucked out of our bodies and get other stuff put in just so that we can meet the ideal. And if people choose those things I completely respect that, but I would be lying if I said I don’t marvel at a culture where there is plenty of money for research on new liposuction techniques but we have fundraisers for money to research cancer cures; a world where people risk death to have thinner thighs or remove the naturally occurring skin folds from their eyes.
My dog on the other hand, is unphased. I mean he just doesn’t care at all. He hasn’t asked that I do anything about his splayed toes (even though they are a “Major Fault” according to the AKC standards.) He hasn’t asked for an ear reduction or to buy him some doggie Spanx. I had all of his hair shaved off and he wasn’t even upset.
We’re staring on obedience training and we may eventually do agility. I love watching agility competitions where crazy looking mutts who make you wonder “how did that even happen” run around a course a break neck speed and win the day. So maybe Prince Charming will be an agility dog. Or maybe he’ll just lay around my house, but I won’t love him any less.
My body will never win a competition for meeting the stereotypical cultural ideal of beauty, but look what it can DO! I’m an agility person, not a show person. And even if it couldn’t do anything I wouldn’t love it any less. It would be sad if I gave my dog more consideration than my body right?
Reader Julie turned me on to a singer/comedian called Tim Minchin and his song “Not Perfect” which I think it sums things up perfectly:
This is my body, and I live in it
It’s 31 and 6 months old it
It’s changed a lot since it was new
It’s done stuff it wasn’t built to do
I often try to fill it up with wine
And the weirdest thing about it is
I spent a long time hating it
but it never says a bad word about me
this is my body and it’s fine
It’s where I spend the vast majority of my time
It’s not perfect, but it’s mine.
Dances With Fat 
Your new pup is adorable Reagan and looks perfectly perfect to me, and I think you are gorgeous and smart and dayum near the closest I will ever get to out and out admiration of another human being. I just thought I’d mention that I used to be a Tim Minchin fan but I just was totally turned off by his efforts with Fat Children. Like kids aren’t copping it left, right and centre from every angle without Mr Minchin stepping up to stick the boots in to both the kids and their parents. Turned me right off. Anyway that’s just me. Another great update from you. Thank you.
Hi Jayem,
Wow that’s high praise, thank you very much. And thanks for letting me know about Tim Minchin’s fat children thing. I had no idea. I’m working on a blog about it right now.
Thanks,
~Ragen
Great analogy and great looking dog! For some strange reason I imagine trying to have a conversation with a dog about improving their inner peace while realizing you are talking to the master.
My favorite quote is, “Be yourself, no one else is qualified” by Jon Soper.
Congrats on your new baby! I have two rescue pugs that I got in the last year. Neither one is “show quality”, one is a former puppy mill dog and one of the weirdest-looking pugs I’ve ever seen but she’s a sweetie. Who cares anyway? Show standards were created to evaluate breeding stock and fix a well-defined type for each breed, but over time it has just gone to extremes and now people are breeding unsound dogs who can’t function or breed normally or do the job they were originally intended for, but if their markings are perfect and their skull is shaped better than the other dogs’ they win. It’s crazy how anal the whole business is. I didn’t want show dogs and I don’t want to breed, they are great pets and that’s all I want. The cutest show dog in the world would not be any more fun to snuggle in bed with. That’s what makes a good dog in my book. Enjoy your new doggy. Post a pic of his new haircut so we can see how cute he looks. 🙂
I couldn’t agree with you more! You’re an awesome lady.
Congratulations on your new companion! Myself, I cannot imagine living in a home without a dog, and the right kind of dog show can be a blast (my wife shows one of our Australian Shepherds in the Obedience classes). You may also want to look into Rally Obedience training and showing, before progressing to agility. Rally is intended to be a more relaxed, fun (for both handler and dog) form of Obedience Trial, and is a great introduction to the performance events (though by no means is it just a “beginner event”, as it does attract experienced trainers). You’re allowed to talk to your dog more than just the single command of the more traditional forms of Obedience Showing, and the AKC has made a lot of changes to allow those without pedigreed dogs to get into the sport of showing dogs. Additionally, with Rally, the courses change, so there is always some variety in what you’re doing, and they use signs at each station to indicate what the next exercise is. You can see an example of Rally in this Youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N42YkVewIhs
Looking forward to future updates on Prince Charming!
Congrats on the new dog!
I think breed standards are designed to create scarcity– the hobby wouldn’t be interesting unless there were very few top winners.
You’re better off with a dog that has some imperfections – it turns out that breeding perfection is very, very bad for the animal. Talk to any breeder of dogs and cats. Siamese cats used to be robust animals that were quite chunky. Now they’ve been bred for such fineness that my aunt, who bred them for decades and adores them, won’t touch them because she says it’s destroyed the health of the breed. Same with labradors – our wonderful animals for the blind are showing an alarming number of genetic abnormalities, like hip dysplasia, and death. Poodles? Lots of eye and gastric problems. It turns out that all that variation that people have spent so much time and money breeding out actually signalled health.
