Yesterday we were at a show at a working dog club not too far away from here, for Ringos début in the open class since he is now past 2 years of age. Boxers were, for once, not the first breed to be judged in their ring, so we only had to get up at 7 am to be there at 9 am. Quite a difference from getting up at 3 am for the last show.
Ringo started the morning by being very lively. He clearly knows that early mornings with the whole family getting ready means a dog show. Didn’t help my nerves, of course, that he decided to be pretty feisty. The judge for the show would be one that previously had given him a 2 for quality, in large parts because he really misbehaved. So, I was not expecting more than a 1 today and that only if he managed to behave.
Once at the club, he was being a bossy little Ringo. As usual, he doesn’t say an unkind word to other boxers, but he tried to lunge after a few Dobermans. He’s such a little racist. He didn’t fight with me, though, so I thought we might get through the show okay (I also tried tiring him out a bit with some basic tracking exercises in the nearby woods).
There were three other dogs in our class, and Ringo (since they order everyone alphabetically ;P) was last in. However, he ran pretty well even with dogs ahead of him.Then he waited for his turn in a rather civilized manner. So far, so good. Then we came up, and the judge did the tooth check.Again, Ringo behaved very well and stood pretty still.
Afterwards, however, he still decided to pounce on me when I was going to run him. I tried teh candy distraction, but no luck. I tried stepping on the leash to calm him, but no luck. I did try very hard not to stress and told the judge I would have to take a moment to sort him out. I was nervous that we would get a 2 for sure since I think he had sent out one of the earlier dogs with a 2 for being aggressive against another dog. Since he seemed so stuck on being a bitch (hah ;P), Elio ran up to me pretty quickly and asked if he should splash him, and we went ahead with that. Then he ran pretty well.
I was concerned that was it, though. But the judge checked him over again (he wanted to feel his head shape and such), and after some initial confusion by yours truly (my brain kind of fries when Ringo acts up like that), he actually stood still for that too. Then the judge wanted me to run again, and that was probably a pivotal moment because if Ringo had acted up again I think we would have secured ourselves a 2. But he ran pretty well. He started off with no fighting, and just did some bounces towards the end. Still, I was thinking we might be screwed.
I was so distracted that when it came to posing him, I managed to pose him out of sight of the judge, who pretty much just got to see my ass. But it helps being a girl at a dog show, I think, because he gently corrected me and a joke or two later I was more relaxed. So, I posed him for a while, nervously waiting for the result. But from what I could hear of the critique being dictated, it sounded okay. Then, finally, relief as we got our 1.
Since we had been the last in the class, it was straight on to the contest against the other three dogs that had received 1s. We ran one more lap, and then he asked me to step up in front to run there, and he said ‘to see how you handle that’. That made me nervous again, but after we had run that lap he looked at the dogs for a little longer and then said he would keep us in the order we were standing. Which meant we had won!
He then gave an open critique, justifying his decision, and he said Ringo had a very good head but for the nose which he felt was a little too short (he felt this was the case for most of the dogs yesterday, it seems). And then (I think it was then, as I said, my brain fries in the ring) he said we would be getting a CK! Talk about some improvement, from a 2 to a CK. I had not believed that for a moment.
That meant we were not done for the day. We had to wait for the rest of the male boxer classes to finish, so that all the boxers with CK could face off in the best male boxer class. In the end, that turned out to be the working dog class winner (a Hungarian import) and the champion class winner, Swedbox Mad Max. We started with me in the middle (you start in class order, and working dog is before open), but he actually moved us to the back right off, which made it plain we were not winning. After the running, he then moved up Mad Max to the top spot. Then he spent a bit of time eyeing the Hungarian import and Ringo closely, and he may have been considering moving Ringo up one notch. But in the end, he didn’t. He then gave an open evaluation again, and he felt the first two were close anatomically but Mad Max had the better head (a less short nose, I think), whereas Ringo he felt didn’t quite get up to their level anatomically.
To some extent, I think its down to posture. The Hungarian dog posed really, really well. Ringo doesn’t do that in the show ring by himself, and that’s unfortunate because its hard to teach a dog that. Still, a great result, and as always I now feel like signing up for a bunch more shows. But there aren’t that many during the autumn, at least not within a reasonable driving distance. Plus, now I am starting to feel that I want to those CKs in the working dog class, where he has a shot at gaining certificates towards a championship.