Rose City Classic Dog Show

I went to the Rose City Classic dog show on Friday. I had a great time, talked to a lot of people, spent some time shopping for the dogs, and took a lot of pictures.

I hear that in previous years, this show cluster has been bigger. There were still a ton of vendors and plenty of things to do for the day though.

I started out watching some Open B in the obedience ring, but left once they started doing the sits and downs. Lets face it, watching obedience sits and downs is not a thrilling use of time (unless you have a dog in there, probably). This little Boston was hanging out outside the Rally ring, and was showing off her dancing skills.

Leaping for joy

Over by the agility rings, I ran into this German Pinscher. I'm not sure I've ever met this breed in person before. About as tall as Koira is, but more slender, I got to see not only this dog's cropped ears and docked tail, but also the natural ears of another of the breed. Those golden eyes sure are gorgeous though.

German Pinscher

Back over at obedience, this Malinois was showing off some attention work with their handler, who wasn't asking for it (but treating it anyway, because man, is this not cute?).

Total Attention

I did, of course, wander over to the breed rings as well. I missed the Ibizan Hounds, who had shown first thing in the morning. I didn't make it until about 11. I did catch the Staffordshire Bull Terriers in the ring, as well as the Tibetan Terrier, the Xoloitzcuintili (whose name I was taught to say), and part of the American Eskimos. This little Yorkie was hanging out after showing, half napping and half just watching the world going by.

Little princess

At the Meet The Breed tables, I met an American Hairless Terrier for the first time. It feels so strange to pet a dog and feel nothing but skin. Unlike the Xolo (who I did pet before he went into the breed ring), the American Hairless doesn't have any hair, and apparently has closed hair follicles, making them much softer and smoother. I also met the Chinese Crested on the table next to these guys, but didn't get any good pictures as they were being totally fawned over by everyone else.

American Hairless Terrier

This Siberian Husky is actually the first dog I took a picture of at the show, over at the FitPaws booth. FitPaws makes exercise equipment for dogs, including all sorts of stuff like peanut balls and wobble boards and more. The dogs there trying them out quickly were learning that standing on these strange things brings cookies.

Siberian Husky 

Overall, I had a good time. I was sad to miss the Ibizans, especially since I didn't stick around long enough to watch the Hound Group go in the ring. But I got a chance to talk to quite a few people, watch obedience, rally, agility, and conformation, and do some shopping. I didn't get much, but did bring the dogs home some bully sticks and picked up some more dog shampoo and conditioner, as I ran out after giving the dogs their baths for Christmas. I am looking forward to going to the next local show, which for me is in Albany, OR at the end of February. How else will I get pictures of the more obscure AKC breeds if I don't go to shows?

2013 Breed Challenge: Puli Obedience

I went up to the Rose City Classic dog show in Portland, OR on Friday. I have never been before and really wanted to go, and it was the only day off I had during the show. I thought the biggest dog show cluster in the PNW would be a good place to get started on my 2013 breed photography challenge.

I took a lot of pictures at the show, though no where near as many as I should have. Here is my favorite set of photos. This Puli and their owner were warming up outside the obedience ring and I snapped off a few photos of their warm up routine.

Smile!

Down

Come front

I am also trying out Lightroom 4 for the first time. I resist change a lot, even when I know change is good. So, I am forcing myself to use Lightroom by simply shooting only in RAW, because then, I have to use either Lightroom or Photoshop to edit the pictures, I don't have any other choice! I did do a bit of a cheat, though, and downloaded some free presets from the web. For the most part, I am using the presets to edit with, and then tweaking them a bit here and there to get the look I want. I am waiting eagerly for the Lightroom 4 book I put a hold on at the library to become available, so that I can hopefully step forward and master this program!

If you are doing the 2013 Breed Photography Challenge, how is the challenge going for you? Have you taken any good pictures of unique breeds yet? Are you planning to take any trips to some dog shows to get in those funky never-see-around-town breeds?

Koira earned her CGC!

I had the day off from work today and took the time to go support a friend of mine at the local dog show. It was her first ever time competing in Novice Obedience with her dog Maverick, who is an 11 year old Belgian Tervuren and was retired last fall from our flyball team. 

We spent a LONG time waiting around, but took the opportunity to walk around to see all the booths. I watched the Ibizans show and saw Wilbur again. (He was the adorable wire Ibizan puppy I spent so much time taking pictures of last month at the show.)

Koira thought the dog show was boring. But, I enjoyed the shopping around at the booths. Finally, after hours of waiting and a lunch break for the judge, Mav got his turn in the ring. And together they pulled off a Q and third place for the day. I was very impressed and very proud. We have been practicing a ton after flyball class every week for just this day. Very proud of the Mavvy boy.

I also decided I should go ahead and finally enter Koira for her CGC. They offered it in the afternoon after Best of Show (won by the little Maltese). Koira was on her super best behavior, right up until we entered the ring. Unfortunately the ring chosen for the CGC testing was the same one all the groups had shown in as well as Best of Show, which meant that there was bait (treats, cookies, awesome bits of food) all over. Not in the ring, they swept it before we went in, but all along the edges. And Koira wanted every single little bit of it.

