FVKC Dog Show

At the end of May I was inducted into the Five Valley Kennel Club, the local AKC club dedicated to promoting the pure bred dog and all the sports involved with them. As soon as the first meeting was over I was approached by a gentleman about becoming a part of the committee that puts on the dog show here in Missoula every year. Of course I said yes (all the while trying not to scream like a little girl and hug the man saying thank you, thank you, thank you over & over again). Soon after the chaos all began...

The FVKC Dog Show is a 3 day show, each day is a show in itself. I however, was assistant grounds crew as well & spent the 4 days previous to the show working on setting everything up w/ the rest of the crew. It was hard work, but completely worth it just to have a dog show here in Missoula.

I spent the entire first day of the show learning how to become a ring stewardess & trying not to have a meltdown in the process. A good steward helps keep the judge on time, keeping the ring running smoothly, and averting the many glitches that dog shows are prone to. If you've never shown a dog before, it can be quite a challenge at first to understand how everything is working. I finally caught on by the end of the day and thoroughly enjoyed my next 2 days of stewarding. I even stewarded Groups and Best in Show on both my 2nd and 3rd days!!

Some of the judges I was working with I had already recognised from watching them on tv at dogs shows like Westminster! They were a pleasure to work w/ and I can only hope to be in their shoes some day.

All in all I had an amazing and wonderful time. I already am sad that it is over & look forward to helping with the whole process from start to finish this time around.

I didn't get to take many photos due to the fact that I was stewarding, but I had the time of my life anyways.

Some of the people at the show were intrigued in the fact that I had a beauceron, since they're quite rare. I'm pretty sure a dog show is one of the few places I can say the word beauceron & people don't think I'm speaking a foreign language. Anyways, if you're a dog person, you'll know why I was so excited to get this photo of Bosco (my beauceron) and this Briard together. :-)