To Show or Not to Show?

We attended our first confirmation class on Tuesday! This was rather unexpected.... The breeder contacted me Tuesday afternoon asking us to attend just a few hours later. We have been up in the air about showing Rams.... but I agreed to bring him to the class anyways. (I honestly thought we were just watching for social purposes, she has invited us for this reason in the past). When we got there, she tossed us in the ring with the others! Oh man oh man!! I wasn't as embarrassed as I thought I would be luckily, haha. The treats she gave us must have been much better than what I have at home because he actually paid attention to me for them. :Sigh of relief:

We had been up in the air about showing for a few reasons:

1) What are the financial and time commitments necessary to show? Can we meet these commitments?

2) There are precautions in having an un-fixed male dog...

2.5) We are also co-owners with the breeder until he is neutered. This isn't really a problem but does that cause complications if we decide to move?

3) Is doing the confirmation classes AND obedience too much on him? We also wanted to try out agility and tracking in the future and don't want to become those parents who over book their child :-)

4) Froofie (spelling?) hair cuts! Ramsey is already on the 'sissy' side of things, having a 'froofie' haircut might not help (This is obviously the most important reasons to not wanting to show him.... just kidding!) However, his neck hair has finally grown so that he doesn't look like a dinosaur and she mentioned him needing a hair cut.

This is from one of my original posts, you can surely see... we got a baby dinosaur instead of a puppy! A fluffy, tiny headed, dinosaur. "Dinosaur Puppy on Day 1"

I'm also concerned that showing will interfere with Coaching. I coach Track & Field and we travel to meets most weekends during the season. I'm assuming that dog shows too are on weekends. We will see. Ramsey really did seem to enjoy himself at the class though. If it's something he enjoys doing, I'm more willing.

There is a lot to think about and I don't think it's a black and white yes or no decision to make right now. We'll see how things progress. I'd love to hear from some people who do show their dogs to find out what the commitments are and try to get some of my questions answered!

One thing I do know is that Ramsey has been feeling a little cocky since class and is often caught staring at himself in reflections!!

"Wow am I handsome!"