Now try and understand my point of view - My dogs are not "Show Dogs," my dogs are pets who go to shows. To protect myself and my puppy from the chatting and finger pointing that always comes with dog showing, Meerah is staying at home indefinitely. Indefinitely is not forever, it simply means a period with no end, well it does to me anyway. Next year I may feel differently, I may not ... maybe when she's three I'll feel differently, but maybe I won't. You can see from the above photo that it's all there, pretty much as it should be, but you can also see her length of foreleg. Today she is 11 months - and taller that she was at 10 months when I measured her at 63 cms. To have someone laugh in my face when they saw her in one show, and then at the next show someone else came over to her and said "OMG Meerah what's happened to you?" was hurtful. As much as no ill feeling was meant at the time, I hope, hell it's the game we play by showing, it kind of sealed the decision for me that taking her out of the ring was the right thing to do. If a friend can laugh in my face, then what are others saying behind my back? So taking her out of the ring is to protect me, her, (not that she cares, but I do) and her parents from the unkind side of dog showing. To stop the whispering I chose to post on here and on Facebook that Meerah was bowing out of the ring indefinitely, again it was my way of protecting myself and letting the haters know that I know, I'm not stupid, I see it so you can shut up about it. Having Meerah in the ring when she's not ready simply isn't fair on her parents or my reputation. I don't dispute that Meerah should look better with maturity of body and more "frills" could also help, but we'll wait and see. I suppose if I was still attending open shows I'd take her for experience, but I'm not, so currently there are no options as the last thing I need after taking a leap forward in recent generations is to go back to open show quality dogs ... time will tell.
