2015 NAMAA Nationals

I apologize for the tardiness of this post. We had our third annual NAMAA Specialty back in October (Halloween weekend), and it was a blast. I'm pretty sure 2015 saw the largest gathering of MAs in North America and it was a real treat to get all the dogs together and enjoy each other's company.

Our traditional group photo. From left: Luna, Dude, Gator, Patti, Gypsy, Jussi, Gil, Rietsu, Fecni, and Yumi

Photo by Nolan Cromwell

Saturday was punctuated with a special Hungarian lunch prepared by Ruthye and the Yates'. We enjoyed home made goulash with a side of spaetzle and sour cream, and a hearty bean soup with warm dinner rolls for dipping. Delicious!

We had three hounds present for whom this was their very first time in the show ring, and all three did great. Young Jussi was the only puppy, but showed like a champ.

Jussi getting the go-over

Photo by Nolan Cromwell

Our Saturday show was judged by Audrey Sutton, who selected Patti as her Best of Breed Winner, and Yumi as her Best of Opposite Sex Winner.

Patti, BOB under Judge Audrey Sutton

Photo by Iola Stetson

Yumi, BOS under Judge Audrey Sutton

Photo by Iola Stetson

Saturday was also noteworthy for it's warm and sunny weather, which made for good show conditions but less than ideal running conditions. The drought had left the field quite dry and hard, and after our preliminary lure coursing runs several of the dogs came off with minor injuries. So we decided to call the trial on prelim scores and cancelled the LGRA meet for the following day.

Luna burning rubber

Photo by Nolan Cromwell

Gypsy running in Singles

Photo by Nolan Cromwell

Dude running a close second in Singles

Photo by Nolan Cromwell

We had four dogs running in the Open Stake, and three dogs running in Singles. The scores were close on all counts, but Gil emerged victorious as the winner of the Open Stake and Rietsu as the winner of the Singles Stake.

 

Gil winning BOB and Rietsu winning 1st in Singles

Photo by Nolan Cromwell

Our Sunday show was judged by Arlene Grimes, who selected Pi as her Best of Breed Winner, and Patti as her Best of Opposite Sex Winner. Although we had cancelled the LGRA meet, we were relieved to be met with steady rainfall throughout the day, which proved to be the beginning of the end of our drought.

Pi, BOB under Judge Arlene Grimes

Photo by Nolan Cromwell

Fecni, winning Best Veteran under Judge Arlene Grimes

Photo by Nolan Cromwell

Since this event, California has seen record amounts of rain and snowfall all across the state. The landscape is green again, giving us much to look forward to this coming spring. Hopefully, by October of this year we will have much better field conditions for our next NAMAA Nationals.

Gator running hard

Photo by Nolan Cromwell

Long-Awaited Update

I am so sorry to my readers (if there are any, lol) for not keeping this blog up to date lately. A LOT of crazy things have happened since the last time I wrote, and as a result I lost the motivation (and time) to keep up. But, things have settled down somewhat now and I'm feeling the itch to blog again.

I don't want to leave anything out, but at the same time I don't want to write several posts for each individual event, so I think it's best if I just give one big brief summary of everything that's happened since last winter.

Racing: The two big announcements are that Pi finished his GRC in March, and Rietsu earned her first GRC points by going High Score at her first ever race meet! We can't wait to see how she does as she gets older and more experienced.

Photos by Nolan Cromwell

Lure Coursing: Unfortunately we don't get around to doing much lure coursing, but we did have two trial weekends back in March and May with the RACE AOK9 program. In March, Rietsu ran for her certification and passed with flying colors, allowing her to enter the trials in May. The first day of the May trials, we had three MAs and one Saluki running in a stake. The scores were very close in the prelim runs, but I don't like doing run-offs with my dogs so I forfeited. That left the final results for the day being Rietsu in 1st, Bukra in 2nd, Pi in 3rd, and Gil in 4th. Gil was a little lame after the first day so I scratched him from Sunday's trial. Sunday we had four MAs and one Saluki in the same stake. Again, the runs were very competitive and close. Final placements for the day were Bukra in 1st, Pi in 2nd, Rietsu in 3rd, Gator in 4th, and Patti was NBQ.

