news - 17/04/2004
World Dog Show Rio de Janeiro part 1 - Brazil
|
by Karl Donvil
This is part one of the World Dog Show in Brazil. In the next few days you will find another report on the Brazilian Championship Show and a photoreport of the judging in the ring and people and visitors around the rings. In total you will find over 2000 photos on this event.
WORLD DOG SHOW BRAZIL 2004.
Too much dogs died due to too much heath!
Right after the show a few South American handlers came to me and asked me what I planned to write about this World Dog Show. I told them that I always have the intention to write in a positive way. But now, when I returned home and wanted to start writing my report, I realise how difficult this would be. This show will make history as one of the worst, with a very bad start, full of problems, lack of show aspect and organisation and with numerous problems all over. Besides that, the attitude towards the Press was really below any level. Besides all this I returned home with good feelings with regard to the Brazilian people and I have seen some very good quality in certain breeds.
Imagine 29° C at 7 ‘o clock in the morning then you will have no problem to guess what the temperature was around noon. I was expecting the halls to be air-conditioned, but it was rather disappointing when I arrived at the modern and huge halls. The roof was made of steal plates and open. The heath from outdoors could freely enter the inside of the halls. Against the ceiling hung big propellers every 5 meters to make wind and create airflow in the halls. With intervals of a few minutes a spray of water was dispersed automatically. But this can never be compared to air-conditioning, as it didn’t drop the temperature and the water created a very humid and uncomfortable feeling all the time. The show scene in America is dominated by handlers, who travel long distances to participate on dogshows. A lot of them came from neighbouring countries and the USA. They come in with vans loaded with dogs in travel crates. To find or rent an air-conditioned truck means extra expenses and therefore some try to safe on money and risk non-air-conditioned vans. When the time-schedule is too strict to arrive at the halls in time, the dogs get not enough stops to stretch their legs and to drink. These are my own hypothesis for the possible reasons why so many dogs died and were in critical condition. In this extreme heath dogs suffer a lot. The sad result was the day previous to show already 8 dogs died and another 3 died before the end of the show. A horrible thought when one knows that there were hardly over 2000 dogs was entered. A lot of other dogs needed medical treatment.
This was certainly not a good start for the show.
On the first show day when the Brazilian Championship was held, I had the impression that still a lot of things needed to be organized and there was too much improvisation at the very last moment. The halls were large. One was reserved for grooming and benching the dogs; the middle hall was completely reserved for the show rings, while the third hall was for the very vast main ring and the demonstrations. There were not so much commercial stands and Pedigree was main sponsor. It gave an impression that a big show was going on, but to me it didn’t look like a World Dog Show. The public interest was not bad, especially on Saturday and Sunday. The show was combined with the Brazilian champion show. This show was held on Thursday and Friday and with this heath this was probably also too much for some dogs. Most of them stayed in the grooming hall all the time where the conditions were not excellent for them. The handlers and their team stayed there overnight in order to be close to the dogs. Of course there was enough fresh water available and electricity was overall so that extra fans could be positioned in front of the cages. But not every handler had this possibilities as some of them came from far or by plane and taking extra fans means extra luggage to carry. I saw also lots of wet towels dressed over the dogs and ice to cool their bellies. Safety was not OK as the cables and plugs lay all over the floor. Some were broken as people trapped upon them. In combination with people running with water all over the place created very dangerous situations in case a dog with wet paws would step on them or pies on them.
The dogs were judged according to a strict time schedule and the judging was done in time every day. The public was only allowed around the rings, while dogs, handlers and press were allowed in the hallways between the rings. The rings were large enough for most breeds and were all covered with blue carpets. As most of the handlers have people to help them it allowed them to be and show their dogs in several rings in very short time. I must admit that they suffered almost as much as the dogs and I wonder where they all had their clean suits from. They must have taken a dozen with them as after an hour they were completely wet from sweating.
The opening ceremony was very simple without the usual protocol and with no show act or any presentation of the countries present. The FCI flag was simply handed over by Mr.Muller to the president of the show while in the main ring a Brazilian Terrier and a Fila Brasileiro were shown to the public as the native breeds. It took all by all a few minutes. In each group the puppies were judged first, followed by the Junior dogs and the Open Class. Six groups were on term on Saturday while the remaining groups were judged on Sunday. After the four remaining groups were judged, the junior handling was on term, followed by the veterans, the couples, the groups and progeny class. Finally it was time to judge the BIS.
