What a weekend we've just had. I need a weekend to recuperate from my weekend!
First off, let me state that I didn't have a camera in hand at all, all weekend. Very strange for me! I am relying on the photos of others to chronical the weekend's events. Since I was there solo Friday, there are no photos. Towards the end you will find pictures along with the story.
It all started on Thursday evening. I was supposed to leave home by 6pm but at 6:30, I was still at the office frantically trying to get things wrapped up so I wouldn't feel guilty about taking Friday off.
I so hate being behind schedule - there's nothing worse than feeling rushed & stressed - especially at the beginning of what is going to be a very intense, stressful experience on it's own.
I finally got Monty, Quinn, myself and the stuff I would need until Friday night loaded in the PT (this is the first and ONLY time the dogs have/will ever ride in the PT) (EVER) and we were on the road around 7:00 to head to Woodstock. The drive was good - the GPS made the trip feel more or less effortless. So nice not to have to think ahead when you're driving. You can deal with what's going on around you and kind of take a little time to yourself. Some good tunes, flowing traffic...it was a good trip for the most part.
On the far side of Toronto, I knew I was coming into some bad weather. It was about 8:30pm and I had the most amazing sunset on my right, ribbons of rain in the distance ahead and bruised purple-black clouds alive with lightening to my left. When I did finally get into the rain, it was horrible but thankfully short-lived. By the time I arrived in Woodstock around 9:15pm, the rain had passed and it was a lovely night.
I unloaded the dogs and our things and settled into our room for what I hoped would be a restful night's sleep.
Alas, it was not to be. Monty has spent a fair bit of time in hotel rooms in his 9 years so not much phases him, but Quinn, on the other hand, hasn't had as much travel time. She barked at EVERY little noise right through the night. And I'm not talking just a little "woof" this was an all out BARKBARKBARKBARKBARKBARK!!! I was so tired and frustrated by morning... I had ordered a wake up call at 5:30am which turned out to be unnecessary as I was already up, showered and dressed waiting for breakfast to start at 6.
I left the dogs in the room while I went for breakfast then came back to collect Quinn to take her to the show grounds for 8am.
Monty was not entered in anything on Friday so he stayed in the room all day and caught up on his beauty sleep.
I really enjoy competing at the Woodstock show, which is hosted by the Oxford County Kennel Club. This is billed as Ontario's largest outdoor show and let me tell you, there are more dogs there than I would care to shake a stick at (probably not a good idea at a dog show anyways!).
It's especially nice when it's a specialty to see all of the elkhounds in attendance. For a rare breed, to see 50 or more of them in one place is almost mind boggling. The conformation dogs are gorgeous - gleaming silver and black coats, soft as cotton - prancing at the end of dental floss thin show leads.
I registered for Open A obedience, got my armband (#50) and waited for our turn.
I warmed Quinn up a little. Practicing with her dumb bell - which she hates. I knew the first few trials would be difficult and wasn't expecting to accomplish much. Out of the 6 trials we were entered in over the course of the weekend, I was hoping for 3 qualifying scores.
At about 9:30, they finally got to my class, we were the only entry in Open A. It was as I expected. Nothing to write home about.
In CKC Obedience, a perfect score is 200. Every dog and handler enters the ring with 200 and points are deducted for each error. In order to receive a "leg", a minimum score of 170 is required. Anything above 170 is a qualifying score and a "leg" towards your title is earned. 3 legs are required for a title under at least 2 different judges.
If I remember correctly, our score in the first trial was 134. Again, this was expected. I wanted to use the 2 trials on Friday to judge where I needed to work with her to get things polished for Saturday and Sunday's trials.
I had about 45 minutes between that trial and her second trial, during which I took her off the grounds and practiced on the problem areas. Her heeling was bad, her figure 8 was bad, she went around the high jump...so much work to do!!
In the second trial, her score was about the same, but interestingly (and this made things so much harder for me) the things she screwed up on in the first trial, were ok this time. The things she did right the first time, she screwed up this time!! Boy, did I have my work cut out for me!
