Anne Barlow
1. I’m a native Texan and live in the Austin area. I had both a Welsh Terrier and a Wire Fox Terrier as a kid, but did not come from a family that showed dogs. I got my first Airedale Terrier while in graduate school at Baylor University. I happened to buy him from a long-time breeder and exhibitor who encouraged me to show him. The first person to come up and talk to me at the first show I took my dog to was Ric Chashoudian! The rest, as they say, is history. I lost that dog at 10 months to parvo, and Henry McGill, who handled for the breeder I purchased my dog from, encouraged me to get a bitch.
I got one from Eden Kennels and finished her and a few of her offspring, but realized I wasn’t going to win on the big weekends with what I had. I purchased another bitch in 1987 from Terry Clark in California. Susanna was the repeat breeding of Terrydale’s Adorable Lady, and everything I’ve shown since then descends from her. My current bitch, Sibbell, is Susanna’s g-g-g-g-g-g-g grandaugher! My kennel name, Spindletop, was used because Spindletop is a real piece of Texas history and my husband at the time was a petroleum engineer.
2. Honestly, Airedales could use some work right now. I see too many rectangles—long backs (we are a square breed), bad tailsets, and lots of bad heads with incorrect ears. Common heads that are wedge-shaped, not brick-shaped, and ears that are set off to the side of the head and are too big. The ear should lie along the skull of the dog, NOT the cheek, and should point to the outer corner of the eye, not the ground. The fold of the ear should break above the skull. Unfortunately, these bad faults are being rewarded in the ring, including the Specials ring.
3. In my opinion, there are way too many shows! I think this spreads the entries too thin (remember during/after COVID when we had fewer shows and the entries were great?!) and makes finding majors and points difficult. I’m not a fan of giving points and majors to dogs for Group placements and RW at Specialties. In my opinion (and I’ve benefited from both of these newer policies), this just puts a Band-Aid over the problem; it doesn’t solve the problem of low entries. Many things contribute to small entries, and too many shows is one of those things. However, the sport faces many top-down societal issues that are beyond its control. Some of the things that negatively affect us (and many other hobbies as well) include the issue of no one at home during the day anymore; both adults in a household work. This often makes it difficult to raise a litter of pups.
I have 13 newborns in my dining room right now and can’t imagine how I would take care of them working full days away from home. Also, when I grew up, my parents had their own social life and hobbies. And they pursued those hobbies. If we want more young people to get involved in the sport, their parents need to be involved in the sport first. I don’t know what the answer is, but we do need to encourage participation in the sport by adults (puppy buyers, perhaps) because those adults are the ones who bring the kids to the dog shows.
4. Every litter is bred with Montgomery in mind. Every pup that is kept has to pass the “will this be competitive at Montgomery” test in order to stay! Montgomery is the Super Bowl and Olympics rolled into one for terrier breeders.
5. Social media has been terrible for the sport. Where do I start? There was an article out a while ago, entitled “The Facebooking of Our Sport.” Definitely worth a read.
6. I think we need to emphasize and showcase competition of the breeders (BBE Groups) at each show because the breeders are the reason we all show up to the dog shows! I also think the Grand Championship program needs to be tweaked to make it more competitive. Get parent clubs involved and let each designate X number of shows a year where at least one of your majors, at each level, has to be won. Call it a “special major weekend” for grand championship points—and, of course, there would have to be multiples of these each year across the country. This would encourage competition in the breeds and increase entries of the breed (classes and BOB) on those specific weekends. More opportunities to get majors competing against your own breed.
7. The creation of the AKC Canine College has been a great help to judges. There are many good-quality breed courses on it.
