Dog and Cat Shows, Why?

Not sure about cats, but the whole point of dog shows is to evaluate the dogs' conformation in the hopes they're correct enough to be bred.

A lot of the time working dogs will be left intact also, at least at first--why spay/neuter a 4 month old puppy and then beat yourself for it later when you've got an excellent working dog?

You CAN enter spayed/neutered dogs into working events, and naturally they can work in real-life situations as well. But while conformation is fun for some people, it's really not practical to do unless you plan to breed the dog, whereas a working dog is an asset all of the time.

Personally, I'm more of a "working dog" fanatic..but I see the place of conformation as long as it doesn't ruin a breed's drive in the process...too common nowadays.

Dogs need to remain intact for several reasons. One is that if a (male) dog is fixed then there's no easy way to see if his testicles had/have descended properly. That's one trait that most people don't want passed along as it can cause issues.

The other should be obvious: if you have a Best in Show animal then it would be silly not to try and breed it to further improve the lines according to the Kennel Club standards.

Not only that but if you finish your dog (Champion) then you can also sell the puppies for more since they hopefully come from better stock than the average "hey let's put two dogs together" crowd. But ultimately a good breeder will only produce animals to further improve the line and not care about turning a profit.

As for cat shows, I'm sorry, I haven't read anything on them before.

Conformation is for evaluating BREEDING STOCK!!!

Castrated/spayed animals can't reproduce.

Altered dogs may compete in Performance events.

Cats can be titled intact=Champion=,then altered & titled to "Premier",even Grand Premier,as I recall ....silly but nobody asked me.

bog shows are best of breed shows. They are showing off how great the dogs' characteristics are for his breed, traits that they want passed on...