I’m Baaackkk

It’s been a while…so where to start…

I don’t know if I became bored or overwhelmed with my blog or just at a loss as to what to write. Lately I have been going over and over in my head what I want from this blog and I think I just want a place to write down things going on in my life, adventures with the dogs and maybe a little educational info as I go. I am not going to set my expectations to high so I am planning on trying to get a post up at least once a week.

So let me start with some recent things that have gone on.

Last October was the National Specialty Show for Chesapeake’s and I was fortunate enough to be able to attend.

So on October 7th with my van loaded I headed out for a long awaited road trip with Maia and Titan in tow to Wisconsin for the next 6 days. As much as I was dreading the long drive I was excited at the same time.

The trip took us about 8 hours because we had to make a pit stop along the way to meet up with someone and of course pit stops for the dogs but the biggest hold up was driving around in a circle in Wisconsin just miles from our motel due to construction. Once I figured it out we arrived at the motel with me being a bit frazzled the dogs none the wiser but we were safe.

I checked in and unloaded the van…amazing how much stuff one needs to bring when they have dogs! With dogs aired we headed over to the show site to meet up with friends.

This show is sponsored by the American Chesapeake Club every year and the Chair and all the committees did an amazing job on the Specialty. It takes a tremendous amount of time, commitment, team work and money to bring a show like this together. The show was held at the Olympia Resort, Spa and Conference Center in Oconomowoc WI The site was very nice, plenty of places to air the dogs and walk them. The hotel did a great job accommodating the show and exhibitors.

I participated in this show as the State Basket coordinator. I was able to coordinate more than 25 basket donations from all over the US and Canada. People were so generous which made for great baskets for auction.

Each day something different goes on at the National Show, Agility, Dog classes, Puppy classes, Sweepstakes, Obedience, Bitch classes (not necessarily in this order). Maia was entered in the Bred By Bitch class on Saturday. We didn’t make the cut but we had fun and I received some very nice compliments on her from long time breeders. We had a lot of fun and she did show well and I think we worked as a team. You can learn more about Conformation here.

In addition to the specialty there was a Working Dog Stake scheduled for Sunday October 11th and I entered Titan. This would be the first time I would handle him. In the past he has always been handled by my friend and trainer David Keehn but after talking it over we decided I would handle him at the WD since Titan had a little brain fart at the last hunt test, but that’s a story for another time.

We could not have asked for better weather, the sun was shining it was warm but not to hot. The WD committee did an outstanding job on putting this event together. The grounds were fabulous!

I was a little nervous, not that Titan would mess up but that I would but it went great! He ran beautiful for me. For the land portion the judges even complimented him on his marking ability as one of the birds landed a bit hidden but he nailed it! So a big thank you to my friend David Keehn for all the training you did with my boy so I could do this.

So we came home with a new WD dog!

One of the biggest highlights of the trip was finally meeting JoAnn Stancer from Sand Spring Chesapeakes. I also met the cute little Preacher, her beautiful momma Glory and the infamous Gambler.

I met many other Facebook friends and was able to talk with some of them. It is nice to meet people in person that you have only known on social media.

All in all the trip went great! I am looking forward to the next time we can attend a Specialty.

Here are just a few photos…

                                            Tired Dogs in our motel room after a long trip

                    Look close…what is wrong with this photo?

                                          Handsome Boy!

 

                                            Proud of his ribbon (notice his Elvis grin)

 

 And a few candid’s from the show, I kept it small because I have almost 500 photos from this show

		2015 National Specialty Show VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL