2015 Golden Retriever Club of America National Specialty

Most breeds have a national breed club that promotes the type of dog, preserves history, encourages improved health and behavior, and provides educational resources. Most of the breed clubs have a national level event. Golden Retrievers are popular dogs and good at many things – so our national specialty, held through the Golden Retriever Club of America lasts 7+ days!

I’ve wanted to attend ever since Blaze was a puppy and I learned that the event existed but I was never able to travel and make it to an event. This year it was in Ohio – only about an hour away in Wilmington.

After all these years of waiting – I barely even attended or participated. We’ve been really busy with the training facility moving in August and getting our new programs and classes going. I’ve been busy with four dogs – including the two puppies (10 month old Viktor and 10 week old Tonks) all while trying to train and compete with Griffin.

I ended up forgetting to send in entries for obedience and choosing to not do so for agility. I couldn’t justify the (much) higher event fees than normal trials and we ran out of time to prepare for other events (like tracking).  We went for some ‘added on’ days of agility – not our best moments. Griffin warmed up great, was very attentive in the building, and had his best start line stays post rehab.  Other parts weren’t so great and he had a hard time visually seeking out the obstacles in the very ‘busy’ environment. He’s used to trials and training in places with 3+ solid walls and here there was one partial wall and 3 open sides. Now we know we need to find similar training opportunities -and that he wasn’t quite ready for it.

Viktor Splash!

We went yesterday for an introduction to field mini-seminar event. I’ve been to local similar types of events before. The hosts are always really nice and hoping to get people interested in this (expensive, time-consuming, and sometimes-hard-to-follow) type of activity. There were a range of people present- several who do other activities, a few who appeared to be pet owners, and I’m not sure about the others. The session description listed birds as being available and I wanted to give Griffin the experience.

The instructors weren’t so happy with Griffin’s enthusiasm – they wanted me to do many things very different – but it’s not the time or place to retrain him. They wanted “no bark!” to mean be quiet. Griffin is trained to bark on the word “bark!” so each “NO BARK!” got him barking louder and more excited – eagerly awaiting the duck!  Later they wanted a tight leash/collar so the bird could be held in his mouth – I had to say he’s been trained to let go if I hold his collar.  I felt bad for the instructor, he was just trying to be helpful. I was really happy that when we gave Griffin the chance he took a duck no problem – I’ve been told that ducks are more oily and smelly than the pheasants he’s been on and this bird was used a lot for the events over the previous few days (so other dog smells, etc). And he wasn’t bothered by any of that. he wasn’t confident on how to hold it, but he did his best. I’m now sure that with just a little more training he could be ready for low level events. It’s been over 18 months since we went to a group training for this sort of event and he’s much better than he was last time. He was relaxed enough to accept treats the entire time and he would lie down and pretend to rest.

Viktor came out for a while – I wanted to let him watch dogs running because we are learning to stay calm with that distraction. One person came over to help us and she actually knows his mom and breeder. It was nice to be able to say we’ve lost touch with the breeder and she’ll pass on an update when she sees him. I don’t know pedigrees very well  – later in the day I realized she’s the owner of Viktor’s grandpa. If I had known, I would have talked to her more and asked more questions. We did get to talk to her about his legs a little in passing and she’s likely to go home and find out how Viktor is related and keep that in mind for future breeding decisions (this may or may not be a hereditary condition).

No birds for Tonks – puppies aren’t supposed to be at dog shows until 16 weeks and lots of dogs from all over the country were present. Part of my hesitation in participating in anything was having a young dog at home, young puppies may be more susceptible to diseases.

I’m a little sad that I’m not more sad about not doing much at the event. I went into the main building a few times on Thursday to wash hands (post duck handling!) and peeked into the vendor rooms and conformation rings in passing, but it just didn’t hold my interest.  My favorite part was probably walking through the parking lot and seeing all the dog car set ups, license plate names, dog magnets on the cars, and all the states represented.

Maybe I’ll be inspired to go again in a few years when we’re ready to do more and when more of Griffin’s family will be attending. I can now at least say we’ve attended and I do recommend that others go at least to watch – it’s so fascinating to see so many of the same types of dogs in one place and all the similarities and differences.