We were done at the show site for the day around 11:30 on Friday so we went back to the hotel where I hoped to catch a nap before the NECC Wine & Cheese reception at 4. I did manage to doze a couple of times, but because I was also in charge of the silent auction at the banquet Saturday, I had people coming to the room to drop off late donations. At 3 I gave up hope of any real sleep and got changed for the reception.
Once at the reception, I was pleasantly surprised to see Monty's Breeders there earlier than I had expected them. Maria & Jan are retired from breeding and showing elkhounds, but Jan graciously agreed to show Monty in conformation for me so I was anxious for them to all get together so that Monty would be comfortable with them when it came time to show.
You have to understand something about this relationship between Monty and his breeders. I can't explain why this is the way it is and it blows my mind, quite frankly. We got Monty when he was 12 weeks old. 4 weeks older than when most puppies go to their new homes. He had already been sold, but the people that bought him were transferred overseas and couldn't take him, so he was back at the breeders all alone. His dam had already gone back to the states to her owner so here he was in this HUGE pen all alone. How could we not fall in love with him and take him home? Point of this is, he spent the most impressionable bonding time with the breeders and not with us (kind of unfortunate, really), but as a result, he remembers them to this day and goes absolutely NUTS whenever he sees or hears them, so I wanted to ensure he got to spend as much time with them as possible to desensitize him to them. I took Maria & Jan back to the room and Monty did something he's never done...
I let Monty out of the crate and yes, he was being a stupid silly ass, but Jan sat down on the corner of the bed and Monty all but crawled up into his lap - but it was gentle and slow - not like he normally would have done it - full speed ahead consequences be damned! It very nice to see that.
We took him out to the parking lot to let Jan take him around a few times and figure out what pace would be best for him. After dropping Monty back off in the room with Quinn we returned to the wine and cheese reception. I took bidder registrations for the auction over the course of the evening and returned to my room at 8:30 to catalogue the newly received items. Darryl arrived around 9:30 and we had supper and then he helped me work on the auction stuff until midnight. The whole time we were in the room, Quinn was trying to sleep but we were having none of that. She wasn't going to sleep until we were ready to sleep! We wanted that mouthpiece good and tired in hopes that we would all get to sleep through the night. Thankfully, it worked for the most part. She barked once at about 2:30am but otherwise we all slept through until 6.
"Quinn HEEL!"
Again we were in the ring around 8:30 Saturday morning and again we failed to qualify. Now the pressure was REALLY on. Only 3 trials left in the weekend and 3 qualifying scores needed. This one in particular frustrated me as she was SOOOO close to qualifying. She rapped the broad jump with her back feet and then something happened on her long sit - I don't know what it was as I didn't see it (in Open obedience for the long group exercises, the handlers have to go out of sight). But she got a 0 on that exercise.
"Call your dog!"
FINALLY in her second attempt on Saturday, we had success. Everything gelled and she got her first qualifying score and first Open leg!! It was touch and go on the retrieve over the high jump. She went out on the first command and picked up the dumb bell (yay!) then started to come around the right side of the jump (OH NO!) but with less than a foot to spare, she changed course and came over the jump to me (HOORAY!). My heart was in my throat at that point because up until then, she had been doing FANTASTIC.
Final score on that one 185. This trial, although only the 4th of the weekend, was pivotal for us. The NECC was offering an award for high scoring Norwegian Elkhound in obedience, but in order to win that, we had to qualify!! So by getting 185 in Saturday's #4 trial, we also won that award, which was really nice. It was presented to us by the Norwegian Specialty Judge at the end of the conformation shows.
The long 3 minute down with handler (Me!) out of sight!
By the time I came back to the ring, she'd made herself quite comfy - note the hind leg...
"Return to your dogs."
"Exercise finished!"
