AKC Dog Show

What a weekend, I'm pooped, from the time I left work on friday to the wee hours of Monday, I watched dogs, big dogs small dogs, red dogs blue dogs, go dog go.

Friday 2pm set off with the family to the Agility showin the Tampa Convention center, They had been going all day but we got there in time to see the finale of the team agility competition. The girls really enjoyed the hour or so we saw before Massachusetts beat out Washington to win. We shopped a little bit and noted some cool things to pick up over the weekend.

Saturday 7am dropped the kids of with Aunt Kelly and headed out to the Ice Palace (officially the St. Pete times forum, but thats just stoopid, it's in Tampa, not St. Pete) Well we got there and all the doors were locked.... hmmmm... we followed some other bemused dog show fansarround the building, only to discover that dispite what it said on the ticket, the show was in the conferance center, and only the finale was in the ice palace. So we set off with our new friends 2 blocks down the road to the conferance center. They had opened up a whole load more of the center than was open the night before, and we first went in to check out the Obediance. Obediance is real cool, the dogs are super well behaved, but it isn't superbly interesting to watch, once you have seen 5 golden retrievers go through the routine you pretty much have seen it all..... It was however cool, and my wife thinks it is something she might like to get our puppy into. Then it was off to the confirmation rings, (what you expect of a dog show) Most of the dogs showing today were the smaller variety, and we have big dogs so we only had a passing interestbut we watched a couple of them, and discovered if you are lucky enough to get a seat, you keep it with you for the rest of the day! Having had our fill of the little dogs we went off to the "Meet the breed" section where they have 2 or 3 examples of each or the breeds so you can get a feel for some breeds you might not otherwize encounter. Our favorites were the shepherd, and the Dobie of course, but also the Afghan, Portugese water dog, manchester terrier and the English setter, who had one in a Tux that they had taught to walk on its hind legs. The best however was the Mastiff, it was the biggest damn dog I have ever seen, in fact it wasn't a dog at all it was a bear on a leash. It weighed 275lbs and its head was almost as broard as my sholders, all I can say if you are thinking of getting one, you need a big area of floor for them to flop on and they have a little bit of a drool problem. After that we grabed some lunch, and met our friends from outside the ice palace again (small world eh?) Service at the cafe sucked to cut a long story short, we got our meal comp'ed. We then went on to watch some of the preliminary individual agility runs. By far the most impressive run of the entire show, was Ms. Rock and her Doberman, In agility the handler uses their body, hand signals and voice to direct the dog arround the course that until the off has never seen the course. What made Ms. Rock different was that she had had both her arms amputated. We figured that she was just there to make up the numbers and would struggle to get her dog arround the course, but not only did she get her dog arround, she was clean, made NO mistakes and posted one of the fastest times for a non border collie, which basically rule the roost in Agility, it was awesome, someone should make a film about her as she is a fine example of a can do attitude. After that we went for dinner and then on to the confirmation Group finals. Toy went to the poodle, Hound to the Bloodhound, Sporting to the "Stump" the Sussex Spaniel, and the Tibetan Terrier took the non sporting. We rolled home just before Midnight and crawled into bed.
Sunday we were back in the conferance center at 8am to catch the German shepherd confirmation. We got premo bleacher seats and were suitably impressed It is amasing to see 15 or so of the very best examples of the breed in the country. Once that was over we caught some more Obediance before heading over to watch the Dobies. We got there over an hour early and then watched the Briards and the Great Danes before the Dobies got their moment to shine. Again awesome , especially if you have a dobie! by the time #26 Paola beat out the competition we had been standing for over 2 and a half hours... ouch! So off we went to the Agility finals, we got there an hour and a half early, but it was already packed we were walking around at the bottom of the bleachers looking for a place we could squeeze in when we were greeted by our friends from the Ice palace, who had the best seats in the house and by chance had room for two more!!! Just after we sat down the closed the doors and we sat down to enjoy the show. It ran half an hour late due to the film crews fixing some logistics which was not apreciated by the crowd! Once it started the show was excellent, the course was tough and they really had to work hard to go clear. The show is being televised on Feb 13th on Animal Planet, Aparently acording to the crew man we are in shot for the two jumps between the Weave poles and the A frame, look for me, I'm wearing an TB Buccaneers jersey (80) and I am in the second row from the top of the bleachers below a sign with the Animal planet logo! Any way after 3 1/2 hours of sitting on the metal bleachers I was a little sore in the buttock area... We bid fairwell to our buddies (you know we ended up sitting together at the Confirmation finals later that night AND we were parked 3 spaces apart too!) After grabing food we settld down for the Final groups and the best in show The results are on the AKC web site, I won't spoil it for you if you want to watch but it was a grand finale for a very busy weekend as we rolled back in just after midnight.