Professional Tournaments - Page 1

I am not sure if offering prize money for tournaments is a new venture,  but I would like to pose the following questions for discussion:

1)  How can this benefit the original intent of the sport to assist in the development of the breed ?

2)  How can we be insured that any type of corruption can be avoided? 

I believe the benefits to canine breeding programs may be enhanced if we legitimely look at all angles of professional sport.  If we can answer all types of questions such as the above re: offering professional tournaments, then the hope would be that this does in fact promote canine sport, breeding programs and the benefits to working/service organizations that use our canines. 

Just opening this up.....................

Maybe I should have asked this on the Masters thread, some of the discussion is leaning towards my above questions.

I'll answer #2 here anyway.  When you use a multiple judge system as done at the Masters and many BIG horse events, the chances of judging and scoring being corrupted is drastically reduced.  Some events have 5 judges, top and bottom scores are thrown out, middle 3 scores are added and the total used.

Anything done correctly can be beneficial to the "intent of the venture". Don't know if Carlos's intent for his tournament was the same as yours, but it was well done and benefical to the people that were there and enjoyed it for what it was. Also, anything with money can be corrupted when the money gets high enough...just look at showline dogs and puppies!

I would say there is less chance of favoritism in this type of venue then what you see at the W.U.S.V or associated trials, This would be a judgeing criteria for or national trials.

Many of the dogs at the masters displayed a lot of power and enthusiasm in the retrieves.  Many dogs also display a lot of power in the C, strong barking, real attempts at stopping (pulling) during the escape,  hard to the helper on the attack from the back transport.  These are qualities that breeders like to see.  Wil this be the answer to all GSD issues?  Of course not.  When schutzhund became more of a competitive sport,  the desire or want to place your strongest dogs in service work was taken away.  The profit motive is too strong.   The Professional dog sport is definately going to turn things up a notch, but once again, it will not solve all GSD issues.

Kyle

Unfortunately, people will still continue to breed litter after litter of GSD's from untitled extended familes that don't have a prayer of ever seeing a trial field, amateur or professional venue. In the big picture, a few pro venues aren't going to make a bit of difference to the sport at fround level.

SS