I strapped myself into an aisle seat of a plane headed for Chicago this morning. A couple of bumpy hours later my wife and I landed at O’Hare airport and spent much of the day wandering from one Starbucks to another until we boarded a flight to Munich. As I write, I am strapped into yet another aisle seat on yet another plane. This one is bigger. And so are the bumps. So in an effort to forget my fears during this white-knuckle flight, I figured I’d whip out the laptop and update my blog.

Munich is not our final destination today. We’re actually heading to Madrid, via Munich. We’re on our way to photograph several gundog breeds native to Spain. On Saturday we will visit with Carlos Contera, a renowned breeder of Spanish Double Nosed Pointers for a photo shoot of his dogs in action. On Sunday, we are scheduled to meet with breeders of Perdiguero de Burgos, another Spanish pointing breed, similar to the Bracco Italiano. On Monday we head to Majorca to photograph a gundog breed that is only found on that island. It is called the Ca Mé Mallorqui. I think the first thing I'm going to do when I get there is to ask the club members how to pronounce Ca Mé Mallorqui!

After Mallorca, we head to Portugal, after that, Italy, France, Holland and Germany. So stay tuned for updates, photos and more tales from the aisle seat.

Now, where’s that barf-bag?

In it, blogger Patrick Burns lays out a scathing indictment of modern dog breeding practices that are still based on failed genetic theories of the 19th century. He pulls no punches, even going so far as to point out the rather high inbreeding co-efficient in the offspring of Charles Darwin himself. Yet he is careful not to simply accuse dog show enthusiasts of stupidity or deliberate wrong-doing, saying:

" Let me hasten to say that the Kennel Club is not filled with evil people intent on doing harm to dogs. It is, in fact, filled with regular people who are different from the rest of the world only in the degree (and the way) they seek ego-gratification and are status-seeking."

And I agree. Most of the show people I've met are indeed very nice folk. I am sure that they really do care for their dogs and work hard at their "sport". They seem to have good intentions and truly believe that they are "improving" the breed, one dog show at a time. However, when it comes to breeds of dogs whose entire genetic code is supposed to be hardwired for the hunt, putting them in the hands of show breeders is like selecting marines based on their performance in ballet school.

Ballet school is not about training young men to storm a beach and dogs shows are not about dogs. Burns sums it up nicely: "This last point is import: the Kennel Club is not primarily about dogs. Dogs do not care about ribbons, pedigrees, titles, and points. These are human obsessions. The reason a human will drive several hundred miles and stand around all day waiting for 10 minutes in the ring is not because of the dog, but because the human needs that ribbon, that title, and that little bit of extra status that comes from a win."