Page 3 - LeMagFall2014

From the Chief Le Mag Wrangler
Ok it is December, after a cold, snowy November in the North-
east, time to think of Florida and hey there’s a week of dog shows
in Orlando, including the Eukanuba show. I am so out of here
and on a plane flying south! How we ever were allowed to at-
tempt flying that morning I’ll never know. Ice and snow covered
the runway, our windows on the plane, everything. I wanted to
ask when the last de-icing was when suddenly a waterfall of blue
“stuff ” washed over the windows, wings and plane---thank you!
The slip sliding down the runway was definitely exciting. I hon-
estly think that we got airborne due to the fact that everyone on
that plane fully believed in aerodynamics and that planes can fly
in snowstorms!
I haven’t done a Euk show yet so this was my first time to see
what it was all about. HUGE! The Orlando convention hall
where it was held is enormous. I’m told the entire complex is
actually several other buildings up and down the same palm tree
lined road, but this one is plenty big enough to hold the dogs,
with lots of grooming space, many vendor booths for last minute
holiday shopping and a food court with far too many healthy
selections to be considered honest to goodness FAST FOOD!
AKC held the Herding Group Judges Education Seminars
during the week. Briards were covered on Thursday. The Breed
Education Committee members who came to run the seminar
were Meg Weitz, Terry Miller, Margaret Shappard and yours tru-
ly, Barbe Lynch. We had several briards for both the seminar and
hands-on exam parts of the educational format. We managed to
have dogs that represented a three colors: black, tawny & grey,
as well as both natural and cropped ear styles. Plus to make sure
the sexist angle was covered, there were boys and girls, with ages
ranging from 8 months to 9 years.
For the first time we had a chance in a seminar to do something
slightly sneaky. It’s rare to ever have a Briard lacking even one
dewclaw present at our seminars since most are held at dog
shows and we pull our representative dogs from those attending.
This time we had a local owner with a dog lacking one dewclaw
on one rear foot. The dog had two dewclaws on the other rear
foot. Watching the judges during the hands-on was interesting.
Some checked and found the foot with 2 DCs and stopped there,
others found the single DC foot and kept looking all over the
foot and leg area for the other toe, then moved to the other foot
and found 2 DCs then moved on. Some quit after not being
able to find 2 DCs on that one food with a single DC. Thinking
probably “it must be there, I just can locate it”. Well, no it wasn’t of my daily Briard “fix”. I can’t thank Mila enough for this
there. After all was said and done while paperwork was being
handled I asked if anyone had questions, none came up. I asked
if anyone found any DQ faults, none had. I’m not good at keep-
ing a poker face so asked the dog in question to be brought over.
And then a couple of the judges said oh, well that was a question
actually. Yeah, it was a DQ’d fault and if they missed that on an
actually AKC exam, they wouldn’t get their license for the breed.
So this opportunity served both the committee and the judges
well by accentuating the way dewclaws can be presented and
that they must both be there on each foot, not just one foot. We
were able to go over what to do, if in doubt, on finding
Le Magazine
(or not finding as the case may be) a missing dewclaw. All
was done in the vein of passing along knowledged needed
for future judges to understand our breed so as to best judge
it in the ring.
Sheryl Nelson took on the job of coordinating Meet the
Breeds for Briards in Orlando. Sheryl brought a great deal
of creativity, cleverness and just plain great humor into the
task. Several people took turns with their Briards in the
booth over the two weekend days. I found it interesting
to compare MTB-Orlando and MTB-NYC since I’ve help
coordinate NYC since it’s inception. Orlando is informal
and has more volunteer dogs so that the dog time in the
booth can be spread over more dogs, leaving the owners and
dogs time to wander around the show. Up until this coming
February, MTB-NYC has been held in the Javits Center with
many vendors, CFA (cat fanciers) and various exhibits but
not dog shows, there is lots to enjoy and goodies to take
home, but the whole atmosphere is far different. NYC drew
some 30,000 people to the event so there is never a lull, in
Orlando, there is no way to get attendance numbers but the
pace is far more relaxed and there is time to talk to people
without having to quickly to move on to the next one in
line who wants information or to hug your dogs. Like most
things I found during the week in Florida, it was relaxed
and enjoyable, not stressful at all, for people or dogs or
visitors!
The shows were lovely, Eukanuba does a really nice show
set up. Loved the ring barriers. They host a nice show too,
munchies and drinks for Euk users were available everyday.
There were informative seminars available as well.
Dill, Sparkle and Ronan were BOB winners over the week.
All three looked great and shown in beautiful condition. See
the full show results in this issue--with photos.
After the shows I spent a few extra days to enjoy the warm
sunshine at the Bed & Biscuit Dog Inn, owned by my
wonderful friend Mila Duboff. Several years ago Mila pur-
chased the kennel from former pro handler Carol Petruzzo,
whom we managed to track down at MTBs while at the
shows. Chez Duboff is a wonderful place for dogs and dog
lovers to unwind and relax. Her 4 briards kept me company
on our jaunts around the area, 12 yr old Briard, Vinny kept
me warm at night sleeping close on the bed and took care
much needed vacation and enjoyable tour of the Gainesville
area, and her fabulous hospitality.
Of course the Flu virus that was never included in this
year’s flu vaccine ran rampant at the Shows and many of us
tracked back north with us. Fortunately, I held it off until
the day I left, and ‘though I’d requested a window seat on
the plane to avoid breathing on any more people than nec-
essary as I coughed my way to NY, I got put in the middle
seat, of course! And coming full cycle it was snowing like
crazy when we landed in NY, again.
Barbe Lynch
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