Going to cover a dog show sounds like any random assignment for your average reporter on a Saturday. 
For me, however, is a different story. 

According to Islam, dogs are considered unclean.  Its mostly their saliva though. For example you can pet them, but you shouldn’t let dogs lick you or have you touch their nose…. eewwww… 
If there was a camera on me as I read my email that morning as to what my assignment would be, it would have been great footage. 

*ready… action!*
 
Imagine, as I transition from shock.. my face went from oh.. OMG… *mouth kind of hanging open * to…omg… staring at my email for like 30 seconds before I put my head down.

... and then recomposed myself, sat back up in my chair and came up with an action plan. 

* andd.. cut!* 
I wanted to make sure I would pray before I went, and that I could change later into clean clothes after the show in order to pray. 

If any dog licked me or touched me with its nose somehow… if I stepped in a puddle of drool (I dont know!), my clothes would then be considered unclean and I couldn’t pray in them.

I also decided I wouldn’t tell anyone that I had any issues with the assignment until after I got back.

The reason I made this decision is because there was nothing wrong.  Essentially didn’t have any issues, there was nothing Islamically inherently wrong with dogs or a dog show. Plus you’re talking about a place where the dogs are trained, calm and well under control. At the dog show, you barely heard any barking. I wish these nice dogs lived on my street. The dogs on my street… are something else. 
Anyway! I also didn’t want the situation to be like “ohh the Muslim girl can’t do that story…” or whatever. I’m sure people aren’t thinking like that, but its going to end up being like that. 

I like being challenged. If someone says I can’t or shouldn’t do a story, I’m more likely to go out and give it my best and prove everyone wrong. 

This is not the first time I did stories that I was uncomfortable with or I found morally wrong. Writing a newspiece about something I oppose doesn’t mean I agree with it. As a journalist, I’m the messenger in telling someone else’s story. Also as a journalist, I should also be able to accommodate to whatever situation that comes my way.

So you might be wondering… what would be a situation where I would absolutely not cover?

Probably if there was a story which required me to do a wine/alcohol/beer/pork tasting, that would be out of the question, or cover a concert inside a bar. 
Alcohol, wine, beer and pork are forbidden in Islam. Any practicing Muslim should not be consuming any of these. As for covering a concert inside a bar.. I’m going to break it down at this point. 

If you’re at a bar, obviously, there’s people drinking. Now in Islam, Muslims should not be in an environment where there is alcohol consumption. While I always try to go to restaurants where there is no drinking or at a time where alcohol is not served. At the very least I make sure no one at my table is drinking. 

In the second situation, imagine being at a concert, where people are dancing, getting rowdy and drinking. That’s a whole different story. Basically, without getting into the varying technical differences of opinion of dancing/music, in the end, if you mix dancing with drinking, you’re going to get an environment where a practicing Muslim would never want to be in.

In cases where there are specific situations like that, I would just say no. However, if the story was about the person giving the concert, I could meet with the person after the concert, or talk to people as they are leaving the concert. Or I could ask people to describe how something tasted. There are definitely ways around these unlikely specific situations.
Here’s the dog show story: http://www.inrich.com/cva/ric/search.apx.-content-articles-RTD-2008-06-22-0159.html