It’s Monday Morning – I sit here with my coffee and computers, relaxing after a long wonderful weekend. I have tons of photos to go through, brags to post, work to do on my web site, plus get ready to leave again in 4 days for more shows.
So, I decided to write all about the Oklahoma City Summer Classic Dog show. I want to let some of you into our little world of showing dogs. If you have one breed, it’s easy, you come in, groom your dog, show, talk to friends, leave. When you have multiple breeds and people – it’s NOT that simple! So here goes:
Getting ready for shows start a couple weeks earlier – getting everyone entered in the show, holding classes for extra training. Plus, with donating trophies for 4 breeds, there is the organization of those trophies. Email and phone calls start. The real work begins a week before the show.
Once the judging program comes out, we start planning and organizing the crew – where we have ring conflicts, who can show what dog, where do we need extra hands. We start cleaning and organizing show gear. I think I had 15 crates at the show – I did like 10 loads of laundry, 3 loads of dishes – all for dog supplies. Filling up chemical bottles, buying snacks, toys, making crate tags, getting show clothes picked out. More phone calls and more emails, whos arriving when, when will certain dogs need to be getting to me.
Wednesday is what we call in move in day. Having a reserved grooming spot, this show is gracious enough to let us drive our vehicle in, unload everything in a cooler envirnoment. Hillary (Bordeauxs) met up with me and we travel together to move us in. At the show site – we were met by Lydia (Silken Windhounds) and Al (Giant Schnauzers) and the 4 of us unloaded my very full van and then helped set up our spot. Then Hillary and I waited for Trudy(my long time friend and handler) to arrive from Arkansas and we helped her get her gear all set up. At that point, I went home and bathed 2 Cardigans and 1 Siberian – dogs that were being shown for this weekend. Elizabeth (Cardigans) arrived at about 9 pm to stay with us and after she arrived we had to bath her two Cardigans. I rolled into bed at about 11pm – and at about midnight, my assistant Laur’en(Jr handler) got to the house arriving so late due to softball tournies. At about 2 am, the smoke detector decided it’s battery was dying so I was rudely awaken by that stupid beep sound! Somehow I convinced it to behave for just a few more hours UGH! The alarm went of at 5 am and the day begin.
THURSDAY! Beep Beep Beep 5 am – do real people really have to wake up at this freaking hour???? Coffee – where was my coffee???? Must have Coffee! BIG GRIN! The nice thing about this show is that we stay at the house, so all the dogs get a good run in the morning, we don’t have to walk them. We left the house at 600 am and got to the show by 630 – everyday we had 8 am show times.
We got all of the early morning dogs ready, got everyone positioned so I could make all the dogs humanly possible. Jessica(Chinese Crested) and Laur’en(aka Ren) have been my normal assistants this year and Thursday, Jessica was not with us due to her full time job. So, Laur’en was my back up. Jennifer (Boston Terrier) stepped up to the plate and was a HUGE help. Jennifer is one of our traveling group – so, she knows all the dogs and they love her. She took over the role of guiding me and keeping me and Ren on track. Al also came back on Thursday and he was great at helping hold Dash, Siberian as we were working through all the ring conflicts. He kept Dash calm and was much appreciated.
Our Results for Day 1:
Winner’s Dog/Best of Opposite Sex (3pt major)- NEW CHAMPION! Ayden – Chinese Crested
SUPER HUGE CONGRATS TO JESSICA FOR THIS ACCOMPLISHMENT WITH HER FIRST SHOW DOG!
Winner’s Bitch/Best of Opposite Sex (over 2 bitch specials)/Best of Winner’s (3pt major) Ruby – Brittany
Winner’s Dog (1pt) Milo – Viszla
Reserve Wins with – Hummer (Great Dane) and Scuba (Rhodesian)
We got a class placement beating competition with Dash (Siberian)
Thursday was also Rens 13th Birthday!!! Yeah Ren! When we got home, we celebrated by taking Ren swimming then we all went out to Mazzios Pizza for dinner! We adults also celebrated our NEW Champion!!!!
FRIDAY – Day 2
Friday was even MORE crazy than Thursday. But, the fun was that Barbara(Akita) decided she needed a show fix as we finished her Akita this spring and she missed it. So, she came and helped all of us! My mom Kathy also came, she got to show my Frodo for me. We had more dogs to show too! We had so many early morning dogs, Jessica stay with us until about 1030 to get everything shown! Lydia came back out too and helped walked dogs and learned more about grooming. She was having a great time hanging out with us and the craziness!
FRIDAY’s RESULTS:
Winner’s Dog (1pt) Milo – Viszla
Best of Breed – Ayden – Chinese Crested and Chico – German Wirehair Pointer
Major Reserve – Ruby – Brittany
Class Placements beating competition: Dash (Siberian), Astra(Rhodesian), Hummer(Great Dane), Oden (Weim), Frodo (Cardigan)
Ren had to leave early on Friday as she had more softball games and a swimming party. Thank you so much to Barbara for taking her to meet up with her mom Friday afternoon. We didn’t leave the show site until after 5 pm due to the sporting group being dead last!
