Hope Telethon

First things first: At 1 am I went to random.org and determined the winner of the Joy Pet Products Original Goose Down Coat:

Summer Thomas and her pittie Joy! Congratulations!

For everyone who did not win, Patti over at Joy Pet Products wanted to give you a special discount so that even if you didn’t win, you could still score on a coat if you were one of the many little pups that I now imagine shivering out in the cold. They are offering 25% off an original Goose Down coat from now until December 22nd. She’ll put that offer up on her Facebook.

And now onward we go:

When I was at Helen Woodward Animal Center for their telethon (which as you recall was also the day of the blogathon), I ran into Vicki from Eukanuba in the little holding area where I was sitting wondering what letter Mike Arms had in store for me this time. We talked a bit about what I did and how I wound up at the telethon, and then Vicki asked me if I would like to go to the AKC Eukanuba National Championships in December as a guest of Eukanuba.

“Sure,” I said. “What’s the AKC Eukanuba National Championships?”

Obviously I am not an expert on dog show stuff.

As it turns out, this is one of the biggest dog shows in the country, and the world. I ended up sitting ringside in a special blogger area while the top dogs in the world ran 15 feet in front of me, with me turning to my left and to my right where the bloggers who actually knew things about dog shows were seated with my many novice questions.

“I don’t know anything about dog shows,” I said to Pet Care Bev when I arrived. “I’m kind of clueless.” (Make that totally clueless.) I know more than anyone would ever want to know about otitis, dental disease, and hip dysplasia, but conformation and show dog etiquette are as foreign to me as exotic parakeet disease. I just don’t know anything about it.

“That’s OK,” she said. “Just blog about the experience you had, whatever that may be.”

So I’m going to take some time over the next couple of days to break it down and download my pictures and digest the experience, because as far as introductions to the world of dog shows goes, you can’t start much bigger than that (I always say go big or go home.)

I’m not even going to attempt to really describe the technicalities of the show, since as a newbie I’m going to do it wrong and I might as well just point you to Susi and Jen (which I will do as soon as I get the correct links) who do show dogs and could explain that to you much better than I could. There were some beautiful and immaculate dogs who showed up, ran in a circle attended by women in sensible skirt suits, and an Australian winner was crowned the victor. That is the short short version.

What I can do is tell you about how much fun it was, even as a non-show-dog person who just loves canines. There was so much more to this show than the conformation contest. There’s the dock dogs and the agility and obedience- some of  the many ways that companion animals were incorporated into the show experience. There was Ricochet, there to receive a prestigious ACE Award for her work helping people. It was admittedly overwhelming, but a bit exhilarating too. Continuing education conferences just don’t get the adrenalin going in the same way, let me tell you,

So that is my project, and I will be working on it presently. As soon as I get a wee bit of sleep.