My wife and I attended the 2005 International Kennel Club Dog Show held at McCormick Place yesterday and, as usual, got there at 8:00 in the morning and spent half the day there. Quite a bit of the time we spent working on the specialty show conducted by our club, the Chicagoland Samoyed Club in conjunction with the IKC. I’ll update this post with pictures and the results of the specialty show later today. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the term, a “specialty show” is a conformation show conducted for dogs of a single breed—in this case our breed, Samoyeds.
The IKC show is one of the few remaining benched shows in the country. A benched show is a dog show in which the exhibitors and dogs are required to stay in the exhibition area in their assigned benching area after their portion of the show has completed until the show closes (usually around 3:00pm). It’s a great opportunity to see and meet lots of dogs of all breeds and their handlers, owners, and breeders and get a first hand notion of what lots of dog breeds are all about by seeing the very finest examples of those breeds from all over the country and to learn about those breeds from the people who know the most about them. In addition to the conformation events in which dogs are judged according to the written standards established by the breed clubs for their breeds the IKC has canine obedience events, a canine agility competition, vendors, rescue booths, and lots of other stuff. If you’ve never seen a canine agility competition first-hand, you owe it to yourself to go. It’s great fun (and mesmerizing).
The IKC show has a lot of happy memories for me. The first time my in-laws came to visit us after we’d moved into our house we all went to the IKC show. My father-in-law, Don, was skeptical until he realized that he could meet and (in some cases) touch the dogs. Then we had a hard time dragging him away.
Eleven (or twelve?) years ago it was at the IKC show that we met Mary and Joyce, the breeders from whom we’ve obtained all of our dogs. They’ve become our close friends. They had two of their great champions, Noah and Jesse (Ch. Kendara’s Starduster’s Legacy and Ch. Kendara’s Vagabond King), with them. Gosh, how I miss Noah and Jesse!
Five years ago it was at the IKC show that our girl Tally, Ch. Kendara’s Notorious, OA, AXJ, WSX, got her championship. And since then we’ve either been competitors or exhibitors or working on conducting a specialty show.
what do you mean by “working on conducting a specialty show?” nice description of what it’s like, etc. wish I’ve had a chance to go to one with you, hopefully sometime in the future. love, ann
In this case not very much. We set up the table with the awards, ensured that the right awards got to the right winners, assisted the ring steward (supplied by IKC), judge, and competitors as required. Other tasks that we perform for our June specialty (setting up the judging ring and grooming area, selling programs, policing the area afterwards, tearing down the judging ring and grooming area) were taken care of by IKC.