The catalogue was meant for the four days and both shows, but it was very useless, no list of names or addresses, no statistics, no plan, no time schedule or program. It was also impossible to know which judge was judging which breeds. On the other hand it contains a full presentation of the judges, where they have already judged and even included a photo. This information was rather irrelevant, what the public needs to have is clear information, owner’s names, countries, addresses, statistics, etc.
But I must admit that the results were online every evening after the show. At least this is an achievement even when the results gave us no more information then the catalogue did.
Most of the judges were from South America and rather unknown in Europe and other countries then South America. Only ten of them were from the European continent. If you plan to pay for the trip with your dog it is very important that you have confidence in the judges, but your chances decrease if you have no idea who the judge is, what type he is used to, if he is familiar with the European type and FCI standard, etc. Perhaps this is why so few exhibitors from other continents entered dogs for this show. For a European and a World Show there should be an FCI rule that at least 80% of the judges need to be from different countries from all over Europe or the World. This would be fairer. This show is a South American Championship instead of a World Show. It was also very remarkable that a lot of dogs and breeds differed very much from the FCI standard and looked more like AKC types. With all respect, but this is still the FCI World Dog Show and judging should be according.
The Press was hardly taken into account. Again they had a very bad position to photograph the dogs in the ring. What if there was no press, would you ever read a report or see any photos? Who would ever hear about this show? Why is the press always forgotten? Is it too much to serve a cool drink for them? They cannot leave the main ring or leave their equipment behind to get something to eat or drink. And again, a lie was enough to get a press card and have access to the main ring in order to shoot a souvenir photo for the private collection. It was almost impossible to make a proper photo of the Best In Show dogs as all those pseudo photographers just jumped over the fence and did not care to be positioned in front of the professional lenses. Did they make a long and expensive trip to cover any magazine? No, there was no control at all, only chaos.
There was very few or no comment at all from the speaker when the dogs entered the rings. And it was in Brazilian, no other language, no music on the background, no intermezzos, no glamour or show.
I had also expected something spectacular like a ceremony or show when the flag was handed over again to Mr.Muller again it took only a few minutes. Military music chapel played the national hymen and a chorus song local songs while a video was shown. It was only after the BIS that 6 tango dancers came into the ring to announce the next World Dog Show in Argentina. And then, finally, we could here the drums and two typical carnival dancers from Rio came swinging into the ring. The public reacted with enthusiasm. After a while the whole ring was full with dancers with plumes, strings and glitter. It was probably a big relief for everybody that all was over now and it was time for a little fun. People stepped into the ring and joined the Carnival dancers to dance along with them. This was Rio, at last discovered after 4 hot days.
BIS was chosen by the president of the Brazilian Kennel Club Mr.Sergio Meira Lopes des Castro. The finalists were all high quality, most of them shown by professional handlers. Third was the Basset Hound "HARD ROCK DOS SETE MOINHOS "from Portugal, handled by JOSE H DE MELO and owned by BIANCA S.TEXEIRA. Second place went to the German Shepherd "BEXTER VON DANILSCHEN - HOF " owned and handled by JOSÉ LUIS FERNANDES . BIS in show was the nice Pug "DOUBLE D CINOBLU'S MASTERPIECE " owned by ANN JOE SAMPAIO - ANJOS PUG. It was a nice dog with good movement and he was Top Dog All Breeds in Brazil over 2003.
Really, this show was in almost every aspect an example of how it should not be organised. Of course the heath was something the committee could not control, but they could have been better prepared to it as they know better what "hot" stands for in Rio. They know the halls and could take precautions and inform and assist the handlers. If I wasn't told about the death of those dogs, I wouldn't have known it. It looked like there was nothing unusual going on, no warnings over the microphones, no signs to prevent people, no indication where ice or first aid could be found.
Was nothing good then? Well sure, I have seen very good dogs, very high quality and certain breeds were very good overall. But the best of all were the Brazilian people, they are really OK, have a high sense of humour and fair play and I have left dozens of new friends there.
Everybody left in a good mood. And isn’t that the most important of all? The Brazilians gave us a feeling that there are more serious things going wrong in our world and left us with a feeling that we will always be welcome in their huge country. Their broad smiles, happy voices and their optimism is part of them, and a big hug before leaving home made us forget all the rest.
Multo Legal (everything OK).
Karl DONVIL
|
|
|
|
