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Health & Fitness

Meet the Breeds and more

A trainer's opinion on Meet The Breeds and the segregation in the dog world.

On Saturday, Horsham-based Best Paw Forward took a trip up to New York City to visit the AKC’s Meet The Breeds Show. Meet The Breeds is an event the AKC puts on where all of the breeds recognized by the AKC are put on display for all people to come and see.

It was an impressive event to say the least. We were helping out with the Brussels Griffon table and the Whippets table. These two breeds are full of personality and very different personalities at that.

The Brussels Griffons are small dogs that look like the ewok characters from Star Wars. They are full of confidence and very affectionate. Even after six hours of thousands of people petting and handling them, they were ready to say hello to the next visitor.

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The Whippets are small to medium sized dogs that are very fast and also very affectionate. They are not quick to trust you. They have to inspect you first and if you fit the bill, you are a good friend. Being sight hounds they have to always have their owner in sight. Petting them is like petting silk, they are truly a beautiful dog.

Humans have been interacting with dogs for tens of thousands of years. One might make the mistake of believing that human fascination with dogs would wane eventually. This event proved that will never happen. I could look at the entrance of that event at any given time and see people flowing in. The flow of people never slowed down.

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With hundreds of dogs and thousands of people, not one time did I hear about somebody being attacked or even bitten. The amount of control dogs exercise over themselves is incredible.

For those of you who are thinking about attending this event next year, please do.

It was a busy weekend for Best Paw Forward, we also had our grand opening on Sunday. In attendance were clients, new clients, friends, family, and even other trainers with their own training facility down the road (the competition did not tell us who they were). 

Talking with all these people and thinking about the Meet The Breeds event really made me see how people separate themselves from others.

There are different worlds in the dog world. There is the training world, the breeding world, the show world, the rescue world, and the sport world. Even inside of those worlds there is segregation.

To me this seems so odd. Why do we separate ourselves, which at times leads to isolation? Do we not see the benefit to sharing information? Maybe it is our need to feel special or our need to talk about others.

Every one of those worlds can greatly benefit one another by coming together and actively seeking out how to help each other.

I think it is time to break down these barriers that are created and start to work more efficiently together. Back yard breeders do not know what they are doing when they breed. Quality breeders are closed off to the world if you do not have the money to pay for their dogs. Does anybody else see how these two worlds can help each other?

Rescue groups clean up the mess made by all breeders not just back yard breeders. Trainers’ fights back and forth on whose methods are best (to me there is only what works with this dog and what does not work with this dog).

My point is there are great benefits to working together and this should be something that we work tirelessly toward. In a world where the economy is uncertain, money has failed us, the government has no clue about what the people want or need, information and relationships become the most valuable assets especially for the little guys. In the dog world we are all little guys unless your name is Cesar Millan.

Work together for a better world.

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