Friday, June 09, 2017

NACA dog show 2017

Another Northern Alberta Canine Association (NACA) dog show is behind us. This is a large, local show that we attend every year for agility, and this year Kenna also showed in conformation. The show also hosts Rally and Obedience competitions.

I was so pleased with how Kili ran. She was listening and controlled all weekend long, but we just couldn't seem to find our lucky charms. On some very tough courses we handled all the hard stuff but struggled with minor 5-fault errors and only ended up Q'ing 2 out of 9 runs. It's almost more disappointing when we run well but can't Q. Still, I was very pleased with Kili's performance, and I got a couple of nice comments on how well she was running.

Kenna showed 3 days in a row, and sadly I can tell that her interest and comfort with showing are dwindling. She was absolutely fabulous the first day, stacking well, beautiful free stacking, super interested and attentive. There were no other greyhounds entered that day so she went to the group ring automatically. She made the first cut in group but not the second for placements. Still, that's the best we have done in the group ring! Later that day we were entered in Juvenile Sweepstakes and Kenna won Best of Opposite Sex! To get there she had to beat out 4 other 12-18 month females of various breeds, then she went into the ring with the winners of the 6-9 month and 9-12 month categories and the male winner of the 12-18 month. The 12-18 month male won the sweepstakes, and Kenna was second. Unfortunately, in sweepstakes there are no championship points awarded, however you win a portion of the entry fees. Her total earnings for the day was $91, which basically paid her full 3 days of entry fees. Yay! Unfortunately, she was not too happy about having to go back into the ring the next two days. She was a good girl and did her job, but she just lacked that happy spark that I like to see. We will go to some more handling classes and try to get her more comfortable again.

As a special treat for being so good, and having to go in the show ring while Kili got all the fun of playing agility, I convinced the hosting club to let me run Kenna for fun at the very end of the trial. The last class was Novice Jumpers, so that's the course we ran. Kenna was tired and pent up from a long day in the show ring and in her crate, and at first I don't think she knew what to make of being brought into an agility ring. She was so excited! This was also the first time she's gotten to play outdoors since last fall. And she's never seen this ring before. What a good baby dog!


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