Oak's Public Debut

July 2002

Well, we're signed up for our first show. We've had a training class (Oak was the class clown), ordered a show lead (that never arrived), torn through the closet for something to wear (I'm a jeans and t-shirt person), and invited all our friends (so we can go down in style). I volunteered to work the show so I am inviting a special friend along to help with Oak.

Jack has to work - the lucky dog. I'll never forgive him - well... not for a while anyway.

............

Ha! So much for my gloom and doom. Oak did well in spite of me. On Saturday, he was the only dog in his class and earned a blue ribbon and the right to compete against all the other male winners (there were two). He won again. That gave him a purple ribbon, a point towards his championship and the right to compete against the best female and any champions who happened to be standing around. There was one champ - and oh, what a dog. Harvey was gorgeous and I knew we wouldn't beat him. BeeBee, the female, was also beautiful and I really thought she would beat us. I was wrong. Oak won the coveted blue and white ribbon! (Called the Best of Winners.)

I was shaking so hard I almost dropped the ribbon. I didn't know exactly what it all meant but I knew that Oak had come in second. I put Oak in his kennel and went back to selling cookies. Then the owner of Harvey came to collect his trophy and thanked me for providing it. He also told me what I needed to do to help Oak quit looking like a sheepdog.

The president of the kennel club came over to ask me how we'd done and I told her I won ribbons and showed them to her. She got really excited so I got really excited again. She told me to show them to the lady giving out the trophies. Anita told me what the ribbons meant. Then I really got excited. I loaded Oak into the Jeep and brought him home about 4:30 and spent the rest of the evening bragging about him to anyone who would listen!

On Sunday, I took a break and walked Oak outside and pulled all the long hair off his ears leaving the short undercoat. Then I pulled hair from under his neck so the judge could see it. The bangs had to go too so she could see his eyes. When I got through, he looked completely different! He doesn't look like my boy anymore and it's going to take a while to get used to seeing him look like a "real" wolfhound.

Just before lunch, BeeBee's mom brought out her grooming scissors and trimmed a bit of hair from around the front of Oak's ears. Harvey's mom and dad came by and were very complimentary on my hurried grooming. They spent a little time telling me how to refine the earline and even pulled more long hair off him. Another owner also stopped and complimented me on how beautiful Oak looked.

After lunch, I took him out to potty and wandered through the garden for a while. Suddenly, I realized that I had to be ringside at 1:05! Omigosh, I didn't have the brush with me! I rushed back to our stuff to get the show lead and ran him around to the gate. No one else was there yet. Then I realized he had slobbered all over himself! I still didn't have a brush! Omigosh! We ran back around to our stuff, dried his chin and got the brush and ran back to the gate. Oh no! I forgot my number! Another mad dash around three rings! By the time we got back to the gate, I was shaking, Oak was excited and the judge was there. I hurriedly brushed out the worst tangles, put on my number with the help of a bystander and got ready to enter the ring.

We went through the same process under a different judge and this time BeeBee beat us. Oak got third place which means another blue and another purple ribbon and another POINT. After it was over I stood in the aisle with my BIG dog and talked to two other wolfhound owners who had THEIR big dogs. It was really cool to belong to that small group even for the short few minutes that it lasted.

Sunday evening I was looking at the names of the the other wolfhounds and Harvey's really sounded familiar. I looked it up. LOL, he's one of the top dogs in the country!