# Conformation and obedience?



## LJack (Aug 10, 2012)

I always do puppy obedience classes with my puppies and conformation is my primary discipline. You just have to mindful to train both. A few things I do tha I think helps is I work obedience on either a flat buckle collar or a metal choke. For Conformation, I use a nylon choke. This way the “uniform” helps the dog know what is expected. Also teach your puppy to stand. Most obedience basics classes focus in on sit first and stand comes later. Don’t wait, start teaching stand at the same time as sit. Personally, I love to teach my dogs “catch” so they can grab thrown treats out of the air. I find it is a helpful tool in the Conformation ring.


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## DevWind (Nov 7, 2016)

LJack said:


> I always do puppy obedience classes with my puppies and conformation is my primary discipline. You just have to mindful to train both. A few things I do tha I think helps is I work obedience on either a flat buckle collar or a metal choke. For Conformation, I use a nylon choke. This way the “uniform” helps the dog know what is expected. Also teach your puppy to stand. Most obedience basics classes focus in on sit first and stand comes later. Don’t wait, start teaching stand at the same time as sit. Personally, I love to teach my dogs “catch” so they can grab thrown treats out of the air. I find it is a helpful tool in the Conformation ring.


I love the “work clothes” idea. I tried conformation. It just not our cup of tea. Pilot does his best heel work in the conformation ring!I have conformation, obedience, agility and field work clothes. Yes, that’s a lot of equipment but I feel like it tells the dog what they are expected to do before we hit the ring. I never train in their everyday collars. I never ask for competition quality work in their home clothes and never allow silliness in work clothes.


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## hotel4dogs (Sep 29, 2008)

It's no problem at all. We did both, often showing in both conformation and high level obedience at the same show.
Like others have said, use a different type of collar for each. Also, I assigned a command to gaiting around the conformation ring (ours was, "let's go buddy!") which meant he was to head out ahead of me. It probably wasn't necessary.
We trained and/or showed in many venues at once, including conformation, obedience, agility and field. Our field trainer likes to say that, if someone tells you it shouldn't be done they are referring to their limitations, not the dog's!
Dogs are smart. They figure it out pretty quickly.


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## Megora (Jun 7, 2010)

One of the things that everyone seems to mention are the sits. 

But like I noticed BIG TIME with my pup who has never done any handling classes and is a smart little obedience guy (he's already doing off leash heeling at home and away, drop on recalls, position changes, etc).... 

Going into the conformation ring with him, he thought we were working. So that was him doing his VERY BEST heads up heeling. And it hog tied me the first couple shows because I was literally trying to push him forward to get him looking ahead and he wanted to look up at me and was working his heart out. Dear 6 month pup. <B

A pro handler finally took pity on me after the second show and gave me a tip for leash handling which helped - but I could still see in the 3rd show that he needed handling classes to learn the difference in what he's supposed to do in conformation vs obedience. 

We don't show again until April - so hopefully cold weather blows out of here (everything is getting cancelled because of the sub zero temps) and we can do a couple drop ins. 

Would I do it any other way? NO!  

There's quite a few people I know of who have done both conformation and higher level obedience. The dogs DO learn the difference between the two - and handling is the key.

The funny thing was the judge at the first show is an obedience judge (a very pleasant one) and she was chuckling over the heeling.


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## puddles everywhere (May 13, 2016)

Both my girls have limited registration... make sure the breeder is on board with conformation so you have full registration. After all the main reason for doing conformation is when breeding your pup is in your future.


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## ChrisFromOC (Sep 19, 2018)

puddles everywhere said:


> Both my girls have limited registration... make sure the breeder is on board with conformation so you have full registration. After all the main reason for doing conformation is when breeding your pup is in your future.


Thanks everyone. Our breeder would like us to show our new guy for sure. We are open to learning a bit more about this as long as we can continue to do the “normal” things to ensure that our guy is a good pet.


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