Obedience Could Be A PBS Documentary

Just got back from a four-day Obedience Camp with Pinch and Moto. As always it was perfectly wonderful, filled with lectures, discussions, and floor time to try out what we had just learned. All of us attendees listened with interest as Gary and Kathy spoke and the questions were frequent and lively.
There's been lots of discussion about the sport of Obedience dying but it sure wasn't apparent for those of us in the room those four days.
While it's been discussed ad nauseum on many lists about the hows and why's of bringing the sport back into the public eye to generate interest, we have to be honest here:

Obedience, to a non-obedience enthusiast, is boring to watch. Other doggie venues such as Agility and Flyball are thrilling to watch, and easy to understand. Obedience is highly technical and the fine points are simply lost to the public eye.

But wait! There are so many reality shows out there. As we were at camp, I began mentally putting together a mini-documentary about Obedience. The room was full of good character studies: there was a Novice A person with their first dog; another very accomplished OTCH handler with what is considered an Unlikely Breed to do well in Obedience; another who had not only switched to a new, bigger and entirely different breed; a newbie who had a talented dog and big dreams; and of course our wonderful teachers Gary and Kathy. Wouldn't it be fun to follow these people from this point forward - say the Novice A person's journey to their first time into the ring, and the others on their journey?

What makes Obedience so special? Here's why it is for me: virtually nothing the dog does in the ring comes by naturally to them. The level of technical effort involved in getting high scores requires a tremendous time commitment for the trainer and great effort from the dog. Which is why many of us are blubbering idiots when we do well. You cannot talk to your dog of bring treats into the ring. While performing you cannot even touch your dog. So why does the dog do it? Because of the bond you have established with them. Any dog with a title behind it has hundreds of hours of training, exciting highs, and some tears and dark moments too.

It is interesting to note in one of our groups discussions that the vast majority of us are quite detail-oriented. So much so that we keep spreadsheets on our dog's progress. So, are Obedience people the "nerds" of the dog world? Mind you, I think nerds are cool people and let's face it, nerds are pretty darned successful in the business sector.

So perhaps if we made it personal like a documentary and followed some dog-human teams in a cross-section of the country and various levels of proficiency, it might generate some interest to the public out there.

Whether it does or not, I sure had fun putting it together in my nighttime thoughts.