In the end, we did pass. The greeting from the evaluator went just fine, as did the brushing, ear touch, and foot pick up.Then the disaster started when we did the "out for a walk" part of the exercise, because Koira had spotted the cookies galore on just the other side of the ring gates, and she WANTED THEM. When I say cookies, I mean there were pieces over there from thumbnail size on up to the size of my thumb. I redirected Koira about three times and managed to complete the exercise, though certainly not in the best graces. The through the crowd was just as bad, done in the same location, and Koira wanted nothing more than to go snag those treats over there.

The sit, down, stay, and recall all went well. The recall wasn't as nice as I normally see, I think the long line attached to her made her hesitate a little. The walk by greet a stranger with a dog went smoothly, mostly because Koira had spotted a huge (as in the size of my cell phone) piece of what looked like dried lamb lung on the other side of the ring, straight past the person and dog. So she zeroed in on that, waited for me to greet the person without breaking concentration on that treat, then made a beeline for it straight past the distraction person who had a walker and was banging metal bowls together. Not even an eye flicker. 

When I left her with a stranger (the strangest part of the test to me, because seriously, when am I ever going to leave my dog with someone we don't know?), she spent the time cleaning up the ample supply of treats fallen below the table they stood next to, and only noticed I was gone when I was within about three feet of returning to her. 

The evaluator passed us. She saw the huge pieces of bait that Koira was going for, and while she said we technically had a tight leash too often, she thought the distraction of the bait left over from conformation was more than should be expected for the CGC, especially since we did really well on the other parts of it. I think she also had seen Koira doing perfect heeling up and down outside of the ring while we waited for our turn. 

So, we passed. Not the way I wanted to do it, really, but we passed. I'm a good bit more worried about what will happen when we enter the obedience or rally ring for the first time. But, hopefully there won't be treats scattered all over the floor in all shapes, sizes, and flavors. And we will now be working on walking past such distractions. 

Dog show, and a Giveaway!

As you can tell from my pictures of Wilbur earlier this week, I spent part of the last weekend at the local dog show, taking pictures of all the gorgeous dogs. I wanted to share those pictures here, but decided I want to have a giveaway as well. 

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So, this isn't only a whole bunch of pictures of show dogs (all AKC registered breeds), but a challenge. To enter the giveaway, please leave a comment with the breeds of the dogs pictured, in order. Feel free to leave your best guesses or skip a picture if you have no idea. 

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The winner of the giveaway will be the person who names the most breeds correctly. If more than one person names all of the breeds, or there is a tie on the most correctly named, I will use a random number generator to pick the winner. 

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The winner will get a custom made St. Patrick's Day collar, made to your specifications on size and style. 

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 There are twenty different pictures included in this post. Some of them contain more than one dog of the same breed, some contain multiple breeds. If the picture contains multiple breeds, please name the breeds you believe are in the picture.

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 All of the pictures are labeled with a number to try to make it easier. You can either just write down all the breeds you think are in the pictures, in order, from top to bottom, or else you can use the numbers to identify which picture you are referring to (which should make it easy to skip pictures if you don't know and don't want to guess the breed).

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 Yes, there are some breeds pictured more than once. Not to try to trip you up or anything, but just because I got some cute pictures of them. I did try to include as many different breeds as I had decent pictures of.

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So have fun, and guess some breeds!

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 Oh, and one last thing. This is going to be a fast contest, in order for the St. Patrick's Day collar prize to arrive in time for the big day. Which means the winner will be chosen on the evening of Monday the 5th. The winner will then have 2 days to respond with their preferred size and style of collar before a new winner will be chosen.

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 So, get your brains working this weekend and have some fun! Feel free to use your friends, google, AKC's website, whatever you need to do to come up with the answers. Or, just have a quick guess at as many as you want. Have some fun with it, and get a chance at a prize!

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 Due to shipping prices, this contest is only open to residents in the continental US only.

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 So, lets get the games started!

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Mischief Monday at the dog show

I spent part of Sunday at the local dog show, talking myself out of spending a fortune at the different vendor booths and taking pictures of all the pretty dogs walking around.

This little guy is Wilbur. He is a six month old Ibizan Hound (wire coated) who was at his first show. Doesn't he look all sweet and innocent in this picture?

This is Wilbur deciding that my shoes needed to be untied, and working on that.

Though slightly out of focus, this is Wilbur pulling solidly on each shoe lace in turn, making sure my shoes were really truly untied and loose.

And no, that isn't a trained behavior. It is adorable though, just like the rest of him.

You can tell in this last picture that he really is a sight hound. His play buddy, a poodle boy, was walking down the aisle a bit farther down, and was getting the eye the entire time.

Have to say, after spending time with Wilbur and with a few other Ibizan Hounds at the show, they have definitely made it onto my list of dog breeds to consider when looking for my next dog in the future. I have no doubt that working with the right dog could produce a wonderful flyball competitor. I would also be able to do serious lure coursing with him. And, the fact that they have such expressive and easy to photograph faces would just be an awesome little bonus!