Here's the problem with that... gatekeeping, absolutely, and here's why... too many people want that puppy on a whim right now. Across all breeds. And if they can get one from someone who has a stable (for want of a better word) of bitches that are bred every cycle until they can no longer produce, so be it. Puppy Mills. A clean way of saying 'indiscriminate breeding, without regard to strengths and weaknesses in a given bloodline, without regard to what reinforcement of certain genes can do to a dog. Bringing home, unwittingly, a puppy infected with parvo because the person running the mill can't be bothered to vax their dogs. Hence my statement, if you aren't in this to preserve your breed, and your heart is wedded to having a purebred, contact a breed-specific rescue. I stand by that.
I have nothing against non-conformation events. If I'm showing a dog, or a bitch nowhere near being in season, I love setting up where I can see the obedience trials going on. Those dogs amaze me. Those owners... props to them, because that takes lots of time working with that dog! If I'm showing a bitch in season, I won't even walk over to watch. They don't need that.
I love the outdoor events, and every time I see that a 'pet Chow has added another title to her collection, I want to weep with joy. When I see a Grand Champion adding those same titles, my jaw drops.
I'm focused on conformation because of some physical limitations. It is what it is. There was one show that saw me handling a Pyr bitch for a friend. OMG, it was like a weightless cloud on the end of that lead! There are a number of breeds I will try to fit in to watch. Oddly enough, border collies and Aussies are in that group. Pyrs, Xolo, sighthounds, Bernese, Tibetan Mastiffs. I suspect I'd be a judge with a 'thing' for movement, because the sighthounds are mesmerising. I love dogs that can still do what they were bred to do. My black bitch has a half-brother who completed his pulling title after he finished conformation. Smooth red boy, a chonk of muscle with four legs and a brain, pulled 10 times his weight and then some. Most American Cockers can no more hunt than I could birth a flying porcupine.
A few decades back, there seems to have been a split in the Chow world. Some people decided that overdone dogs that resembled puppies as adults, were desirable. And they got a bit out of hand with it. We had seriously overdone heads, which brought entropion into the mix. Heavy, cloddy specimens who you would expect to have trouble getting around the ring, hip dysplasia lurking around every corner, fragile cruciates everywhere. Our life spens went from a time when 16y was pretty routine, to 9-11 if you were lucky. My first Chow, a pet, was 13y8m when she died. Her successor, a black male, was 9. NINE. His mother was barely ten. Her greatx3 granddaughter, my first foundation bitch, left us in March 2019,