It’s been a tough three years for Carol. Her mom’s final year and passing, and then three foot surgeries that took literally a year to fully recover from; well, things like that would slow me down too. So it was with some celebration and a little apprehension that we took off for something we haven’t done in almost three years: a dog show.
We rolled into the Terry-All Kennel Club Dog Show up in Brighton, Colorado on Friday afternoon. Dog shows require a sort of “home base” where you can set up a grooming table and get the contestants in shape for the show ring. Grooming space can be either paid or unpaid. At the Adams County fairgrounds, the difference between paid and free grooming space is whether or not you have walls. Unpaid grooming space is in the cattle pens, which are just that: A roofed area divided into pens by pipe railings. Paid grooming space gets you walls, in an arena building used for showing and auctioning cattle.
What you don’t get either way is a floor. This is cattle country. You get good Colorado brown dirt, liberally mixed with grass and hay preprocessed by various large animals. Eat your lunch carefully: The Five-Second Rule does not apply.
Carol paid for grooming space in the arena building, and we were right by one of the building’s six doors. The light was good; power was available. Alas, we had a howling wind most of the weekend that was not named Mariah (maybe Manure-ah?) which blew in through the rear doors, picked up brown dust as it went, and deposited it upon all and sundry before exiting out the front doors. Breathing second-hand smoke in my youth was bad enough. Meditate for a moment on breathing second-hand cattle feed.
Oh, and we have blinding-white dogs. The challenge should be obvious.
Carol met that challenge in high style, granted that all of us came home crunching dust between our teeth. Dash never set foot in the dirt, nor did the rest of the Pack, all of whom were with us and three of whom were entered.
Friday night was an AKC-sanctioned B match for Bichons, which our club organized. (Many thanks to Tammy Singer for doing most of the legwork!) A “B match” is a sort of practice match for dog handlers, basically identical to a real AKC show ring (including an AKC registered judge) except that points are not awarded. In a B match, dogs older than 7 years may be entered in the Veterans class whether they’re neutered or not. QBit, now ten, and Jack, now eight, were both elegible. Carol got their coats in shape, and QBit took first in the class. Jack has a much better coat and looked quite sharp, but QBit (above) has the confident personality preferred by judges, which Jack simply lacks.
Saturday and Sunday were the real show, in which only Dash may compete. (He still has the family jewels, irrespective of regular threats from both Carol and myself.) This was a biggish show for Bichons, with 16 entered, though several did not show and at most I counted 13 Bichons at one time.
Some of them were spectacular, like Lorrie Carlton‘s Flynn, who pretty much swept the field on Saturday and went on to take first place in the Non-Sporting Group. It was a good weekend for Bichons: The breed won Best in Group for both Saturday and Sunday.
Where Dash beat all Bichon comers was in the Owner / Handler class, which means dogs presented in the ring (“handled”) by their registered owners. Dog showing is a competitive business, and there are a fair number of dogs shown by professional handlers who are paid to take dogs around the country on the show circuit to gather wins. Flynn is one of these. To keep professional handlers from sweeping all awards, there is a separate class for people (like us) who do their own handling. Dash won best in the Owner / Handler class on Sunday, which means Carol could show him against other Best of Breeds in the Non-Sporting Group also shown by their owners. After a little touch-up by the formidable Bichon groomer / handler Ellen Perry, Dash went around the ring and landed third place in the Non-Sporting Group. This was the biggest win Carol and I have ever nailed in showing our Bichons, and made the whole windy, dusty, exhausting outing worthwhile.
I was in my grubbies in the photo above (taken by Patrina Walters Odette) because I was not doing any handling on Sunday, and schlepping equipment around at this particular show is always a pretty dusty business.
Dust notwithstanding, it was great time and we had a chance to catch up with members of the club we don’t see very often. We also got to meet a couple of new puppy contenders worth watching in coming years. Our next show is in Longmont in mid-May, but we’re likely to leave most of the Pack with Jimi. There will be no B match, and QBit, Aero, and Jack will not be competing. So it will be a simpler project in many ways, as well as a cleaner one.
It took us all day to wash the dust out of everything…except the dogs. That’s another day entirely. Maybe two.
Congratulations!
One wonders how you take a blinding white dog with six inch legs out into the bovine-enriched soil to do his business without him coming back brown and smelly, but perhaps this is best left a mystery. 🙂
-JRS
No mystery at all. There are grassy areas around the fairground buildings identified as “exercise” areas, and I carried each one of the four out there every few hours to potty, and then carried them back. Carol has a spray bottle of no-rinse shampoo and does the last couple of inches of their legs an hour or so before ringtime. It’s a routine we’re well used to and have done for years.