Dogs on the menu

Paul | blog | October 24, 2011

I was watching Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall on Channel 4 last night in River Cottage Veg Everyday, where there was not 1 single recipe with either meat or fish contained.

This is a total turn around as we are most used to his old style of rearing livestock from birth to dinner plate.

So what has this got to do with dogs you might ask.

During the show his gardener and himself spoke to a horticultural society about their up coming fair, and maybe holding some classes for the most tasty vegetable.

Prior to this, all of these shows held what might be considered as confirmation classes for the vegetables, as they would be judged on size and appearance.

They thought that as the main aim of growing vegetables was to eat them, surely the most important fact re the same, would be how good they tasted, more so than how they looked.

Let’s look at this from a dog showing perspective.

At present we award the class win, best of breed and best in show to the dog that most fits it’s individual breed standard. This like the vegetable show is based on size and appearance etc.

Again if the main purpose of the specific vegetable is to be eaten, and obviously the tastier the better, then is not the original role of the dog more important than how they look today ?

Of course this all has to do with how people perceive breed standards, and we have Blogged here at Pedigree dogs about same, but surely fit for original function, should prevail in the show ring, and to some extent like the carrot, as long as it is orange, with a green top, the “tastiest” one should win !