We played show-dogs this past weekend at the Rocky Mountain Working Herding Club of Alberta Specialties at Wet Noses in Carseland, Alberta. They both showed like little rock stars.
Shazam was awarded:
TWO BEST BABY PUPPY IN GROUP SPECIALTIES!!
Much to my surprise, li’l Tony did not get acknowledged in the shows this weekend however. He definitely deserved some attention as in some ways his structure could be considered better than Shazam, however you never know what the judges are looking for.
At any rate, Tony & Shazam spent the two days preceding “their turn at the show” hanging out with Romeo and I at the grounds while he and I competed in Rally Obedience. The boys got to meet new people and new dogs. They learned to just be present to the goings on without needing to be the center of attention. They each had opportunities to be handed off to strangers while I ran to the RV or had to do a course walk through.
The end results? Near perfect puppies! I was so pleased with their relaxed, calm behaviour and their willingness to accept a new person because I said it was ok. I word it this way because being wary of strangers is in our Breed Standard and certainly both boys will alert bark to something odd or unknown… however their recovery and acceptance of it is spectacularly quick.
They made good impressions meeting some big dogs like Rottweilers and some small dogs like a worried Pom-cross where we did a little exercise with both (see video below) so everyone could just be present in the moment without feeling threatened. There were wins all around. Weirdly, all my documentation of this behaviour was exclusive to Tony! Not a single picture of Shazam handed off even though it happened equally as much!
One of the people I handed them off to happened to be an accomplished young Junior Handler named Emily Pattemore. I had no idea she had such skills when I asked for her help. It turned out to be a fabulous connection as she took a good amount of time over the Rally trials to connect and work with each boy a bit with their conformation skills. This was good for her as she’d never worked with an ACD before… and good for them to have another person on their lead.
Speaking of which, showing dogs takes a village… especially when you have more than one. There have been many moments of overwhelm for me in recent weeks for a variety of reasons and I was slammed into a full clinic schedule these past three days since the show. Big thank you’s are overdue to Carol Gordon (WR Aussies), Jen Russell (Alpenglow Cardigan Corgis) and Emily Pattemore for helping me show Lucky & Tony… and also to Sarah Linde & Carol Gordon for taking pictures …and to all four ladies for periodically puppy wrangling.