Spots in Savannah

En route home from the AKC National Championship show in Florida, we stopped in Savannah. I have been to Savannah a couple times previously and love the city. It is a gorgeous city, with the idyllic (though regrettably invasive) Spanish moss hanging from the trees, the old cobblestone and brick walkways and stairs (use at your own risk), and the stretch of the Savannah River where you can walk alongside an eclectic selection of charming ferries, olde thyme steamboats, and massive freighters being maneuvered by tugboats.

Rivaling New Orleans for my favourite “Southern USA city”, I love the ambiance and the food. Oh the food…. From delightful craft beer (be sure to check out Moon River brewing) to exceptional seafood (‘Sorry Charlie’s’ is a personal fav) to several quirky and outstanding restaurants like The Grey and Treylor Park. OMG THE FOOD.

Anyway, this was the first time that I was in Savannah with dogs and what a pleasant surprise, Savannah is QUITE dog-friendly. I was meandering along the river, window shopping with the Spots, and was amazed (and delighted) with how many shop owners called out “You are welcome to come in!”. One charming lady assured me I could come in to her coffee shop with the Spot, which I politely declined, we were enjoying our walk plus two exuberant Dalmatians around hot coffee and pastries quite frankly sounded awful. When I declined, she came out of the shop to let me know she had a water bowl if they were thirsty, again, I thanked her but declined, it was not at all warm and we hadn’t been walking all that long. And with the delicate orchid Spots I prefer to keep them to their own water. At this the patron said she would just come and pet them if they weren’t going to come in 😊. How charming!

The Riverwalk afforded MANY photo ops, my favourite being Spots gone Yachting.

We ambled down to the “waving girl” statue and, as they are inclined to do, the Spots insisted on reinacting this historical moment.

I am always up for a trip to Savannah, but now knowing it is dog-friendly I will be even more eager to find a reason to stay there!

Hotel: Red Roof Inn. About 20 mins south of the city. Weirdly they were adamant that there only be one dog in the room – fortunately, we had two rooms so each just claimed one Spot. Pet fee: Nope.

Lansing, MI is for lovers....right? (Or is that Vermont...)

Who DOESN’T want to spend their anniversary in Lansing, MI?

This was a big(ish) year for our anniversary, 5 years since we first combined our Brady Bunch dog households (Brad had 2 dogs when we met, I had 4). In past years we have celebrated our anniversary in New Orleans, on a Mediterranean cruise, in San Francisco, and in Arizona. The next logical locale was definitely Lansing, MI….right? The choice of Lansing was the result of a few things. First was Brad telling me “all you actually want to do is go on a roadtrip with the dogs, so let’s just plan something they can come along on”. Well, he isn’t wrong, per say….so I planned a fun trip to hit a few of the States that we hadn’t yet in Southern USA. 

Then Hazzard qualified for the dock diving championships held at the AKC National Championship dog show in Florida in early December – so after much discussion we decided to cancel the anniversary trip and go to Florida instead. Then a fellow Dalmatian friend sent me info on the Dalmatian Specialty being held in Lansing, MI, over our anniversary weekend. So we booked a romantic room at the Red Roof Inn (haha), packed plenty of water (sorry, Flint) and off we went.

Lansing is actually a pretty cool city. They definitely are having a bit of a revival and downtown recovery. They have a very hip brewery, Lansing Brewing, with exceptional food. This was where we went for our “official” anniversary dinner. Craft beer and chicken and waffles? Yes, please. Across the street from Lansing brewing was an also hip craft distillery. Well done, Lansing, well done. We made a trip over there and got a bottle of their vodka to add to our bar. They are obviously a new distillery as all they had for sale were clear liquors, the ones that are distilled quickly, no bourbon/whiskey, or rum (yet).

Day one at the show (Friday) was awesome! There was a Dalmatian sweepstakes, a just for fun event held at some specialties, and Hazzard won it! Sweeps have the BEST prizes, and this was no different, awesome Christmas themed prizes. At the “real” show Hazzard took Winners Dog for a 3 point major win – our third, and thus superfluous major. (to achieve an AKC Championship you need to win 15 points, of which at least two must be “major” wins, 3 points or more. This is to prevent you being able to collect points one at a time. It helps to ensure you truly have a quality dog, not just a dog that you enter at shows against another mediocre dog and collect single points). This brought us to a total of 13 points, agonizingly close to finishing our CH. With no obedience/rally offered at this show, Random was along for moral support, primarily, and for another entry of “Brace of Chaos” in the Specialty 😊.

