HSDAA Championships
As an independent organization with its own registry and a mission of preserving, protecting, and responsibly promoting the Havana Silk Dog, the HSDAA awards both Championships and Companion Dog Championships to both encourage and reward the pursuit of excellence in individual breeding programs.
The “Companion Dog Championship concept” appears to be unique to the HSDAA.
It is based on the understanding that the true measure of a breed’s overall condition is rarely if ever determined by the quality of its show dogs, but rather by the quality of the much larger number of companion dogs being produced and placed in pet homes each year. Assessing breed type and soundness in these animals, and rewarding breeders for producing consistent quality in their companions as well as their show stock, should be a priority for every breed.
Showing your dog under a system devoid of the cutthroat “last-dog-defeated” competition of the modern American dog show, can be a rewarding weekend hobby and a lot of fun, and the HSDAA does not want to limit that fun to just breeders.
Under the HSDAA system, dogs accumulate championship points not by merely having been determined to be “the best dog entered on the day” ( a method which unfortunately allows for the rewarding of mediocrity), but as a positive result of the individual evaluation of each dog against the standard itself.
Each dog entered receives a written evaluation by the judge on a standardized form, and all dogs receiving a qualifying score on the day are granted a pre-assigned number of points toward their respective championships based upon their individual scores. (Under this system, a judge may, in a single class displaying unusual depth of quality, find multiple dogs worthy of major championship points and award them as he finds them, with no consideration as to gender.)
Placement ribbons are awarded for each class after the class has been judged, and class winners are subsequently eligible to compete for Winners Dog and Winners Bitch, which then join the champions to compete for Best of Breed, Best of Opposite Sex, Best of Winners, and Awards of Merit.
The Rules and Procedures for HSDAA Shows and Championships are on the next page, Show Rules and Procedure.