08/01/2026
We don't usually do this.
But a friend heading to her national specialty this week expressed her concern to us. She was unraveling from jitters even before she packed the car, this in spite of having a promising dog on a roll (or maybe because of it). She urged us to share a piece we wrote years ago for Dogs in Review, and though it's not usually how we roll on these pages, if it helps someone, we're good with it. We named it "Performance Anxiety in the Ring," and if you show your dog, we hope you share your own way of combatting nerves in the comments section.
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The Best in Show ring contained seven marvelous dogs handled by seven experienced handlers, but one, a friend, was in trouble. She was sweaty and grim-faced, and her intensity was throwing her off her game. This was a new and unexpected look for a person who had as many Best in Show rosettes at home as I had fingers and toes. She wasn't ill, I later learned; she was beset with nerves.
Performance anxiety could be called "The Great Leveler," the one thing that can undo a nervous competitor with a good dog while giving the advantage to a calmer handler with a weaker entry. As my friend proved, it can strike the most seasoned handler — but why?
Newcomers to the sport are often intimidated by their professional counterparts in the ring. What they see are seasoned handlers used to being scrutinized, while for many "newbies," the breed ring is the only time they're required to "perform" in public. In the eyes of an awe-struck beginner, pros have the great dogs, are ring savvy, comfortable with judges, and seem immune to nervousness. But is this view of the expert handler always accurate?
Research gives us insights into the "science of winning and losing," some of it gleaned from, of all things, ballroom dancing, which has more parallels to showing a dog than one might think. In one study, competitive dancers were divided into three groups sorted by their level of experience. Dancers who'd been in fewer than 80 competitions were in one group, while dancers who had competed more than 80 times were in another. The third group was comprised of dancers who had been in more than 173 competitions.
Saliva extracted from sponges the dancers chewed on measured cortisol and adrenocorticotropic hormones, and the biochemistry indicated that intense stress reaction was the same across the board regardless of experience: The competitors didn't habituate to being judged no matter how long they'd been competing. Scientists learned from this and other similar experiments that everyone has stress response, but it's how a competitor interprets the stress that can put a beginner with a good dog on equal footing with a pro also handling a good dog.
When it comes to how we react to stress, not everything is in our control. Some researchers have suggested that each of us is either a "worrier" or a "warrior" as determined by the
dopamine in our bodies, and how efficiently our enzymes manage excess levels of it. Volumes of self-help books have been written about how to cope with performance anxiety, including how to handle stress if we are a "worrier" or a "warrior."
What I find more interesting, however, is that much about winning and losing in a show ring can be learned by studying other sports. Researchers know from studying NASCAR races, for example, that the more frequently people compete against the same field of competitors, the lower the psychological value of bragging rights are from having won that race. This could explain why most professional handlers are unfazed in a Group or Best in Show ring: It's just another day at the office for them, and their "co-workers" (other handlers) are people they expect to see. This can change, however, when the prize (or the particular dog show) has a high emotional value to the competitor.
The ring in which my friend was competing was on the floor of Madison Square Garden, and the show was Westminster, arguably the Super Bowl of dog shows in this country. She later said (only half jokingly, I think) that had the floor been anything other than the famous green carpet of Westminster, she might have fared better and avoided the "Oh my God, I'm in Best in Show at Westminster!" moment. Instead, the green carpeting evoked in her a visceral reaction to the significance of her surroundings, and turned the spectators, her friends among them (and normally a part of competition that always "juiced her up"), into a crowd of expert evaluators there to judge her without mercy. A novice in the same position might have viewed having friends in the audience as a supportive comfort, but for some expert handlers, having friends at an important show only increases their sense of having high expectations that are harder to meet. High expectations can force a competitor to think too much rather than rely on "going through the motions," a level of predictability that a dog needs from its handler. Trying too hard can sabotage the handler and the dog.
I love the fact that ours is one of the few sports in which a beginner can compete with experts, but I vividly recall my own days as a clueless novice, and that compels me to offer encouragement to the "newbies" reading this. Seasoned handlers tend to have better dogs because they've learned how to evaluate them. Because of this, these handlers also know how to accentuate their dog's attributes while minimizing faults. Experienced handlers know how to encounter different scenarios in the ring because they've handled long enough to have encountered, and overcome, most of them before. That said, and with all other things being equal, they don't always win the war of nerves, and that is a battle a novice can win. 🔹🔹🔹
We conclude with one of our own favorite strategies in a show ring. Slow down! Nerves tend to make us move too fast. If you remind yourself to move in "slow motion" when not gaiting your dog, you'll probably actually move at normal speed.
Photo by Richard Sheppard
