The Run

This past weekend, Miki (our one year old male field spaniel) entered his very first competition of any kind: an all-breed conformation show being held at the Del Mar Fairgrounds. This post covers the first “run” on Saturday afternoon, which was also the first time that Debbie had ever run her own dog in a conformation show. Before the show, Debbie relaxed and prepared a bit with her friend Tammy O., who owned the only other field spaniel entered in the show. One of the things they practiced was “stacking up” the dog (posing him), as you see here with Miki…

There is a schedule for the show that gives the approximate time that a particular breed and class of dogs will run. From what I can observe, in practice these times are the unreasonably optimistic best-possible-case. What actually happens is that there are lots of delays, unexpected events, etc., and when you arrive at the designated show ring on time, you’ll be waiting for a while before you actually get to make your run. This was the case on Saturday, in spades: Miki was originally scheduled for 8 am, but the judge he was supposed to have was delayed back East somewhere by snow, and another judge had to be found. The new schedule was for 12:30, and Debbie and Miki were there in plenty of time — but they didn’t actually get to run until nearly 1 pm. So they waited, and pondered, and practiced, and paced, until it was time.

But finally it was time to go into the ring! I couldn’t hear what the judge was saying, but she directed Debbie and Miki to make a first run around the ring, then to stop right where they had started and stack the dog up. Then the judge carefully observed Miki, including a lot of hands-on checking (to make sure all his parts were present, for one thing — and I’m not sure what else). Miki played the part of the puppy during this inspection very well — he was very curious about the judge, and wiggled around something fierce. Luckily for Miki, the judge took all this with great good humor. Debbie — an expert at agility, but a complete novice at conformation — got both advice and encouragement from this very nice judge.

After this hands-on inspection, Debbie and Miki made another run around the show ring, and then posed for one last inspection by the judge. During this phase, Debbie and Miki (who were in a class all by themselves) were joined by the only other field spaniel in the entire show: Onyx, owned and showed by Tammy O. I can only guess what was going on there — I suspect it was a “best of breed” exhibition, showing the winners amongst field spaniels for each of the classes. In our case, this was a bit ridiculous, as Miki was the only dog in his class, and Onyx was the only dog in his class! After this little ceremony, both Miki and Onyx made one more run around the show ring, and then the judge handed out the prizes: Miki won first prize in his class! If I understand the rules correctly, since he was the only entry in his class, and since the judge pronounced him “qualified” (as a breed-standard field spaniel), the first prize was more-or-less automatic. He could have been disqualified by the judge, however — but he wasn’t. Onyx also took first prize in his one-dog class. But despite having won first prize, the contest today didn’t help either Miki or Onyx advance in the rankings — as they didn’t beat any other dogs. Really we have to chalk this one up as fun and practice. And pretty ribbons!

Below are all the photos I took of this run, in chronological order…