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Dog from Singapore best in show at Rubber City Kennel Club competition
By John Higgins
Beacon Journal staff writer
Published on Monday, Jan 05, 2009
TALLMADGE: The top dog in Sunday's Rubber City Kennel Club's show at the Summit County Fairgrounds was a Siberian husky from Singapore.
The best in show winner — Shadetree's Loco-Motion — has now earned enough points in dog shows to add the word ''champion'' permanently to the beginning of her name, said show Chairwoman Marianne Reder.
The owner is Jermain Teo of Singapore.
Typically, competitors for best in show already have ''champion'' in their names.
''But once in a while, you get a dog that is not a champion that does win best of breed and then everybody is in awe,'' Reder said. ''Then you know you have a mighty fine dog.''
The Rubber City Kennel Club, founded in 1940, held shows on Saturday and Sunday, registering 1,385 dogs representing 149 breeds. Typically, shows attract competitors from up to 40 U.S. states and several countries.
The club usually holds shows in January and June.
''It brings a lot of money into town because they all have a hotel room, they all go out to dinner,'' Reder said. ''This is something that hotel owners are now starting to understand and they're being accommodating to the people with dogs.''
Each day is a new competition with different judges and different dogs.
Just ask Mary Norton-Augustus, a seventh-grade teacher at Seville's Cloverleaf Middle School. She trotted in the ring with Champion White Eagle's Celestial Sky, a plush, white-furred Samoyed who already has earned the ''champion'' part of her name, both in America and Canada.
The 3-year-old dog won the best of show competition on Saturday, but ''Celeste'' finished fourth in the group competition in a separate show on Sunday.
''She placed every day,'' Norton-Augustus said. ''I'm glad I got yesterday.''
The Samoyed finished second in the group competition in the Columbiana County Kennel Club dog show on Friday, also held at the Summit County Fairgrounds.
Terry Litton, the Samoyed's owner, said he likes the breed because it's a good family dog.
''I've been breeding Sammys since 1954,'' said Litton, of New Concord. ''It's just an outstanding breed in terms of temperament. It's a wonderful dog to live with, outside of the shedding.''
Temperament is a breeder's top concern, Reder said.
''A good breeder breeds first for temperament, second for health and third for beauty,'' she said.
It's nothing against twenty-buck mutts from the animal shelter, but they're one-of-a-kind, so you can't really compare them.
''You know what that mutt is? He's the example of the survival of the fittest,'' Reder said. ''Because his mama may have had 13 puppies and only two survived because they're the toughest, the smartest, the healthiest and have the best temperament. That's what we're breeding for in a purebred dog. The only problem is you can't get another one like it.''
Dog show judges don't judge dogs against each other; they rank each dog by how closely it matches the ideal for its breed in appearance, movement and temperament.
First, all the dogs within a breed compete. Then the best of those breeds compete in seven different groups: sporting, hounds, working, terrier, toy, nonsporting and herding.
Then the best of those groups compete for best in show.
''This judge has a mental picture of the perfect Afghan, the perfect wolfhound, the perfect pharaoh hound,'' Reder said while observing the judging in the hounds group.
The judge's word is final.
''He can excuse them all and say none of them are any good,'' Reder said. ''The judge is king in that ring. Nobody can argue with them.''
Results of the Saturday and Sunday shows are expected to be posted online soon at http:// www.infodog.com. Just search the weekend's shows for the Rubber City Kennel Club.
John Higgins can be reached at 330-996-3792 or jhiggins@thebeaconjournal.com.
TALLMADGE: The top dog in Sunday's Rubber City Kennel Club's show at the Summit County Fairgrounds was a Siberian husky from Singapore.
Get the full article here.