Genetic diversity FTW!
(Psst… speaking of “the blind” is kind of like speaking of “the fat” – it leaves out the “people” part.)
Sunflower
Congratulations on your new dog!!! He’s adorable!
I’m a big dog-person myself and have several rescues. People always ask me if I watched “such and such dog show on tv last night”. (They assume I would because I like dogs.) I usually politely say no, but then have this huge diatribe in my head about how ridiculous those things are. I don’t watch the pageant shows either. All for the same reasons: they are unhealthy in a multitude of ways and contribute to social problems.
For the record, some of my dogs are mutts and some are pure breeds. Guess which ones spend the most time at the vet? 😉
Agility sounds very interesting. One of my dogs is a Benji-looking poodle-cairn terrier mix. He’s a very high energy dog so I’ve thought about doing that with him. You will totally have to post on how that goes!
~ManDee
http://www.chubbygirlcomics.com
Congratulations on finding your Prince Charming! Dog is love.
Congrats on the new dog. When I see people out walking without a 4 footed friend, I feel sorry for them. Dogs are cool!
He’s ADORABLE! Congratulations to you both!
I’m posting this column on my practice’s facebook page. I think about every third post of yours is your best yet, but I swear this one really is.
Thank you Virginia! Prince Charming says thank you too!
~Ragen
I love this. My 14-year-old mutt is a rescue. He’s neither a purebred nor “perfect,” and neither am I…but we appreciate every single day we’re still able to take our slow, puttering walks. “Not perfect” means appreciating what you have.
One of my favorite sites is the blog for the Rolling Dog Ranch Animal Sanctuary, which provides a home for blind, deaf, and/or disabled animals. None of their dogs, cats, or horses are “perfect,” but they all live life to the best of their physical abilities, and with great joy.
I think I’m going to just print this post out and tack it on my wall.
I hate dog shows and I hate puppy farms. I’ve had a pretty good number of dogs, two of them being pure breds (one even had a middle and surname!). The first one actually came from a breeder and had crippling hip dysplasia because of the inbreeding. The second one’s health was better, but she also had some joint issues. I don’t understand how owners can sit back and watch a “judge” invasively examine their dogs and then assess their worth based on body proportions or how white their teeth are.
Then again, we wouldn’t have beauty pageants without people willing to do the same thing with their own children.
I really like the song. Thanks for sharing it.
Dude, the dog we grew up was an ex show dog, a mini schnau named Otto and, bless his heart, he was dumb as a post. Dog did nothing but bark at passing cars, piss on the curtains, crap in the yard, and tear up my mom’s furniture. Lousy guard dog, puked up just about everything he ever ate, and developed epilepsy at the same time he went senile.
But we loved him. He was perfectly imperfect. He was a beautiful dog to look at, but not much activity in the brain box.
I used to be a talent scout, and I had such a strict set of standards to keep in my head when I scouted that even I was disgusted. Anyone over 140 pounds was considered plus sized and ignored (even though we did have a Plus-Sized Modelling Section).
I hope you enjoy the latest addition to your family! He looks pretty spunky and loads of fun!
I love the sentiment of this song, I only wish we could get this across to other people, but sadly this probably won’t happen! Only yesterday I was at a family BBQ and some members couldn’t help making slightly sarcastic(meant to be funny?)about how much food I would help myself to. Obviously, this was only done to the “larger size¬ skinny/”normal” (whatever normal is)people. As if it was a crime or the reason I am larger and I totally disagree with this view. One of the women making comments has her own issues with food, hardly eats anything, but loves to get family to eat lots of her cooking, work that out!!
He looks very cool. I follow the No Kill Nation page on Facebook and spread the word about their work. Fortunately the Boulder Humane Society, near where I live, has gone “No Kill.” Rescues do a lot of good work, for the most part. Its sad that only the bad ones in the bunch tend to make the news.
Found this over at Wikipedia on French Bulldogs:
“French bulldogs frequently require caesarean section to give birth, with over 80% of litters delivered this way.[2] [3] As well, many French bulldog stud dogs are incapable of naturally breeding. This is because French Bulldogs have very slim hips, making the male unable to mount the female to reproduce naturally. Typically, breeders must undertake artificial insemination of female dogs.”
Uh, when the standard for the breed means breeding them to a point where they cannot reproduce out in the wild, that says something and not something good.
Just wanted to say congrats to your adorable dog for having found a human!
Congrats on your new pup! I am so glad to hear you adopted. As someone who has worked in the industry for 14 years, I do not support breeding for anything other than working purposes. I know people who genuinely love a particular breed, invest a lot of time and money in their litters, and even require recommendations before they will sell one of their dogs, but its hard to support them when so many dogs are homeless, and as your post pointed out it really is just about human displacing their own vanity onto the dog. As several of the comments have pointed this has often resulted in multiple health issues. Anyway, all this is basically to say that I already thought you were amazing, and this just kinda of confirmed all of that even more! Keep up the fantastic work!