You learn a lot of interesting things when you Steward at a dog show.

No Pedigree Required:

The thing that excited me the most is finding out that it doesn’t need to be a pure-bred dog in order to compete and title in Obedience, Rally, Agility or Utility.

I always thought in order to enter a dog into any of the dog shows, the dog needed to be a pure-bred, with papers.  I found out yesterday that is not the case.

During the scoring process at the AKC show yesterday, I had to check the Judge’s book with the Judge’s score sheet to make sure the team and dog were correct.  That’s when I noticed it, one of the teams had listed the dog’s breed as “All American.”

“What the hell is an All American?” I asked.

Yes my darlings, yesterday I found out that a mixed breed like Sampson or a little rescued Chocolate Lab like Delilah that came with no papers can be registered with the AKC and can earn titles, and compete paw to paw with the purebreds.  A mixed breed or a dog without papers is classified as an “All American” or “Canine Companion.”

These All American or Canine Companions need to be registered with the AKC, and then you can enter them in a trial.

I’m thinking this is probably more about the All-Mighty dollar and less about people squawking that their dogs can’t compete but I don’t know for sure.  What I do know is I have two dogs that I need to register so I can title them in Obedience and Rally, and possibly one in Agility. 😉

You cannot use a food treat in the ring:

One competitor gave her dog a little treat just inside the ring.  The Judge had to tell her she was excused.  She could still do the course, she just couldn’t qualify.  A qualifying score is 70 or better out of 100.

No tags on collars:

I don’t know the reason for this, but there cannot be anything hanging off from the collar.  We had a quick shuffling of dogs as one woman frantically tried to remove the tag from her dog’s collar.  *Note to self, bring a pair of pliers with you to the dog show.

Bring paper towels:

Yup, dogs around other dogs sometimes get excited or nervous and accidents happen.  Oops!

Stewards get any food they want….for free:

While there were all kinds of foods for competitors to buy, if you had a Steward badge on they just handed you food or drink.  We even had a lovely lunch consisting of roasted chicken, macaroni salad (which this gluten-free gal could not eat) and tossed salad.

Pay attention to what your dog is doing:

One woman (the same one who treated her dog in the ring) wasn’t paying attention to her dog after she left the ring.  She was so focused on getting to her friends and telling them what happened that she didn’t notice her dog had stopped walking and lay down.  Yeah, she basically dragged the dog from the ring.

Some dog people are nasty:

One lady came up to me near the end of the last trial and asked for her competitor number; I said “I’m not allowed to give those out” as I was scoring at the time and the scorer must really pay attention to what is going on in the ring. 

She snotted back at me “I’ve been stewarding at another ring, let’s not go there.”

My inner bitch said, “Go F*** yourself,” but my mouth said, “This is my first time doing this and I don’t have an experienced Steward on site.”

My inner bitch was tickled when she didn’t place.

Seeing I was pretty busy most of the day, I didn’t have an opportunity to take a lot of pictures, but I did sneak my camera out of my back pocket a couple of times.  Here are some random pictures from the trials.

 

 

 

 

What do you think?  Have you ever heard of Rally, Utility, Agility or Obedience trials?  Titles? Is it something you would want to try with your dog(s)?