Tits, Teeth and Trophy Wives

The Irish Setter is not the first working dog to go down the drain as the Kennel Club and its membership pursues green cash and blue ribbons.

The Fox Terrier swirled down the pipes around the turn of the Twentieth Century, and the Kennel Club is happily skipping down that same road with the "Parson Russell Terrier" -- the largely nonworking version of the Jack Russell Terrier.

A similar track record can be found for the Bedlington Terrier, which was once found in the field, but can now best be described as "once rumored to work."

The Sealyham Terrier has been trundled down the road to oblivion as well, and the Border Terrier has three paws and its muzzle in the grave as far as honest field work is concerned.

What's interesting with both the setters and the terriers is that while these two types of dogs are very different from each other in both appearance and the nature of the work, the same Kennel Club forces are at work, and the impact is largely the same.

For example both working setters and working terriers are smaller than their show-ring pretenders. Why is that?

And why do both working terriers and working setters have shorter coats than their hot-house cousins?

The story, I suppose, is that since you cannot judge nose, gameness, or biddability in the ring, Kennel Club judges (who may have never worked a dog a day in their life) tend to gravitate towards the most obvious visual traits presented by a dog -- size and hair.

Never mind that these things have no relation to work or, in the case of terrier size, a certain inverse relationship.

Looks are all that are important in the Kennel Club.

In this sense, it's just like the Miss America Pageant. Miss Oklahoma may be a classical piano-playing, Stanford-educated PhD metalurgist for NASA who can fire a rifle, ride a horse, and quote Hemingway while drywalling the kitchen ceiling, but when push comes to shove she will lose to Miss Mississippi who has big tits, big teeth, and big piles of blonde hair. Never mind this same woman has the IQ of a toaster oven.

But then, I'm missing it, aren't I? When these folks are looking for is not to hire a worker.

What they are looking for is a trophy.

They're looking for the canine equivalent of a trophy wife. Who cares if she is a bimbo with the brains of a butterfly and the personality of a Harpy Eagle? Who cares if she is expensive to maintain, does not work, and is a poor parent to boot? Who cares if those over-filled silicone sacks are a cancer bomb waiting to go off?

The job of the trophy wife is not long term; it's to look good parading at your side for a few years. If she gets sick, or becomes a bore or a chore, well she was always a "temp job" from the beginning, right?

A temp job. Just like all those show dogs that are available at "kennel reduction" sales after they have been milked for puppies and ribbons. Kick 'em to the curb and let's get us another one. Yassuh!

And this time, let's get one with REALLY big tits, big teeth and really blonde hair.

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