Why do people take 'Fun' shows so seriously?

[Minimyatt]

Hi there,

I took my little Kaiser to a fun show yesterday, this was his first ever show and because it was only a small fun show I didn't really make a big fuss of getting him trained up fully. So we arrived at the fun show and I entered him into puppy, working, open and also fancy dress. More people then arrived and I started to notice how competetive and seriously around half of the people were taking this with their dogs, some people were dressed up in swanky suits, spraying their dogs with perfume, grooming them and constantly stacking them before the shows were starting. I just thought to myself how can these people be taking a fun show so seriously? They had also travelled from miles away to be there. The classes then started and of course the professionals were winning all of the classes and taking it extremely seriously whilst I was just laughing and giggling at kaiser as he wouldn't even stand for the judge but I want worried about what they thought of him or me because it was for fun. I started to think that these people only came along to these fun shows because they knew they would win rosettes and prizes because they didn't have much competition compared to a proper dog show. Either way Kaiser came 4th in puppy, 5th in working, 4th in open and 1st in fancy dress, funnily enough none of the professionals entered fancy dress maybe it was because they didn't ewant to partake in a bit of fun?

 

[ouesi]

Some people are very serious about fun matches because it is practice for "real" shows.
I was also taught that how you present your dog and yourself as handler is a sign of respect for the judge and the venue.
Also don't forget, some people are nervous and that translates in to them appearing stuck up, (I know I'm no princess charming when I'm showing, and I do it for fun! ).

But in the end, I think everyone defines "fun" differently. I would not have participated in the fancy dress either because I'm not a fan of dressing my dogs up, and they don't seem to like it much either - wouldn't have been fun for either of us. Doesn't mean I can't enjoy watching others have fun doing it.
Similarly, some people think obedience competition is about as much fun as watching paint dry, yet I can watch a day's worth of entries and have a lot of fun training for obedience. Different strokes....

 

[Minimyatt]

It wasn't a huge do just a small charity held show our trainer was holding. The judge seemed quite young and appeared to be quite amused by kaisers antics I would love to show Kaiser as he is beautiful and has a lovely conformation but you can only really see it when he is on his best behaviour which isn't very often, he just wants to play. I would like to take him to ring craft lessons but at the moment he is at puppy training and needs to start curbing his enthusiasm around other dogs as he is very boisterous.