Don't know what a good pose is, or how to get it, well heres how you can find out how!

First what you need is to get the pet out, play with them and feed them, spray them once with the flea spray and the give them a really good brush all over, then take them to the playpen with nothing in there at all except for a box of their fav treats and a brush in the supply case.

First pick them up, they will spin round, when their feet look paralel, Drop them and start snapping pics by pressing the space bar, your dog may get frightened and hide but keep on going, press the space bar sort of once every 1-2 seconds so they don't get scared, after a while they will begin to puff their chest out, and hold their heads up, when they turn and face forward with their eyes looking at you, save that picture praise them and give them one treat, do this until they get it almost perfect. Then they will learn to love doing great poses. Hope this has helped you, I have added an animation below of Solstice performing a show pose, it took a while to get the last pic, try not to get impatient with your dogz if they run off just pick them up and start again. (P.s. this is the same dog in all the pics he is texed with a large furfile, meaning he changes pattern.)
Some breeds like the poodle and siamese pose differently, Use the same process but watch out for the poses that are below the animations instead of the usual one.
With Catz its pretty much the same process, though they do a different pose.

Dogz show pose animation. Catz show pose animation.



example show pose.
Now not saying this pose is perfect, but it got him to SGCH, (6 BIS and 1 first) So it works well for the example pose.
To see if the head is high enough, a line is drawn from the eyes to the tip of the nose, the head height varies in different breeds but generaly the top of the ears should be roughly parallel with the eyes, the shoulders and rump should be straight with a gentle dip in the back, the feet should be alligned and you should only be able to see 2 legs the chest in nicely puffed out so that you can draw a circle inside it. he has a proud look in his eyes and the tail is very nicely curved.

example of a catz pose.
This is a general catz pose, this breed being the Russian blue. The head should be fully facing the front, with both ears and eyes being seen clearly. The back should be straight, the tail either straight or curved in. The front feet placed together and the back feet spread apart. with a gap in between them. The 'puffy' breeds like persians and especially c. persians will have little or no gap as it is covered by their puffy-ness.


Example poses
Here you can see example poses for various breeds, including weaknesses. This also shows the pose types we accept in our shows. Mouse over for info.
A mixed bred, this doubles as a sheepy pose too. See how their chest being puffed is difficult to see A puppy lab, fairly hard as they look underdeveloped, but they pose well. An adult lab, labs don't like to line up their feet but their head and body shape is nice, this lab is an SGCH A very good SGCH scottie pose. They are good compact show dogs as puppies, but as adults they don't seem to have the same appeal. A hexed dali, doing a standard pose, they only look good doing this as puppies, but when they get it right they get it right. Ch. A SGCH standard puppy pose, mixed breeds have the advantage of being unique looking, good when a judge faces a difficult decision. A good adult mixie, mixies have the disadvantage of not having odd body shapes, though ari here is fine. A good mutt pose, mutts don't do so well in shows because of their strange body shape and their legs are not straight. A lab in a standard pose, some sites don't allow petz to face this way round, don't know why, but we do. A good example of a puppy dali pose, the only difference is that the head faces forward An adult dali pose, see how regal they look, they have triangular heads, nicely shaped bodies and long straight legs, making them ideal showers. Here we have the poodle pose we accept they should look, elegant and relaxed, but intelligent, not sleepy or snobby. Regal. Eyes open with only one seen tail out and straight, not at an angle. Not many sites accept poodles, but we do. Not really a show pose, this is called a trot and lots of sites hold shows just for trotters. We don't but put it here as an example. An adult tabby in a good pose. Tabbies tend to angle their heads :-) cos they are adorable, that's why, lol. biased, me? A tabby kitten, aren't they adorable. They don't curve their tails in at this age. A maine coon, they make good showers, this cat has a bob tail, they don't often curve their tails in. A pretty persian pose. They have the advantage of being cute and fluffy but this often stops the gap between their feet from showing, putting them at a big disadvantage with judges who don't own one One of the siamese poses we accept, like the poodle, they should be relaxed but attentive, think of a cat sunning itself on a windowsill. Tail straight, head forward eyes open head high, but not too much. Another type of siam pose stretching with front foot together, back feet as far apart as poss. eyes open alert and proud. A variation on the stretch pose. The cat is facing forward and is very proud. Any breed can do this in our shows.

Hope this has been helpful to you. ~ Dee


Oh, BTW. The points awarded in most shows are:
BIS (Best in show): 5 pts.
1st : 4 pts.
2nd: 3 pts.
3rd: 2 pts.
hm (honourable mention): 1pt.
Some sites offer a judges favourite or some like award that can be any amount of points or just an award.

...And the titles you can gain are: *drum roll*
RC (reserved champion) = minimun of 5 show points.
Ch (champion) = minimun of 10 show points.
GCh (Grand champion) = minimun of 15 show points.
MGCh (Master Grand Champion) = minimun of 20 show points.
SGCH (Supreme grand champion) = minimun of 30 show points.
Most people retire petz once they reach SGCH to give other petz a chance or to show their other petz. sometimes sites will hold a champions show just for SGCH's. But I have seen on some sites the title of UGCH which is ultimate grand champion but you need 50 points to get there. No easy task.