Friday night Craig cooked his famous BBQ Boneless Pork Ribs with mac n chz, and roasted corn! Yum! Jessica and her hubby Jared, Barbara, Craig and I had such delicious food! Lyn came up with her hubby and they dropped off Bonner and Cedar (Cardigans) Lori and Nathan(cardigans) arrived. We had a household! Barbara stayed with Jessica and Jared. We had Elizabeth, Lori, Nathan here with us and oh, lets see I think 13 dogs for Friday night.
SATURDAY – beep beep beep – FREAKING 5 am AGAIN! Don’t even ask how exhausted i was this am! I must say – Saturday was probably the most stressful day we had – tempers flaired a little, but calmed back down. It was just that extreme! It was also the 3rd day at not getting much sleep plus the amount of exercise, we were at the end of our ropes. Dawn (Siberians) joined our wild and crazy group. Her boy Dash has been with me for 2 weeks for bootcamp. She was our groups photographer for the weekend and followed us around like papparazzi!
RESULTS FOR SATURDAY!
Winner’s Dog/Best of Winner’s (4 pt major) Bonner (Cardigan)
Winner’s Bitch/Best of Opposite Sex (1 pt) Astra (Rhodesian)
Best of Opposite Sex in Puppy Sweepstakes – Frodo (Cardigan) Thanks Mom!
Best of Breed – Chico (German Wirehair Pointer)
Best of Opposite Sex – Ayden (Crested)
Reserve Winners – Milo (Viszla), Scuba (Rhodesian)
Class Placements Beating Competition – Ruby (Brittany) Ranger (Brittany), Dash (Siberian), Hummer (Great Dane), Cedar (Cardigan)
Saturday is the day they televise the groups. We stayed and cheered on Ellen and Chico in the Sporting group and Trudy with her Curly Coated Retreiver Bramble! Lori and Nathan had wanted to buy dinner for us – but everyone was soooo tired, we just at the great left overs from the night before. Elizabeths hubby Doug came up and they celebrated their anniversary at a hotel. We were very happy when we found out we got an extra 30 minutes of sleep! Our 8 am dogs didn’t need the full baths!
Oh, and on a final note – because it does deserve to be LAST on Saturday – Elaine and Trouble (Rhodesian) earned a qualifying score in Rally Novice and were awarded their green qualiying ribbon at 855 pm! yes, you are reading that correctly – almost nine in the evening!!!! Best in Show was over for at least an hour!! I can’t even begin to tell you how upset the obedience people were. Congrats on Elaine though for sticking this out!
SUNDAY!
Last day and it was obvious! We all seemed to get more rest and were ready for the day. Actually our show times were easier, more spread out. We had 3 less dogs as we hadn’t entered our own kids – they were there for the supported entries, as young kids, no reason to push them.
Sundays Results:
Winner’s Bitch (2pts) Ruby, Brittany
Winner’s Bitch/Best of Opposite Sex (1pt) Scuba, Rhodesian
Best of Breed – Ayden, Crested and Chico, German Wirehair Pointer
Qualifying Score – NEW RALLY NOVICE TITLE – Trouble, Rhodesian! At least today they were done mid morning! Congrats Elaine on another title on your lovely dogs!
Class Placements Beating Competition – Oden (Weim), Astra (Rhodesian), Dash (Siberian)
We of course stayed for the groups – i think Jessica would have killed us. Then Jennifer, Jessica, Lydia, Mom and I slowly cleaned up everything and waiting until we could drive my van back in to load it. Most of it is still sitting in the van, did you really think I would unload it last night??? haha
Thank you to all of my clients this weekend. Thank you to Jessica, Ren, Jennifer, Lydia, Dawn, Al, Lori, Nathan, Elizabeth, Mom, Juhree, for everything you guys did. You guys all helped keep me sane, helped get our dogs to the ring, and just plain made the weekend such a success.
I am very proud that we had such AWESOME SUCCESS!!! We had a new champion, a new obedience title, 5 Best of Breeds, 16 championship points with 3 major wins as part of those points! The Best of Opposite Sex in Puppy Sweepstakes! Heck, every dog made the ring!!!!! That right there is HUGE!
When I got home last night, I literally turned into a couch potato. Played my facebook games and just didn’t do anything. i went to bed before 11 and had to laugh when my body woke up at 530 am! UGH! i did sleep in until 8 am and then just got up! Guess I was rested enough huh? Today is a quite day, about to go through all the wonderful photos and start sharing them with everyone! Some will even be posted here – but you can also see them on FACEBOOK and evidentually my web site!
Later!
