ShowSight - August 2018

The Seven Secrets to Show Success

Be a Great Owner BY MICHAEL AND CATHY DUGAN

I was clueless. I was a long way from being a good show own- er, much less a great one. Cathy had been breeding dogs for many years and prior to that had bred and trained horses. Aviator Kennel finished several champions every year, almost always shown by Cathy or a friend of hers. She went to dog shows almost every week- end competing with good dogs and winning the occasional big championship. She rarely used a professional handler and was considered a successful breeder and owner of show dogs. She did virtually no marketing and had a small work- manlike web site. She spent a lot of time on her dogs and genuinely enjoyed the experience. Still, looking back over the last few years, we both realize that Cathy wasn’t a great show owner yet, even with her experience. Now, the trend is breeder-owner-handlers in the ring; something that changes almost everything—we’ll talk about that later. SO… WHAT IS A GREAT SHOW OWNER? Once we got married and I was fully committed to the life of dogs and shows I began to look at the business of pedi- greed dogs and the world they live in. From my legal and busi- ness background, as well as a stint as an CAO of a web devel- opment start up before the Internet bubble burst, I started to sort out some of the variables of the competition. Ever the statistician, I looked at the numbers comparing what it cost to show your own dogs every weekend, traveling all over the west coast competing with professional handlers and dealing with the vagaries of competition judging. I noticed that hardly anybody did any real marketing of their kennels, dogs, expertise or reputation. It was so, well, casual and civilized, or so I first thought. I began to realize that beneath all of this calm veneer of polite applause as dogs won in the ring was a caldron of fierce combat. Cathy won far more than other competing breeders, but she didn’t win best of breeds all the time, much less group and best in show wins. One of my first suggestions, carefully presented to the expert was that going to dog shows constantly and showing your own dogs wasn’t cost effective. I had quietly compiled and compared two business models for the competitions. The first one was the way most people show their dogs; just as Cathy had done for years. The other model moved to a different level. At that level you hired a regular professional handler, carefully planned which dog show offered the most promise, judges and points, managed which dogs were going to compete when and developed goals and benchmarks to monitor success. In this model, you

I used to think that when I thought of a vacation, I was getting ready to go to the City of Light—Paris. One of my favorite places, I got to know it well over the years, going there as often as I could. When Cathy and I spent our honeymoon there, she remarked that I knew my way around Paris better than I did Sacramento. Taking a carriage ride in Versailles, lounging around in a café enjoying a great aperitif was how life should be led, or so I thought. BUT: When Cathy and I got married several years ago, I fell down the rabbit hole of dog shows; many, many dog shows. Now the vacation is more likely to be at the Los Ange- les County Fairplex in Pomona for the five grueling days of the Mission Circuit. Instead of the famous “mistral” winds in Provence, I got to experience the Santa Ana winds of south- ern California. Ah, the life! THE ROOKIE DISCOVERS A SECRET WORLD: Like most people who have one of the 80 million dogs that inhabit this country, I grew up with dogs as pets and enjoyed the simple pleasures and devotion that comes from a canine companion. Feeding them, brushing them out once in a while, bathing them when they got too close to a skunk, playing fetch; that was pretty much as complicated as it got. I considered myself a dog person, a perfectly good owner who took responsibility for the animal in my care. I mean, of course I had heard of dog shows and Westminster and won- dered who those crazy people where who took that kind of stuff so seriously. I had no idea what the business of dogs was all about, but I do now. Cathy has been breeding dogs successfully since 1987 and when we were seeing each other I got a glimmer of what the show universe was like. One of the first shows I attend- ed with her was in Pleasanton, California, a pleasant simple enough place east of San Francisco. Wandering around a county fairground on a hot weekend, I began to think, “What the hell is this all about?” There were people, dogs, vendors and officials everywhere all working with deadly focus and concentration while dogs and handlers swept in and out of a show ring in some kind of incomprehensible order. I tried to follow and understand what was happening to no avail. Cathy tried to fill me in on the rules, classes, standards and judging rules, why some dogs got ribbons and others did not. She had a dog named Olivia who won sweepstakes and winner’s bitch out of the 9-12 puppy class, whatever that was. I was appro- priately pleased and impressed even though I didn’t why. I thought, “Wait a minute, I’m a lawyer with an MBA and a mas- ters in psychology, how tough can this be to understand?”

"Ace" in water performance work

54 • S HOW S IGHT M AGAZINE , A UGUST 2018

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