 Photos by Ruthye Cole

Conformation: At the end of March, Rietsu competed in a UKC show down in Fresno. With no other sighthound competition we weren't expecting much, but she thrilled us all with an awesome Best in Show win under Judge Gary Andersen! That gives her one competition win towards her UKC Conformation Championship.

 Photo by Jairi Rai

Dock Diving: Pi has competed in a few dock diving events this year, but hasn't really done anything noteworthy, lol. Still, he enjoys it and when temperatures get really high it's one of the few dog sports we can partake in.

Well, I think that's mostly it (except for one other thing which I will make a separate post for). I promise to make a concerted effort to keep the blog up to date, especially as we head into the fall and winter months when sighthound sports really get going.

NAMMA Nationals 2014: Conformation, Day 2

 Patti: BOB, Pi: BOS

Photo by Iola Stetson

Our second day of conformation was much drier and sunnier, thank goodness! Our judge that day was Marcella Zobel, a local Borzoi and Whippet breeder.

Gator, Photo by Iola Stetson

As had happened the previous day, our dogs were highly distracted by the race track being setup not far from the show ring. This made things a tad challenging for us, but the judge saw past our imperfect handling and seemed charmed by the happy Agar spirit :-)

Rietsu holding her stack

Photo by Iola Stetson

Dude, unfortunately, had to be scratched from the show because he sustained a minor toe injury during the field trial and had a noticeable limp. Gil was also a bit stiff after his fall during the trial, but he managed to show decently nonetheless.

Gil, looking good at the trot

Photo by Iola Stetson

As it turned out, the results of the show were not much different than from the day prior. Patti and Pi both took top honors again, but decided to switch their BOB and BOS awards!

Pi on the move

Photo by Iola Stetson

Patti on the move

Photo by Iola Stetson

I was so proud of Patti; she has never showed more beautifully than she did that day. She offered me amazing free stacks and gaited perfectly. 

Luna, Photo by Iola Stetson

Stay tuned for the last installment in this series ...

Patti's Promising Show Career

Although Patti has spent some time in the show ring, she hasn't exactly been a standout show dog. I had been so focused on showing Pi and Pesh that I had sort of put Patti's show career on the back burner. Add to that the fact that she had little to no show training, she just couldn't keep up with her siblings. Pi and Pesh finished their UKC conformation Championships in pretty short order, and both of them made big placements at our national specialty. Patti was the only one in her litter without any real show wins to brag about. Well, it looks like that's about to change.

The Norcal All Breed Club hosted three days of UKC events over March 21st through 23rd. Even though I had not had much time to prepare her for the shows, I wanted to give her some ring experience without over doing it, so I decided to enter her in both shows on Saturday.

Unfortunately there wasn't a large amount of competition in the sighthound group (at least not as much as there has been), but there were still enough dogs to make the competition somewhat challenging, and to give Patti an opportunity to get a competition win or two in group.

I'm accustomed to showing my dogs with a fair amount of handling on my part. I always hand stack them, and I occasionally use bait as well. Since I've started seriously working with Patti as a show dog I've had to resist my urge to hand stack her, because she doesn't like it, and without her cooperation she doesn't end up looking very nice. Some dogs are just that way when it comes to showing -- they prefer to free stack and gait on a loose lead. So, before we arrived at the show grounds I stopped by Burger King and picked up a sausage patty to use as bait, and hoped that it would encourage her to stand pretty for the judges.

Well, it ended up paying off quite well. In the first show she presented herself beautifully and won the group against two other dogs (a Thai Ridgeback and a Silken Windhound)! The judge told me that she showed very well, and that I should stop worrying about her and focus on how I can make the most of my opportunity to exhibit her.

She put on another good showing in the second show, but placed second to the Thai Ridgeback, thereby cutting her out of a potential competition win since the Silken had already gone home. It was late in the day by the time she was called to the ring, so she was lacking a bit in the enthusiasm she had earlier, but it was still a very good experience, and overall she made a lot of progress. I'm looking forward to showing her more in the future, and hopefully finishing her bench title soon.

