I've finished forty-three champions. I have a wall of rosettes and a filing cabinet full of major wins. In 2019, I decided I was done with all of it. Not because I lost interest in evaluating dogs, but because the show ring stopped evaluating what matters.
This is going to make some people angry. The conformation community has given me friendships, mentors, and a framework for understanding structure that I still use every day. I’m not here to tear it down. But I am here to explain why, after twenty years under those fluorescent lights, I walked away and never looked back.
The Moment I Knew
Westminster weekend, 2018. I wasn’t showing that year, but I’d driven down to watch and catch up with breeder friends. I was sitting ringside for the Herding Group when a dog came in who stopped my breath. Beautiful head, gorgeous movement, coat like silk. The crowd loved him. The judge loved him. He won the group.
I happened to be standing near his handler afterward. The dog was panting hard, scanning the room with wide eyes, flinching when someone walked too close. His handler popped him with the lead to get him to stand still for photos. The dog froze in a perfect stack, trembling.
That dog was a Group winner at the most prestigious show in North America, and he was terrified.
What Nobody Said
I watched a dozen breed people walk past that dog. Experienced breeders, judges, handlers. Not one of them commented on his obvious distress. They commented on his reach and drive, his topline, his expression from the front. Nobody said, "That dog is miserable."
Or maybe they all saw it and just didn't care. I'm not sure which possibility is worse.
I drove home that night thinking about every dog I’d ever put in the ring. Had I missed the same signs? Had I prioritized a three-minute performance over the dog’s actual experience? The answer, if I’m honest, is probably yes. At least sometimes.
What the Show Ring Actually Selects For
Let me be clear about what conformation shows are supposed to do. They’re supposed to evaluate breeding stock against a breed standard, a blueprint of what the ideal dog of that breed should look like and how it should move. The theory is that dogs who most closely match the standard are the best candidates for reproduction.
In theory, it’s a reasonable system. In practice, it’s broken.
Here’s what the ring actually selects for:
Showmanship over substance. A dog who stacks beautifully and moves with animation will beat a structurally superior dog who’s bored or nervous in the ring. I’ve seen it hundreds of times. The flashy dog wins over the correct dog because the flashy dog is more fun to watch.
Handler skill over dog quality. Professional handlers win disproportionately, not because they always have the best dogs, but because they know how to present what they have. I’ve seen average dogs finished by great handlers and exceptional dogs fail because their owner-handlers couldn’t work the ring politics.
Current fashion over breed function. Standards don’t change much, but interpretation does. Twenty years ago, moderate angulation was acceptable in my breed. Now judges reward extreme rear angles that look impressive at a trot but would fall apart in actual work. The dogs who win today couldn’t do what the breed was created to do.
The Angulation Problem
I watched an entire generation of White Swiss Shepherds get bred for extreme rear angulation because it won in the ring. Now we're seeing dogs who can't climb stairs comfortably by age six because their joints were never designed to support that structure under real-world conditions. Show wins created a structural fad that's causing real suffering.
My Grandmother’s Dogs
My grandmother bred working Collies on her farm in upstate New York from the 1960s through the early ’90s. She never showed a dog in her life. Her dogs worked. They herded sheep, alerted to predators, kept the farm kids out of trouble.
Her breeding decisions were simple: Which dog works best? Which dog is soundest? Which dog can do a full day in the field and get up the next morning without limping?
She’d watch me prep for shows in the late ’90s, blow-drying coats and practicing stacks, and she’d shake her head. “Pretty is as pretty does, Margaret. Can that dog work?”
I didn’t listen. I wish I had.
What Working Ability Means for a Companion Breed
Now, I’m not saying every White Swiss Shepherd needs to herd sheep. Most of my puppies go to families, not farms. But “working ability” isn’t just about herding. It’s about a dog’s physical and mental capacity to do what’s asked of them with soundness and stability.
A dog with true working ability can:
- Walk for hours on varied terrain without breaking down
- Problem-solve in novel situations without shutting down
- Maintain focus under distraction
- Recover quickly from physical exertion
- Move efficiently without wasted energy or compensatory patterns
These aren’t working-dog traits. They’re good-dog traits. A family dog who hikes with their people on weekends needs the same structural soundness as a dog who herds livestock. A therapy dog navigating a hospital corridor needs the same nerve strength as a dog working a protection trial.
The show ring doesn’t test for any of this. It tests whether a dog can trot in a circle and stand still while a stranger touches them. That’s it.
The Transition
I didn’t quit showing overnight. From 2015 to 2019, I gradually shifted my focus. I started entering my dogs in herding instinct tests, tracking trials, and nosework competitions alongside their conformation careers.
What I learned was eye-opening.
My best show dog, a beautiful male who’d gone Best of Breed at three specialties, was mediocre in herding instinct testing. He had the drive but not the biddability. He wanted to chase the sheep, not work them. His movement, which judges praised as “effortless,” fell apart at speed on uneven ground because his extreme angulation didn’t translate to real-world locomotion.
Meanwhile, a bitch I’d nearly washed out of my show program because she was “plain” turned out to be a natural on sheep. Her movement was efficient rather than flashy. Her temperament was exactly what I’d been trying to breed for: calm under pressure, responsive to guidance, able to think independently when she needed to.
