Dog Shows – Fuerteventura Style

Having shown dogs in the UK since 1987, I was of course very excited to hear about the annual dog show here in Fuerteventura, which was taking place just 20 minutes away from where we live, on the 15th June – my birthday!! So of course I had to drag poor husband, Ian, along to watch. Well, it was an ‘interesting’ experience!

The programme stated that registration of dogs, along with vet checks, would take place between 3 and 4pm, and we arrived about 4.10pm. Two ring were laid out, and it looked as though judging in one ring was already underway, while the main ring looked as though they were still doing checks. There were just two judges, one doing all the FCI breeds, and one, in the smaller ring, judging the Bardino Majorero, which is the local unrecognised breed of farm dogs, originating in Fuerteventura.

In the main ring the first breeds were Boxers and Rottweilers, of which there were just a few entries. The largest breed entry was the Perro de Presa Canario, or Dogo Canario (meaning “Canarian Molosser”) as it was originally called. Although an old breed, they were only fully recognised by the FCI in 2011. There was a large entry of these dogs, but I have to say that they are not the type of dog that I like, and I prefer the Bardino. After the many Dogo Canario entries, there was just 1 Great Dane and 1 Tibetan Mastiff.

I have to say that I was not impressed with the judge. With many of the dogs, in order to look at the teeth he (or in a few cases the handler) opened the jaws so wide I thought he was going to jump down the dog’s throat!! Understandably, many of the dogs objected to this sort of handling. He then barely touched the dogs in order to feel their conformation, and moved them very little, some if at all! Nor were there many good handlers, perhaps just a handful, and the majority of dogs were simply not shown to their best advantage. Very frustrating as I wanted to jump up and show them how to handle their dogs!!!

Click here for part 2 – another dog show!