Saturday 12 and Sunday 13 Dec

Driving in the US and 2 days of dog shows this weekend. Was a bit nervous about the whole driving thing (nervous for Andrew as he was driving and I was the navigator). Did not have the best weather for our first drive in the USA as it was raining the whole way and we later found out this was their first rains in a very long time, people had been praying for the rain, good for them but not good for us. Most of the dog show was indoors so the only thing we missed was the fly ball as that was scheduled for outside.

So where do we start with the dog show. It was massive. I mentioned to Andrew before we left we should go for two days, but he thought one day would be enough. Not so and luckily we had hired the car for two days and we went to the show both days. There was three levels of the convention center at long beach for the show as well as a huge tent set up outside for the agility. We watched the conformation, agility trials and obedience trials all in the one weekend. There was also a whole floor dedicated to clubs/breeds where every breed had a stand with information available and dogs for the public to view and pat. The amount of effort put into some of those stands was amazing with the most memorable ones being Sled dogs with an Alaskan theme, setters with the two leather chairs in a lounge setting with fake fire place etc.

Friends of ours asked us to look for a book for them while we were over here as it was going to cost them $300 to have it sent to Australia, the postal is just ridiculous. It was a dog book and what better place to find it than at the dog show, and the company as the same company where friends had found the book online. They did not have the book there but we paid the $20 for the book and they arranged to have it posted to our Vegas hotel, how freakin easy was that and I found a couple of books there too that I had been searching for in Adelaide. We obviously had our list of things we were looking for at the dog show and we found the majority of them, would have loved to have brought some jewellery but seriously could I afford to spent a couple thousand on some rotty jewellery, well maybe if Andrew was not there…….hehehe

Other than a Rottweiler specialty show, this was the first time I had seen 70 odd entries of rottweilers in conformation. The obedience and agility also had a couple of rottweilers competing and what I found interesting and what I liked the most with the agility was the breeds of dogs competing, especially in the larger dog group. There were afghans, rottweilers, german wirehaired pointers, great dane, boxers and some others I cannot remember right now.

The dog jump was great, this is where the dogs run and leap off a platform into water. No it is not animal cruelty, these dogs were loving it. They have a toy/dummy that they leap out to get andthe aim is to see how far they can go. Most dogs competing were german wirehair pointers and staffys.

The police K-9 demonstration was great. The control the trainers have over their dogs is amazing and I guess I could too if I trained with them everyday and spent all day with my dogs. These dogs were from the Sacremento Police Department and many of the dogs are trained for multiple disciplines, and the dog we seen was blitz who also is a drug sniffing dog. That police department get their dogs from Europe as they have a more working breed type. They get them at 12 months of age and have no training as they want them to be fresh for training. These dogs not only work with the officers but go home with them and are part of the family, playing with the officers kids and just like family pets. The funny thing is though that these dogs are trained only to listen to their handler so the dog will not listen to the wife at home…………lol I need to train Bono to do that.

So at the end of the show, at the end of the two days, we walked away with a lot of stuff. We are catching a bus to Vegas but we will definitely be buying another suitcase in Vegas to get us to Orlando, it actually works out cheaper to do that than to pay excess weight.

That is the brief blog about the Dog Show. It was totally amazing. There were no dog trailers in sight, just huge trucks/RV's where people have their crates in the back or pens outside for their dogs. I think I prefer our dog trailer though to be honest. Anyway more blogs coming soon once we hit vegas.