Hi Everyone - Im a newbie :)

Hi guys, first ill introduce myself, my name is Jess and im from just south of Sydney Australia. Ive been looking for a good Cavalier forum for ages and evern though this is overseas its great!
Anyway, i have a black and tan cav which is Jorja, ill have her pic up asap! She is about 3.5yrs now. I got her as a baby after we lost my beautiful ruby Amber.
Id love to start showing Jorja, going through the training etc but i find her coat is quite short compared to most Cavs and was wondering if anyone knows how the judges find this? Also she has a white mark down her chest oh well!

But any info would be greatly appreciated thanks and keep up the good work!!!

icon_welcome

I think you'll feel quite at home here even if some of us are overseas.

You've probably noticed it's quite an international forum!!! We definitely have some members from Australia too. And it's a great opportunity to learn a little about the culture in other countries as well as our adorable puppies!!

Can't wait to hear more about Jorja and see some pics. :snap:

Hiya and icon_welcome to you and Jorga. I love her name it's so pretty

Jorja is beautiful!! :jmp:

:jump: Welcome to the board and keep those pics coming!

Structure of the dog, temperament and conformation are all far more important that minor colouring faults to judges, according to those who show.

However you would be advised to get a professional assessment of your cavalier before you try to show. While we all KNOW our cavaliers are each beautiful, that does not mean they actually are bred to standard and of the very high quality (in terms of structure, movement, conformation, general appearance) that will make a dog a show dog. There are low key fun shows where it is good to start -- as then you'll get some feedback on whether you have a dog worth showing.

Good breeders generally would never sell a show quality dog without you paying quite a bit more for it and being fully aware that it IS show quality. Any dog not coming from a show breeder -- where you would know the dog is definitely of this quality -- is pet standard and would not be a show quality dog -- and any dog a good breeder sells as a pet rather than a show dog is being sold precisely because it isn;t show standard. But will be a wonderful companion and beautiful to everyone else, all the same. There's just a big professional difference between the show quality and the pet quality dogs. If you want to show, then the best approach is to get involved with your local club, get to know the good breeders who breed for health and all the above qualities, form some good relationships and get one of the breeders to mentor you so that you will start to learn all you can about cavaliers, and perhaps a breeder will in future be willing to sell a show dog to you on a shared ownership scheme (this tends to be how good breeders initially bring a novice into the show world as few breeders would release a show quality dog, which muct be intact, to someone they don't know extremely well and who isn't established already in the show world). In doing so they are also protecting the breed from people who would breed unscrupulously, with no regard for health and other qualities. It takes a long time to learn genetics, pedigrees etc for quality, careful breeding.

Karlin, just out of interest what are the main differences between show quality and pet quality dogs? Obviously potential show dogs would have no little health issues that pet dogs can sometimes have, but what else denotes a show dog? Do breeders know when the puppies are still very young if they are pet or show quality? I'm just interested because sometime ago we put our name down for a pet dog with a show quality breeder. We never heard back (though we didn't get back to her either.) I often wondered how many dogs out of litters like that would be sold as pets only, and how they'd know which were which early on. :?

cecily said:

Karlin, just out of interest what are the main differences between show quality and pet quality dogs? Obviously potential show dogs would have no little health issues that pet dogs can sometimes have, but what else denotes a show dog? Do breeders know when the puppies are still very young if they are pet or show quality? I'm just interested because sometime ago we put our name down for a pet dog with a show quality breeder. We never heard back (though we didn't get back to her either.) I often wondered how many dogs out of litters like that would be sold as pets only, and how they'd know which were which early on. :?

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Breeders match the assets of their bitches to the best dog to compliment them. You do a lot of praying and hope there is a dog that conforms to the standard, a dog that has lovely structure, and that is also tempermentally a show dog.
There is no way to know at 12 weeks if the show dog will have more or fewer health issues than its siblings. You breed the WHOLE litter to be an improvement on the breed. The difference between the show dog in the litter and the pet may be something very minor.
When I wanted our first show dog-- My husband talked to a breeder-- I talked again-- everytime we saw her (and we went where we would see her) we would talk about a pup. She said you can always tell who is serious by who is willing to "keep asking". If you don't ask again, they will assume you aren't really interested or that you've already got a pup from somewhere else. sandy

Welcome!