Day two we got reserve winners, which is a nice way of saying “your dog is nice, but no winning for you, today”. But Day three brought a VERY exciting win, Winners Dog, followed by Best of Winners (when all the champions go in the ring to compete for Best of Breed, the winning dog and winning bitch are also back in. “Best of Winners” is the dog who is deemed to be better, either the Winners Dog or Winners Bitch). That meant we earned….wait for it…..2 MORE POINTS AND FINISHED OUR CHAMPIONSHIP. Wowza, finishing that weekend was seriously unexpected. What a fun an exciting end to our show! As Brad said, he could feel me smiling from across the arena 😊. 

Winning at a Specialty is particularly exciting as Specialties draw larger entries. To win in a ring full of really awesome dogs is super special. This was the end of our trifecta of Championships, first we finished our UKC (June) then our CKC (July), and now the AKC. There are titles beyond Championship, in conformation – various Grand Championships – we will pursue our Grand in Canada (we are already about ¾ of the way there) but will not in AKC. We will show occasionally, for fun, at specialties, but will now focus on the other side of sports, the performance events. Hazzard has been training in obedience/rally, weight pull, and nosework. We have begun entering shows and achieving titles, but now we will make this our main focus.

Hazzard is my first real show dog. Gecko, the IG, has his CKC CH, and I took him in the ring a couple of times, but it was the kindness of friends that got him his CH, I never did earn any points on him. Most people do not get such a quality dog for their first conformation dog. I was lucky. I had already “proven” to my breeder (the amazing Pam Fisher) that I was serious about working with dogs. She was clear with me from the start that Random would not be a show dog (toooooo spotty), so we have only ever focused on performance sports, and Random is AN ABSOLUTE STAR. One of those super rare dogs who is up for any sport, any event, any time. In the 1.5 years I had Random prior to Hazzard joining the household she had achieved 14 titles in 6 sports across 6 organizations. The other lucky thing was Pam having not one, but two show potential male pups in her gorgeous litter – so she kept the liver and let the black come live with me <3. Many, many people in the Dalmatian breed have remarked on how lucky I was to get Hazzard. I wholeheartedly agree. But I was also incredibly lucky to get Random. I just want to live up to the potential of these two amazing dogs. They are awesome. My job is to not hold them back 😊.

Speaking of a 5 year anniversary….we are also really lucky to have Brad. He loves me, and the Spots, even when we aren’t all that lovable. He supports my crazy dog show addiction, comes to watch when he can, shares in the wins and losses, and encourages us every step of the way. The Spots adore him, which is really the true test of what sort of human being you are. I divide my world into “good humans” and “not good humans”. I do not have a lot of gray area. But Brad is the best human.

AKC National Championship

The AKC National!

America’s largest dog show. 5,000 dogs and their handlers competing in conformation, agility, obedience, rally, and dock diving. The pinnacle of dog events. We were here because Hazzard (somewhat unexpectedly) qualified for the NADD (North American Dock Diving) Championships back in July. I say unexpectedly only because it is his first year diving. But he has come A LONG way and certainly was ready to hold his own against some of North America’s top dogs. After a lot of back and forth, we decided to go and to make a vacation of it. So, we packed the Spots and our two good friends into our Atlas and headed off on a 2200 km drive from Guelph, Ontario to Orlando, Florida.

We left after work on a Friday – determined to knock a few hundred kms off our trip to make the following two days a bit easier. I took the Spots on a good run so they would be relaxed in the car (they are awesome travelers) and we all settled in. Night one of a road trip always involves a trip to Target for travel “essentials” – including the Spots fresh foods (boiled eggs and yogurt), the obligatory new doggie toy, some dog treats, and snacks for the humans.

Saturday we made it to North Carolina, just in time to catch the start of what would turn into an epic winter storm, eeek. We stayed at a La Quinta, one of my favourite chains for traveling with dogs – dogs are always welcome and never incur extra charges. We woke up to a winter wonderland – significant snow and the threat of freezing rain, so we hit the road (with AWD and snow tires and lots of experience with winter driving). Good thing we did, the snow progressed and many of the highways throughout North Carolina were closed. Rolling out of the storm and into the warmth of the South was definitely appreciated.

In addition to the NADD Championships I entered Hazzard in conformation for 2 days, and Random in rally for 2 days – may as well make the most out of the show! I had left myself a bit of extra time, assuming the parking/kenneling etc would be a challenge, thank goodness I did! Parking wasn’t too bad, we were on right at 8 am so it wasn’t too packed yet. The kenneling area though? Wowza. By far the largest show I have ever been to, the kenneling area was larger than the entire footprint of previous shows I have attended. 1^st lesson we learned was definitely book benching area ahead of time. After a truly arduous walk, with all of our gear and 2 VERY excited dogs, up and down and across and over and through the area, we found a small spot for our two kennels and 2 chairs. We got settled in and set off to check out the building. 

