Show Safe Team Wants to Make a Difference

Board members of the Show Safe organization join host Laura Reeves to discuss the grassroots development of an organization that supports a safe dog event environment. “I think there were several of us that felt, you know, we're just frustrated because you wanna do something, you know, everyone wants to do something to make a difference,” said Show Safe Secretary Lindsay Fetters. “I think it was very easy to throw blame and throw the responsibility on other parties. And you know, something needs to happen, but it's somebody else's problem. “I think we all can agree that we really wanted to focus on education. We wanted to promote recognizing issues. We wanted to be able to respond to issues. We wanted to be able to restore things once we knew there was an issue. “We all put our egos aside. And, you know, we come from such a variety of backgrounds. You know, you have all ages, you have all interests, you have all levels of involvement in our sport, and so we were able to really look at what strengths does everyone bring to the table and kind of align that with what we need to get done and kind of run with it. And that's exactly what we've done.” “It's about boots on the ground,” said Show Safe Executive Director Diane Moore. “It's about raising the money and the awareness and the energy to actually accomplish something. Like Lindsey said, everybody wants to do something. They want to make the world a better place. But to take that into tangible steps, this board has done a phenomenal job. So we essentially have 4 initiatives and those four initiatives, the first one is education. “It's also going to be outreach and workshops. It's going to be education for clubs, for juniors, for people who report on the sport or on abuse and neglect, just all of those things where we can educate and just say, hey, look, these are these dynamics and this is how you recognize it. You know, our tagline is recognized, respond and restore.” The team also has created a toll-free number (1-888-474-9723) to call for immediate response staffed with someone who is trained to listen and trained to “say what's going on, what's your concern and to assess what you need to create safety.” “Our aftercare program is really about, OK, so something has happened, something has happened to you and you are part of the dog show community and you need some support,” Moore added. “So it's not right now, it's not immediate response. It's not like you're unsafe right now. It's historical mostly but it's impactful, it's impacting you, it's still with you and so we're going to be there to say ‘OK, what resources do you need?’ How do we help navigate this resource world and ultimately be able to assist you in paying for … mental health resources and survival resources and how do we bring that to you in a way that is you are in control.” “I'm second generation, so I grew up in this sport,” said Show Safe Director Jason Hoke. “Many of us have grown up with our parents and even our grandparents taking us to the dog show, leaving us in x-pens alone. We grew up feeling like everybody in this sport is our family and that everything is safe and in the majority of it, it really is. But what we want to do is be able to teach people things that can protect and educate other parents, other youth other elders to recognize where shortcomings are in dog shows in show locations, in areas within the show.”

GRRRL Power Team Carries Forward Longo Great Dane Legacy

[caption id="attachment_13331" align="alignleft" width="602"] Carol Grossman became synonymous with black Great Danes and the Longo dogs.[/caption] Host Laura Reeves is joined by Carol Grossman, Jackie Van Delft and Tristen Lawrence with a tribute to Tootie Longo, who passed away in May of this year, and the Longo Great Dane legacy. Grossman, the "Queen of Great Danes," piloted dogs for Longo for decades, including legendary greats like the second Black in Breed history to win an All Breed Best In Show, BIS BISS Ch. Longo’s Chief Joseph. She shares her memory of Tootie Longo this way: “As much of an icon as she was, she never really thought of herself as an icon, whereas Joey (Vergnetti) and Peter (Green) were icons. She didn't realize they felt that way about her. That was Tootie. She just was not assertive about who she was. And she didn't realize, I think, until the end, how famous she really was, that she carried a legacy of dogs through the years. She knew she had beautiful dogs and she knew she had a great line and she knew that she was lucky in picking dogs, but she never really realized what an icon she was.” Van Delft is the more recent member of the group, a Great Dane enthusiast who had wanted a Dane since childhood. She sought out Tootie Longo to acquire a dog, and wound up as a “member of the family.” [caption id="attachment_13330" align="alignright" width="700"] Jynx with (from left to right) Tristen Lawrence, Jackie Van Delft and Tootie Longo.[/caption] “Tootie pretty much took us under her wing,” Van Delft said. “We became really good friends… I got my first Longo puppy and he was amazing. He was my heart dog. But we would go to the Longos every weekend to twice a month. We were very lucky we only lived 45 minutes away from them. So we spent a lot of time and we got to go to all the shows together. And, you know, she just became a part of the family or I became part of hers, you know, and it's just that was it. She wasn't getting rid of me.” Grossman and Van Delft were instrumental in selecting Lawrence, a third generation Great Dane exhibitor, to campaign Jynx, one of the last of Tootie’s dogs, to 36 specialty wins. “I'm a Great Dane handler my whole life,” Lawrence said. “My parents and both of their parents on both sides were very active in the breed as breeders as well as handlers. So there's never been a time that I didn’t do this. I remember Tootie Longo as long as I've been alive. And so growing up, knowing the power and what she built in our sport, it was incredible and for her to come to me and say ‘we want you to show our dog,’ I can't describe how proud I was, how incredible that was to me.”    

When Sh*t Happens in Your Breeding Program

Host Laura Reeves is joined by Aimée Llewellyn-Zaidi, Project Director, IPFD Harmonization of Genetic Testing for Dogs, International Partnership for Dogs, for part two of a challenging and informative conversation about when sh*t happens in your breeding program. “If you have a stud dog,” Llewellyn-Zaidi said, “and I'm gonna use stud dogs because that's what tends to be the bigger contributor to a genetic breeding plan. If you have a stud dog or you're using a stud dog or you've used a stud dog and there is a problem. Step number one is to not panic. Genuinely, that's the first kind of step, because you will know in yourself that you've made the best decisions in that moment with the information you had up until that point. “You now have maybe new information. So then the second step is investigate and you gave some great examples. Is this something that is heritable? Is this something that isn't in the breed, but maybe actually is in the breed? And if you start asking, you start realizing that you're not the only one that has been observing this challenge. “So just do a little bit of investigating, get a diagnosis for when there isn't a genetic test. Do a little asking around with friendly people to see if this is something that it is heritable or potentially heritable, and then if it's something that is kind of unique to your lines or if there's potentially a broader breed conversation. “I keep wanting to throw traits because very understandably we focus on poor health, but actually many, many breeders want to be focused on the characteristics that are valuable and important. “The more we're able to think about our individual breeding plans as part of a whole, the term collective action, I think the more successful we will be at meeting our goals and reducing the risks of inherited diseases. “Whether you're in a healthy breed that has no breed specific health conditions but being a dog means you're going to have a health condition. Or whether you're in a breed that has maybe a different path that they need to take to get back to where people feel there's a better balance between health and the traits that they want, collective action is key. “And that's the thing. It's like the collective action on your individual part is are you communicating with your puppy owners? Are you communicating with the bitch owners if you have the stud but don't keep the bitches. Who are your breeding friends that you've used your stud dog to. Are you keeping those accurate records? Are you including a friendly vet into your system that can kind of help you with identifying or investigating any of these health issues? “In summation, we're not gonna panic, we're gonna investigate, we're gonna maybe pause breeding and we're going to think about the steps that we need to take to have those collective action solutions, that's going to include you and your breeding plans and your breeding partners.” FPEn291cE5TKEepi1hJv