I think one reason there aren't competitive shows yet is simply the amount of work and orginization that would be involved. Take cornsnakes for example.... (beyond say, if some small herp show decided to do a cornsnake show - I mean, who would care if your snake came from the Dirtsville county champion cornsnake, the show judge being farmer Bob who just thought it was 'purty').
1st, you need well defined standards of color, pattern, and type. As an example, a normal amel 'standard' might look something like this:
Color and Pattern: Saddles should be red, borders between saddles and ground color should be thick and white in coloration, ground color should be predominantly orange. Eye color red. Saddles should be evenly spaced and seperated from one another. Faults: Uneven or 'running together' markings. Disqualifiers: Black present on any part.
Then of course, there's orange amels, and sunglows, and reverse okeetees, which would presumably all be in classes of there own... as well as zigzag amels, motley amels, striped amels....
And this would have to be done for every single morph and variation (though pattern variation standards could be included within each main class).
There's also body type standards.... which would be harder to do, and you'd probably need at least 2 types - one for the 'cobbier' more compact corns, and one for the more slender corns.
Then, you need to get everyone to AGREE to the standards! If farmer Bob is the guy setting the standards, and thinks an amel should be bright yellow and green, well, no one will care. For cornsnakes, basically that would likely mean getting the "Big 3" (Rich, Don, and Kathy) to agree to a set of standards... because at least for north america, what they are doing pretty much seems to be what the cornsnake world in general is doing (beside which, they've originated many of the morphs).
Then, you need to get the standards out there and meaningful... one thing is, who's standards are they? In the dog world, there's the american kennel club... cornsnakes would need something similar (I'd imagine though, that it could go north america wide). So there's all the fun of organizing a cornsnake club, and getting people to join (if Farmer Bob makes a corns'r'us club, will anyone care? probably not)... which would again need some of the big name people as members (at least) to get any sort of respect or presence. THEN, you get to organize shows, and find someone qualified to judge! Who would be a logical choice? Well, Rich or Kathy or Don... who are all very busy people, and, what if they wanted to show too? They couldn't judge then.
And also, you have to keep records and register peoples snakes... there's an organizational nightmare!
Beyond all that, imagine how the world of corns would change - prices would be dependent on the ancestry of an animal (normal, het amel, offspring of 2 time Corn Club of North America grand champion "Princess", $300) as well as the morph. Genetics would be easier to trace simply because of better record keeping among all registered animals. There would be more breeding for body type, and there could be some detrimental breeding eventually as well (peke faced persians come to mind in the cat world). Etc. Etc.
I definitely think it would be interesting... I'd really like to see it happen... but I think it's a long time off. Really, the first step would be someone creating some good, well defined standards that most people could agree on, and that could eventually be the basis for shows and an official organization. Even an unofficial club based around some standards would be a good start... but someone would have to do it, and the "big, important"
people would have to take an interest.
My ramble for the month...
Dawn
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