A new venue and more new letters!

New puppy, new experiences!  This weekend Caliwags and I stayed in the Metro area and competed in the International All Breed Canine Association (http://www.iabca.com/index.html)
shows.  These are international style shows where each dog receives a written critique and a ratings card that earns their title.  The IABCA offers what they call the baby puppy class 3-6 months which was just right for 5 month old Cali. 

This venue offers 4 sets of shows on a weekend with an entry of 150 -200 dogs per show (guessing, I didn’t count).  Additionally they offered an Express show where a dog could earn a 5^th
rating card.  The Express shows are simply an evaluation and not a competition between dogs.  It is done individually.  The judges we showed and were critiqued by where:  Mrs. Patricia Nemirovsky de Alsina (Argentina), Mr. Robert Schwalbe (USA), Mrs. Janet
Schwalbe (USA), Ms. Luanne K Dunham (USA) and Ms. Juliann Bitter (USA).  Groups were done by a 2 judge panel, we were also judged by Mr. Steven M Jeffery (USA) and Ms. Gloria Kerr (USA). 

Each judge provided written comments on the following:

Overall Impression

Coat

Head

Bite/Mouth

Eyes

Ears

Chest

Front Quarters

Back Quarters

Tail

Topline

Movement

Cali received 5 SG-1 ratings which is the highest rating a puppy can receive and in doing so earned her IABCA National Baby Championship (NatBA), International Baby Championship (IntBA) and her Honors Championship (HnrBA).

IABCA NatBA CH, IntBA CH, HnrBA CH Stornoway Hot Tamale aka Cali 

Here are just some of the critique comments:

Overall Impression – “Excellent type”, “Nice puppy, typey, well built”.  Head – “typey, pleasing planes, fits the dog”, “Beautiful – Feminine”. Movement – “Excellent side gait, down and back very clean”, “sound and true”.  Front
& Rear Quarters “Good shoulder layback and Good rear angulation”. “Excellent”.  “Well angled, muscular” Ears – “Correct shape, well used”. “Well set and carried, excellent size.

In addition to earning her puppy titles she also did well in the groups, she was awarded one Puppy Group 1s and 4 Puppy Group 2s.

The breeds representing the herding group at these shows were: Australian Shepherd, Beauceron, Belgian Malinois, Border Collie, Canaan Dog, Catahoula Leopard Dog, Collie (Rough), German Shepherd Dog, Puli, Shetland Sheepdog, Cardigan Welsh Corgi, and the
Pembroke Welsh Corgi.

All in all it was a fun weekend.  Coming from an AKC background there is some frustration in the hurry up and wait scheduling that goes on.  Posted times are sometime just a suggestion and when you are used to the regimented AKC schedule where it is calculated
at 2 minutes per dog it gets a bit much when you think you have a 15 minute break and it turns into an hour + break.  But on the plus side, judges are not in a hurry, they give you time to set up, in addition to the critique they will chat with you about your
entry.  The ring waits for you if needed.  I saw one judge bring a novice GSD handler back into the ring with a more experienced handler to show her the right way to present her dog.  I saw a steward got to the other side of the building to round up some sheltie
folks so they wouldn’t miss their ring time.

The waiting also gives you time to hang out and chat, my BFF Leslie and her Keel Mountain Pembrokes also showed this weekend and we had time to chill, play with our dogs and talk and talk and talk.  We got to talk to our neighbors and some of my kennel
club friends and watch other breeds.  Cali and the Pem girls Edith and Eleanor got lots of training time too (along with some nice wins for all the girls).

Some of the other less appealing things were that there were no breed specialist although all the judges were AKC and/or FCI judges.  The other thing is paying for your title certificates, $25 for puppy titles and $40 Adult titles can add up with all the
titling options.  I remember I had to pay fees for our Mexican title certificates too and they were big fancy certificates so I will probably do it.

Probably the thing we liked the least was that there was no food vendor and nothing close enough to go fetch food with all the hurry up and wait.  We were there from 8:00am to 5:30pm and we humans were getting really Hangry and I know it tainted our opinion
of the day.

I thought it was a great opportunity for Cali to start her show career at these shows, less formal with more time.  She learned a great deal and was 100% better from Show 1 to Show 4, it was nice to have some outside feedback and confirmation on how Cali
is growing up.  There is another IABCA show schedule for later in the year and if the schedule allows I will go again.

 Cali says we conquered this show thing!

I’m proud of the baby girl, but I can tell you she was TIRED! At the end of the day.  She debuts in AKC next week in the 4-6 puppy class, we will see if she remembers what she learned this weekend.