#conformation

I asked breed judge Greg Wessel what he thought of Zaku after the show. Here is what he said:

This was Spyro's for-realsies show debut (as opposed to Novice Puppy) and she took Best of Winners in one show both days in a huge dachshund group. Go little girl!

Zaku was in a great mood all weekend and did a great job showing. We got some of that coveted expression, which you all know I've been working on. Got some good feedback from breed judge Greg Wessel too, which was fun! Zaku took Reserve Champion on Sunday. My bub!

Kerm was an angel for show one and a butt for show two both days. His shoulder angel and devil were fighting apparently. He took Grand Champion on Sunday. Go big man!

One of the greyhounds jumped forward and tucked his butt, which is out of character for him. He's usually rock-solid for the exam. The rottweiler actually very seriously attempted to bite the judge. I've never seen that particular rottweiler act like that. Originally the judge was going to DQ him, but after talking with the handler, he changed to an excusal.

Zaku also jumped forward and tried to whip his head around. I held his collar like a vice and the judge said, "Haha, yeah tervs can be pretty sketchy. I'm gonna make him hold still for me." And then he ran his hands down Zaku's back and grabbed his testicles two more times. I was sweating bullets and my friend outside the ring said she was extremely anxious watching. Then while checking expressions down the line, the judge abruptly jerked forward to run his hand down Zaku's back towards his butt again. Zaku gave him serious side-eye and crowded into me to get away. I pretty much grabbed his head and shoved a cookie down his throat. Like?? The fuck are you doing??? Don't do that with this breed????

And what's weird is he didn't do that with all of the dogs. Kermit would have told him off and instead he was an angel on the table. I don't think he did it with any of the table breeds. He didn't do it with the azawakh (who would have bitten him). But the greyhounds, guardian group, and herding dogs, he was doing something that made them uncomfortable.

Oh, sweet Jesus Christ, I hate that. I don't like being the conformation guy who is the Crufts party pooper, but nonsense like this is why I'm the Crufts party pooper.

This dog is missing a tooth, but that is not his problem. Missing teeth are expected from this breed, since they have a tendency to break them working. Severe malocclusion to the point of possibly being a slight wry mouth is NOT. As you've guessed, teeth are very very important to a breed whose only historic purpose is to bite people and whose main purpose still is to bite people/equipment, so in the AKC breed ring, this dog would be so severely penalized he would not be worth showing.

Conveniently, I have two dogs with correct bite. Inconveniently, they are both missing teeth due to aforementioned "dogs who bite for a living break teeth" problem:

In both dogs, their incisors fit snugly top over bottom when the mouth is closed, and their canines fit snugly parallel to each other and perpendicular to the jaw in a true scissor bite. This minimizes their risk of tooth breakage, uneven wear, or poor/painful grip on the bite. The Crufts dog has both a misaligned incisor (not overlapping the bottom incisor) and a misaligned bottom canine (sticking out sideways).

You'll also notice that even my seven year old dog with significant wear on his teeth has healthier gums than the Crufts dog, although whether that's due to gingival hyperplasia or just that bad of a bite, I'm not sure.