Behind The Scenes At Best In Show

Over the weekend my moms dog had been strutting his stuff at the Dog Show down in Spruce Meadows on the agility course. He was doing great and had received enough qualifying times to advance into the immediate category. Today was the final day of the show and so we went down there to cheer him on and show our support. I've only been to one other dog show before and at that show he was just being shown, not jumping and weaving. I didn't really know what to expect but what I saw was not what I had pictured. I was seeing more "Best In Show" in my mind and although there seemed to be those crazy dog show people around, it was set up a lot nicer then I imagined.

We were shuttled from the parking lot to the agility rings where we met up with Mom and Brian. The dog had his spot set up in the shade and beside a doggy pool and they sat under the tent while they waited for the agility course to be prepared. Once the course was ready all these people came out and started running the course without the dogs. The first time we saw this Ryan and I laughed to ourselves until Brian stepped out and started doing his thing. He had to familiarize himself with the course so that he could successfully lead the dog through the obstacles in the correct order.

Once we watched everyone run through the obstacles with their imaginary dogs it was time to get started. Kael was the first dog to go out and attempt the course. In the beginning he was pretty excited and sniffing around but once he got going he was going. There were all these jumps, three tunnels and a set of 8 weaves and they were set up in an order where you just didn't go in a circle but you had to circle around and go back the opposite way over a jump. I'm not clear on how the points work but you loose points for being on the wrong side of some obstacles and if you do them in the wrong order you get disqualified and you don't get to complete the course. Kael successfully completed the course which I decided was a pretty big deal when we watched dog after dog get disqualified after him. If agility wasn't an individual competition then Kael would have kicked butt but you don't compete against the other dogs. There isn't a first, second, third but you just earn points and those points go towards your next level and each level opens up a more challenging course with more obstacles.

I hope that my next few comments don't offend anyone but to be honest there are all sorts at these dog shows. We saw women in the ring yelling at their dogs, calling them silly pet names, men clapping at their imaginary dogs during the pre-run through and then the guy with the picture of his dogs on his trailer. Now that's hard core. Not only was he parked right up to the ring but he had everything set up so he would be comfy all day long. I'm pretty sure that Brian was the most sane man in the joint!