She cleans up pretty good!

NAMAA Nationals: Conformation Day 2

Sunday's conformation show was judged by Mr. George Bell. For those who don't know George, he is an avid hare courser, and breeder of some very accomplished coursing Greyhounds and Salukis. While George and his late wife started out with Salukis, he is now focused almost exclusively on Greyhounds, particularly the "half and half" variety. A "half and half" as they are affectionately called is a Greyhound that has both NGA and AKC bloodlines in its pedigree. Needless to say, George is more than qualified to judge working sighthounds, and I was excited at the prospect of having him judge our Agars.

I decided to keep things simple and leave all the dogs in the same classes they had previously been entered in. Unfortunately for us, the race track for the LGRA specialties was being setup in plain view of the show ring, and all of our dogs were well aware of what was going on, which made showing them a bit of a challenge to say the least.

Pi being very uncooperative

Photo by Ed Sakai

Pi went into the ring first and was about as cooperative as a bucking bronco. I don't know if that had anything to do with George's choices, but it certainly didn't help.

Gator, Photo by Ed Sakai

Next up were Gil and Gator in Open. The two older gentleman were slightly more composed than Pi, but not much. Between the two, George picked Gil. In addition to coursing his dogs, George enjoys taking them into the show ring on occasion, and he tends to like dogs that are "pretty" as opposed to more rugged types. So, I wasn't surprised that he preferred Gil over Gator, as Gil is definitely more slight of build. Between Gil and his son, George predictably went with Gil.

Peshamba showing off her lovely side gait

Photo by Jairi Rai

Next in the ring was Peshamba. Knowing George's preferences in dogs, I had hopes that he would like her, despite her post-season condition. I was definitely not wrong. Even though Pesh was pretty uncooperative in the ring, he remarked to her owner/handler that he liked her, which gave me hope for at least a Winner's Bitch award.

Luna on the go-around

Photo by Ed Sakai

In Open Bitches, Luna was quite beside herself with the race track being so close by and did not show as well as she has before. Nevertheless, I had a feeling George would prefer Patti over Luna, and I was right. Patti's show performance was greatly improved over what it had been the day before; she was much more relaxed with minimal help from her handler, and when she went around the ring I saw her move like I had never seen her move before. She reminded me a lot of both her mother and father; a seamless blend of both, and I was very proud :-)

Patti getting ready to go around the ring

Photo by Ed Sakai

That pitted the two sisters against each other for Winner's Bitch. As their breeder and "second mother" I would have been happy and proud for either of them to win, but as I had hoped George picked Pesh for Winners Bitch!

Winners Bitch Peshamba

Photo by Ed Sakai

And, last but not least were the Veteran girls, Belle and Fecni. Again, George's choice was pretty predictable, and he went with the prettier Belle over the more rugged Fecni.

Belle, Photo by Ed Sakai

Mama Fecni, Photo by Ed Sakai

That put Gil, Peshamba, and Belle in the ring for Best of Breed. I was so tired by that time not just from going around the ring several times, but also having to handle several uncooperative and strong dogs. In the end, George picked Gil for Best of Breed, which did not surprise me. What I was really waiting for was to see who he would pick for Best Opposite. I felt that both girls stood a good chance of winning, but I was thrilled when he handed the ribbon to Peshamba.

Gil, Best of Breed under George Bell

Photo by Steve Tradewell

Peshamba, Best of Opposite Sex under George Bell

Photo by Steve Tradewell

NAMAA Nationals: Conformation Day 1

Before I get into the details of the first day's events, I thought I'd give a little bit of background on how this event came to be. I have a lot of good friends in the Silken Windhound community (if you don't know what that is you can Google it), and every year the local breed club hosts a regional specialty around Halloween time, which they appropriately dubbed "Boofest". Boofest started out as just a gathering of Silken pet owners and fanciers, and it eventually grew into one of the largest specialties for the breed in the United States. The specialty takes place over two days; each day there is a conformation show in the morning, and in the afternoon there is a performance event (lure coursing on Saturday and sprint racing on Sunday). Our Magyar Agar breed club (NAMAA) doesn't have much of a treasury, so the prospect of putting on our own specialty event was simply out of our budget. It was through the generosity of the Silken Windhound club that we were invited to host our Inaugural NAMAA National Specialty alongside the Silken regional specialty.

