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. 1st 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.
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