I found my conformation and obedience ring amongst the 30 + rings. In some quirk of scheduling I was in at 8 am in conformation ring 17 for Dalmatians AND in at 8 am in obedience ring 4 for rally. Eeek. I started at the rally ring, explained I had a conflict and they kindly moved me to the end of the class. The conformation judge was totally disinterested so fortunately (?) our stint in the ring was brief and I had just enough time to switch dogs and make it into the rally ring. We had entered in Masters, only our second time in and I had neglected to review the signs again, as I had intended. This combined with no chance for a walk-through (I was busy NOT winning in conformation) meant we were going in blind – perhaps not ideal. Random did her best, but it wasn’t our smoothest run and we did not qualify (nor did we deserve to qualify). So by 930 am we were done for the day, haha. Not our most successful day, but both dogs did their absolute best. We headed off, the following day our schedule was 8am and 230 pm – so we would have loads of time to further explore the show. We went back to the amazing house we were renting and Hazzard "practiced" for his dock event by playing in the pool :). 

Day 2: Rally again at 8 am. This time we were able to do the course walk-through (and read up on today’s signs) which made for a totally different experience! Random worked like a champ, despite me totally messing up one sign we came through with a respectable 81/100. Hazzard had a similar experience in the breed ring, he showed beautifully but no love from the judge – hard to feel bad when a gorgeous class of 41 Dalmatians is in the ring 😊. We were cut in very good company, America’s #1 (and very gorgeous) Dalmatian, Nate, was cut with us! Unexpected turn of events, but lovely to see a ring full of amazing dogs. We snuck off before breed judging was finished to get into the interminable line for dock diving practice. Hazzard had NEVER jumped indoors, nor beside another active dock, and thanks to it being Winter in Canada, he hadn’t jumped at all in almost 3 months, so practice was very necessary. He started out with some hesitation (understandable) but with some significant encouragement he did jump/slide into the water. After that, he did two very nice jumps – ok, ready for tomorrow!

Day 3: DOCK DIVING CHAMPIONSHIPS! We arrived nice and early so that we could sit and wait for hours, haha – but as our first time at this event, we weren’t sure how quickly it would run and wanted to be prepared (spoiler alert, it did not run quickly). It was super fun sitting and watching the dogs jump, though. The vast majority handled the challenging environment (indoors, LOUD, weird light, weird noises, two docks side by side) extremely well. A few dogs refused to jump, heartbreaking for their owners, but all handlers/owners seemed to handle the disappointment well. 

In due time it was our turn up on the dock, the format of nationals is 2 jumps, back to back, no practice. We are used to doing a practice jump to warm up – and I decided this was still important to Hazzard’s routine. Up on the dock, I got him revved up with his ball, then tossed it in a short way. He didn’t follow immediately (gulp, c’mon buddy) but with minor encouragement hopped in willingly…whew. So we set him up for his “proper” jump, decided on ¾ way back on the dock, less than usual but wanted to make things easier for him – called him, threw his ball and he sailed off the dock. SO PROUD. 16ft, so close to 3 feet shorter than usual, but that was totally expected – the combo of no practice, so sacrificing one of our jumps for a practice, plus holding him closer up on the dock was bound to lead to a shorter jump. But he jumped. With confidence. Good puppy. Considering the same day I got a Facebook memory of some shared pics  last year of him a few weeks before we got to bring him home….pretty proud.

Random is, always, an absolute star. She handled the CRAZY building in a stride. Next year I plan to have her qualify for the Championship as well – this year she missed it by outdoing herself and jumping into Masters instead of Seniors – hard to complain about that!

Our first AKC National Championship was a great experience - and we plan to be back next year. Now that I know the building is manageable we will enter a few more classes.

Welcome to Random's Travels

Welcome! Thanks for joining me :). Random's Travels is a blog for people who travel with their pet - particularly with their dogs. I travel a lot for work, and for fun - and whenever they can, the dogs come along. Random is the COOLEST Dalmatian (ever), we have had a lot of fun traveling together. Last year we were joined by her baby "brother" (I think they are actually cousins...), Hazzard.

Traveling with a dog(s) is the greatest. I am more active, more likely to find cool places (as I need to get out and walk the pooch), I find better stops along the way on a road trip...so much more fun.

Traveling with your pooch can be great if you do a bit of advance planning, some training, and preparation.

This blog will include some travel tips, suggestions, reviews of pet-friendly places (hotels, venues, etc.) and some stories of travels with my dogs.  I would love to hear from you - and hear about your travels with your pets.