Showsight - May 2018

Becoming

Honor BY JACQUELINE FOGEL

I ’ve written about spor t smansh ip in the past. I’ve defended and criticized judges and breeders, profession- al handlers and dog show magazines. I’ve wondered about the future of our sport, and I’ve wondered about what the AKC is doing to keep breeding alive. I’ve questioned programs like Junior Showmanship and the National Owner-Han-

So when I got the message from the Korean buyer I was abso- lutely devastated. I spent one sleepless night ordering win records, verifying points and fretting about the situation. The next morning it became clear that I really only had one option open to me. I would have to bring her back to the States, put two more points on her, and send her back to Korea—at my expense. I had sold a champion. Honor demanded that I fulfill that obligation. Honor demanded that I would assume all of the expenses of correcting the error. Honor demanded that I act quickly and decisively, and apologize profusely for my mistake. Then we finished the bitch—for real. We checked points, made sure everybody was entered in the right classes and the win was recorded accurately in the judges’ books. We did not move her up to Best Of Breed on the second day so there would be “insurance” points if she won again, and she did. I sent immediate word to the Korean buyer that she was, indeed, finally a real champion. It was an expensive lesson for me (always make sure wins are recorded accurately, and don’t assume anything until the certificate arrives). I thought that would be the end of my tale of woe, but to my surprise there has been an interesting sequel. As I “HONOR IS UNCONDITIONAL, AND IT’S PRETTY MUCH A DICHOTOMY. YOU EITHER BEHAVE HONORABLY OR YOU DON’T. YOU EITHER FULFILL YOUR OBLIGATIONS OR YOU DON’T. IN SHORT, YOU DO EXACTLY WHAT YOU SAY YOU ARE GOING TO DO.”

dler competitions. But I haven’t written about honor among us dog show people. I haven’t addressed the necessary bonds of trust, we must have for each other, and what it means to act honorably. We need to talk. Officially, honor as a verb means to regard with great respect or fulfill an obligation or keep an agreement. It doesn’t specify conditions like “If I have enough time,” or “if some- thing more interesting doesn’t pop up on my list of things to do,” or “If I remember it.” Honor is unconditional, and it’s pretty much a dichotomy. You either behave honorably or you don’t. You either fulfill your obligations or you don’t. In short, you do exactly what you say you are going to do. This issue came up for me in a recent puppy sale I made to a buyer in Korea. I sold the Korean buyer an AKC champion bitch, and made all the arrangements to fly her there. About two weeks after she arrived in Korea I heard from the buyer who said he was checking AKC records and discovered that the bitch I sent only had 13 points. I was as shocked as a person can be. I very closely monitor all of the points on my dogs, and the AKC web site has made it increasingly easy to do that. I knew I had finished her championship. I had not even entered her in a show for 10 months because I was so sure she was finished. Well, I was wrong, and the dog I sent to Korea still needed two points to become an AKC champion. I am not at all sure what happened, though I suspect there was a recording error somewhere along the line. A bitch I was showing at the same time is recorded as having 27 points— an unusually large number and quite a few more than I usu- ally put on a dog even when looking for that elusive second major. The Korean bitch had started her winning early with a 3-point major at a Terrier specialty, under a breeder judge. It was not hard to put points on her—she is a beautiful, elegant dog with a fabulous head and graceful movement. Her second major came quickly—the day before our National Specialty under a renowned Terrier judge. I stopped showing her just two months later because I thought she was finished. Unfortunately for me I did not keep a written record of her wins because I always rely upon the AKC records. Neither do I take photographs of single-point wins. I didn’t know I was going to be selling her, so I was not as diligent as I could have been. And because I manage a large number of breeding dogs in two breeds, I did not notice that her championship certifi- cate was not among the others I was receiving around that time. It was a comedy of small errors that led up to this point.

36 • S how S ight M agazine , M ay 2018

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