On Saturday, we set on our annual summer trip to our house in the area of Sundsvall. This year, however, we didn’t do the whole 700+ km drive in one go. Instead, we did about half on Saturday, then stayed the night at a tiny camping place in the middle of nowhere. On Sunday morning, we got up way too early to get ready ... for a boxer show. Somehow, we had decided it would be a good idea to go to a dog show along the way. So, at around 8 am on Sunday morning, we arrived at a cosy little dog club, also in the middle of nowhere, to join a pretty large gathering of (mostly) happy, tail-wagging boxers and their owners.
Ringo, of course, was quite excited. It had been a long, boring car ride the day before, and now he suddenly found himself surrounded by a bounty of boxers. And we, once again, found ourselves with a wild, madly pulling dog at the end of the leash. Fortunately, he got a chance to calm down a bit (and I got a chance to practice some running and posing with him) while we waited for the puppies to be judged during the inofficial part of the show. At around 10 or so, the official part started with Ringo’s class, the junior dogs. He was second to last out of those, and this time I didn’t make the mistake of waiting in the ring all the time. I took him for short walks, and made use of a handy bottle of water, spraying him when he acted up too much.
Unfortunately, he didn’t quite get the message. When our turn came, he posed pretty well at first, but then the judge wanted to check his teeth. We’ve practiced this quite a bit, and in itself its not an issue for him. However, this judge had two judges-in-training with her, so she was taking extra time with all dogs, explaining her decisions. Since he wanted to jump up as she came to check his teeth, I had to restrain him, and when she then held his mouth open for a long time, he either took a dislike to it or he decided we were holding him down as part of play, because he tried to growl/bark and started squirming like an electric eel. And then it was time for me to run with him ...
Try was definitely the operative word. He had decided it was time to play, and instead of running at my side around the ring, he growled and barked like a little monster and either bounced after me or hung from my sleeve, shaking it like an animal he’d just caught and was trying to kill. Ouch. ;P This judge, fortunately, had a bit more humour than the last one. She said she could tell he was taking advantage of me being nervous, but did suggest we switch to another collar (a full choke collar) or that maybe he was a bit too much for me to handle. Which isn’t untrue at all when he gets into one of those moods. Still, we got a 1 in the individual assessment, which meant we would get to go on to the comparative evaluation.
That came only moments later, as only one dog was left after Ringo, and at the last moment we went ahead and borrowed a choke chollar to use instead. We had also had a serious talk outside of the ring, involving the water bottle once more, and one (or both) of these things made a difference as Ringo actually managed to run pretty well at my side even though he had dogs in front of him and dogs behind him. He pulled, sure, but didn’t try to jump or grab ahold of my sleeve. And then we lined up again, posing the dogs prettily (well, sort of prettily, anyway) and the judge started placing the dogs. Of course, I didn’t quite realize that she had started pulling people out for placement, I thought she was just calling people forward for a better look at their dogs. So, when we were called out, I figured we at least weren’t being sent out right off, since I hadn’t seen there were just five dogs in there anyway, which meant none would be sent off.
However, she had actually already made her picks for where to place everyone, and we were pointed to the place at one end of the row. For a moment, I thought, “darn, just the reserve spot”, and then I realized that this spot was marked with a colour and there was a big bag of doggy food there. It slowly dawned on me that we had just won the class. By the time that she came by with the ribbon, I was still looking pretty surprised. She congratulated me, and noted that she wasn’t giving me a CK today, and the way she put it sounded very much like we would have gotten one if he had behaved better. So, a little annoying on one hand, since a CK would have meant he would have gone on to compete against the other dogs awarded CKs in the various groups. But on the other hand, hearing that she probably felt that he is CK quality was great too. And what he did get this time was an HP, so that was still pretty good, and the critique was very nice:
Lively and energetic. Powerful with excellent bone. Square. A very good head for his age but should be more filled out under the eyes. Very good body. Straight upper arm, otherwise well angulated. Well-bodied. Moves well now and then, “jumping fool”.
Overall, I was thrilled to bits, especially after the last abysmal show and the hard work in the ring this time. The day wasn’t over with that, however. This show had a specal prize for best Junior, so he got to go up against the best Junior bitch as well. He behaved nicely, but this time she quickly decided in favour of the bitch, so that was a small anti-climax. And then, at the end of the show, he was entered as part of a group for best breeding male in which his sire was entered. Theo, the sire, didn’t win, but at least we got to meet him, and that was very nice. He’s a French import, so he has a docked tail and cropped ears, but other than that he’s a striking dog with a very nice temper. We also had a chat with his owner, who had some good ideas for some of the things we have issues with when it comes to Ringo.
All in all, a wonderful day, worth all the effort.