Guess which dog I bred from.
How I Evaluate Now
Without the show ring as my benchmark, I needed a new framework. Here’s what I developed, and I think any breeder in any breed could adapt it.
Structural evaluation through function testing. Instead of a judge’s three-minute assessment on a flat mat, I evaluate structure through sustained activity. Can this dog trot for thirty minutes on varied terrain without fatigue or gait changes? Can they run, stop, turn, and accelerate without compensation patterns? Do they move differently at the end of a long hike versus the beginning?
This tells me more about a dog’s actual structural soundness than any show stack ever could.
Mental evaluation through novel challenges. I put dogs in situations they haven’t seen before. New environments, new tasks, controlled stressors. I’m not looking for perfection. I’m looking for a dog who engages with problems rather than shutting down or falling apart.
Recovery as a metric. After physical exertion or mental stress, how quickly does the dog return to baseline? A structurally sound dog recovers physically within hours, not days. A mentally sound dog recovers from stress within minutes, not hours.
Longevity tracking. I track every dog I’ve produced into their senior years. Which dogs are still active at eight? At ten? At twelve? The dogs who stay sound the longest are the ones I want to breed from, and they’re not always the ones who looked best in the ring at two years old. When a placed dog develops a health issue years later, that phone call from the family feeds directly into this data and shapes every future breeding decision.
The Data Doesn't Lie
Since I shifted to function-based evaluation, the average longevity of Snowpeak dogs has increased by nearly two years. The rate of orthopedic issues after age six has dropped by roughly half. These aren't coincidences. When you select for dogs who can actually do things, you select for dogs who are built to last.
What I Lost
I’m not going to pretend this transition was painless. I lost things I valued.
I lost community. The show world is a social network, and when you leave it, you lose access to breeder conversations, mentorship relationships, and the shared language of ring evaluation. Some of my closest friends in dogs stopped calling when I stopped showing.
I lost a shorthand for quality. Saying “my dog is a champion” communicates something instant and universal. Saying “my dog scored well on a functional movement assessment I designed myself” does not.
I lost name recognition. Breeders who don’t show are invisible to much of the dog world. Puppy buyers who search for champion-sired litters won’t find me. My waitlist is shorter than it was ten years ago. I also had to rethink how I structured ownership agreements on my breeding dogs, since co-ownership arrangements that depended on show titles no longer made sense in my program.
What I Gained
But here’s what I gained, and it’s worth more than every ribbon in that filing cabinet.
Better dogs. Full stop. My current dogs are sounder, more stable, and more capable than my show-era dogs. They can do things. They hike, they track, they do nosework, they interact with the public without falling apart. They’re dogs, not display pieces.
Better placements. Families who find me now aren’t looking for a champion’s puppy. They’re looking for a sound, stable dog who will be a genuine partner. These families tend to be more committed, more realistic in their expectations, and more invested in their dog’s long-term wellbeing. My return rate has dropped significantly since I stopped marketing around show wins.
Better sleep. I don’t lie awake wondering if I bred a dog because he was pretty rather than correct. Every dog in my program earns their place through demonstrated function, not a judge’s opinion on a Saturday afternoon.
The Uncomfortable Truth About Breed Preservation
Conformation breeders argue that they’re preserving breed type. That without shows, breeds would lose their distinctive characteristics and degenerate into generic mixed-breed-looking dogs.
There’s a kernel of truth there. Breed type matters. It’s part of what makes a White Swiss Shepherd a White Swiss Shepherd and not just a white dog.
But type is just one piece of the puzzle. A dog who looks perfect and can’t function isn’t preserving anything worth preserving. And in too many breeds, the show world has selected so aggressively for appearance that they’ve sacrificed the traits that made the breed useful in the first place.
I’d argue that a moderate, functional dog who can do what the breed was created to do is preserving breed heritage more faithfully than an exaggerated show specimen who can’t work for fifteen minutes without overheating.
Understanding the full picture of health clearances and what they actually tell us matters too. Structural soundness and immune resilience go hand in hand, and I’ve started paying much more attention to how my dogs handle routine veterinary challenges as part of my overall breeding evaluation.
For Breeders Considering the Shift
You don't have to quit showing entirely. Some breeders use shows as one tool among many, and that's legitimate. But if the ring is your only evaluation method, you're missing most of the picture. Start trialing your dogs in something, anything, that tests their actual ability. Herding, tracking, nosework, agility, barn hunt. Put them in situations where they have to perform, not just look good standing still.
You might be surprised by which dogs rise to the top. And you might be heartbroken by which ones don't.
Where I Am Now
It’s a February morning in Vermont. My current top stud prospect, a two-year-old male named Snowpeak’s True North, is outside in the field doing what he does every morning: tracking rabbit trails through the snow, navigating fallen timber, checking the fence line like he owns the place.
He would not win in the show ring. His ears are slightly larger than the standard prefers. His coat is functional rather than glamorous. A judge would probably call him “plain.”
But he moves like water over rough ground. He tracks for miles without tiring. His temperament is so steady that I trust him with visiting children without supervision. At his last health screening, my vet said his joints look like they belong to a dog half his age.
He’s exactly what I’m breeding for now. Not the prettiest dog I’ve ever produced. The best one.
My grandmother would have approved.