Once Quinn and I finished in the obedience ring, we had enough time to watch Jan show Monty in the sexually altered conformation class, which he won by default, being the only entry. Still and all, I will take that - this was a once in a lifetime chance for him. We had always planned to show him from the time we first got him, but for a variety of reasons there's no need to go into here, it didn't happen. Rarely are classes offered for neutered/spayed dogs, so when I heard they were going to be offering a class here, I thought "Why not?". Then to find out it would be judged by Ralph Campbell from Norway... well, that's not to be missed! The icing on the top was Monty's breeder agreeing to handle him in the show ring. So another mittful of ribbons and a small trophy for him. Saturday was turning out to be a very good day!
Monty says "Do I hafta go with them, Mom?"
Judge Ralph Campbell, Monty & Jan VanDyck
L-R Judge Ralph Campbell, Barbara Innes, myself & Quinn
Quinn getting some lovin' from Norwegian Judge Ralph Campbell.
Darryl, my mom, Jane & myself we in charge of the silent auction at the banquet for Saturday evening and we were opening up the bidding at 3pm on Saturday afternoon. By the time we were finished at the show grounds, it was already 1:30, so we flew back to the hotel to start packing things up to take the the banquet hall. Most of the items were already on a luggage trolley ready to go from the night before, so that saved a lot of time, but we were still very rushed. So much so that none of us had changed or cleaned up before people started to arrive for the auction. We took turns going back to the hotel room to get cleaned up before the dinner started at 5.
I worked right through at the table on paperwork trying to keep ahead of things until I had to stop and get something to eat before they started putting everything away. What a mad rush the whole evening was!!
It was a pleasant surprise to be acknowledged in the speeches for our accomplishment in the obedience ring earlier in the day.
At the NECC Banquet. L-R Jan Van Dyck, Darryl Kennedy, Dominique Merciruo (at the auction table in the background), Me, not sure, Maria Van Dyck in the pink, not sure, not sure, Jane Mackay seated at the table.
Things with the auction really started to heat up around 8pm with bidding on some items going fast and furious (just what we wanted to see!). At 8:30, we shut the auction down so we could sort through everything and let people pick up and pay for their items before it got too late. We had a few glitches in things, and upset one or two people, but we did the best we could under crazy circumstances. Trust me, things will be done differently in the future should we do a silent auction again!!
L-R Donna Weeks (standing), Darryl Kennedy aka "The Bean Counter" (seated), Jane Mackay, me, Dee Queen.
By 11, we had all but a couple of items picked up, so we packed up and headed back to the room... at which time we decided that it was actually time for a drink at the bar before sorting though the money. So back we all went and just chilled for a half an hour and talked about how the weekend had gone thus far.
Back at the room, we counted money until the week hours, finally collapsing into bed around 3am. Mom & Jane were still up past that until I don't know when...but I was asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow and didn't stir until the alarm went off at 6am. *GROAN*
Breakfast and coffee taken care of, it was off to the show grounds for day #3. 2 trials left and 2 legs needed. The odds sounded pretty good to me, after her performance on Saturday, I was cautiously optimistic.
She was on FIRE in her first trial Sunday morning!! Still lagging a little in the heeling. She scared me half to death on the retrieve on flat when she ran out and stood over her dumb bell and took a good minute to check out the scenery at the other side of the ring - not sniffing - just casually looking around - before finally picking it up and bringing it back to me. *WHEW*!
Another qualifying score of 191 1/2!!
I had spent some time talking to Ralph Campbell on Saturday about obedience and he seemed to take quite a shine to Quinn and asked me when we were in the ring on Sunday as he wanted to watch. He saw the tail end of this stellar performance and stayed to watch her second run of the day, which wasn't as good. She was very distracted and failed to qualify. I spoke with Ralph after outside the ring and we compared how obedience is done in Norway vs here and he was very surprised that we would do 2 trials in one day, let alone 6 in 3. He thought she did very well considering such a demand in a strange place with so many distractions.
Well, that is the weekend in a ginormous nutshell. I'm now trying to find another show close to us to enter for that last elusive leg...
L-R Paula Kennedy, Monty, Quinn & Darryl Kennedy.
As always, Quinn proved to be exceptionally photogenic...
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)