The setting for our specialty was the beautiful Kirigin Cellars winery in Gilroy, CA. The lawn is always kept in pristine condition, with short cut grass and excellent soft footing; perfect for showing and field events.

Saturday's conformation show was judged by Lorraine Marchant, a Borzoi breeder who has recently switched over to Silkens, and who had at one time worked in a racing Greyhound kennel in England. I heard through the grapevine that Ms. Marchant was looking forward to judging our Agars, so I wanted to make sure we put our best feet forward for her. We had eight Agars entered in the conformation show; Pi in the Bred by Exhibitor class, Gil and Gator in Open Dogs, Peshamba in American Bred Bitches, Luna and Patti in Open Bitches, and Belle and Fecni in Veteran Bitches. Ms. Marchant was extremely thorough in her examination of each dog, and she even had a little tape recorder that she would make comments into about each entry.

Photo by Ed Sakai

Pi was the first dog to enter the ring, and I could tell that she really liked him from the beginning. I didn't catch all of her audio comments, but I did hear her say that he had all the correct body proportions called for in the standard and that he moved very well.

Photo by Ed Sakai

Next up were Gil and Gator in Open. Gator hasn't been shown much, but he took to it like a pro and Ms. Marchant was very impressed with his overall body condition. In the end she picked Gil. Between Gil and Pi, Ms. Marchant picked Pi without hesitation for Winners Dog.

Photo by Ed Sakai

Peshamba was next in American Bred, which normally isn't a class that gets a lot of attention, but given that there has only been one recorded MA litter born in the USA I think it's particularly appropriate to have at least one dog entered in that class. Unfortunately, Pesh was fresh out of season, so she wasn't in good weight and her muscles were squishy. Nevertheless, she showed herself well.

Photo by Ed Sakai

Patti and Luna were entered in the Open Bitch class. Patti still needs some work on her show training, which made her no match for Princess Luna who's always ready for her moment in the spotlight. Between Luna and Peshamba, the judge went with Luna for Winners Bitch.

Photo by Ed Sakai

And last, but certainly not least, we had Belle and Fecni entered as Veterans. Usually veterans are not considered for Winners, but they can be considered for Best of Breed. Ms. Marchant seemed quite captivated by Belle, remarking that she was "sound as a pound" after watching her on the move. Mama Fecni has put on some excess weight in her old age, but she still moves very well for an old lady. Between the two of them, the judge went with Belle for Best Veteran.

Photo by Ed Sakai

That left us with three dogs in the Best of Breed ring; Winners Dog, Winners Bitch, and the Veteran Bitch. The judge had been quite pleased with each of the three dogs, so I wasn't sure who she was going to pick for the top honors. She had us move around the ring one more time, and on that final go-around I decided to showcase Pi and let him free stack himself while I baited him with cheese. He looked great, and in the end Ms. Marchant remarked, "He has so much presence. You're going to be my Best of Breed." I was thrilled to say the least! All the judge had to do now was pick a winner for Best Opposite Sex. She said that she really liked both, but that there was something about Luna that caught her eye, so she was awarded Best Opposite.

Photo by Iola Stetson

Photo by Iola Stetson

Stay tuned for Part II of Day 1!

Another Best in Show for Gil!

I promised to help some friends show their dogs at a local Rarities show so I decided to take Gil along just in case there was a good judge that I could show him under. To my good fortune the renowned Greyhound breeder/judge and author, Patricia Gail Burnham, was judging the second show of the day so I entered Gil for the one show. It was definitely worth it since he ended up going Best in Show! This is Gil's 6th BIS win, not counting the multiple Best Puppy in Show and Best Rare Breed in Show wins he's earned. I'm so proud of my boy!