Wednesday, October 17, 2012

2012 Bearded Collie Club of America National Specialty


It's that time of year again, the beardie National!  I seem to go every other year, or whenever it is close enough for me to get there with my dogs.  2002: Monterey, CA, 2006: Mt Hood, OR, 2008: Santa Rosa, CA, 2010: Loveland, CO, 2012: City of Industry, CA.  As I've done the past few years, I roomed with my best beardie buddy Shannon and her handsome boy Beckham (Stanley's cousin).

Day 1 - Agility Trial

Happy dudes at the trial

One of Stanley's runs


Beckham, Stanley and Stanley's son Keegan teamed up for the relay event and won 3rd place!


Welcome party with a view of the mountains through the smog!

Days 2 through 4 were rally, obedience, futurity, sweepstakes, and the dog and bitch classes (non-champion).  I showed two of Stanley's sons, who were very good walking in the ring with a stranger.

Stan's daughter won Best in Futurity!

Stan's son and his mom relax ringside. Sooo stressed out :)

Max, Beck and Stan romping in the room


Beginner Puppy showing!  Puppy classes are very entertaining :)




We also went to the health seminar, an abbreviated version of Pat Hastings' Structure in Action workshop.  I highly recommend this one to show and performance dog people, as it was eye-opening in terms of looking at structure for  performance and basic structural integrity!  We came back upstairs and immediately went over our dogs to compare to what we had learned.

Day 5 (Friday) was Best of Breed judging.  I showed Stanley and was very happy with how good he was out there for me.

For the first time ever, I got to show him in the Stud Dog class too with two of his kids.  It's so nice to see what he is producing - great structure and SUCH sweet temperaments!


Once I was done in the ring, I got to hang out and watch with Max.  He had a blast all week socializing with everyone he met.

And then...something totally awesome happened.  Rather than a pro handler or an old-time breeder winning, Shannon and her beautiful Beckham won the whole damn thing.  I cried. A lot.

So happy!

Since that last night was the awards dinner, it was perfect timing for us to drink a lot and celebrate!  We finished off the night hot-tubbing with a view of all the city lights and then letting the dogs have a good hard run together.

Now that we are home, I have realized how exhausted I was from the whole week.  9 hours of sleep per night for multiple days and I'm not caught up yet!  Good thing this is the off-season :)

2 comments:

heather said...

Beckham looks so happy in his win picture.

Meredith said...

Relays for the pups, so cool! Congrats on a great week to all.