2011 WCA Nationals – Day 6

May 20, 2011. Today is the last day of showing and then we can pack up and go home! We’ll be splitting the drive up on the way back into two days, starting out this afternoon and then finishing up on Saturday.

The schedule was to finish up the bitch classes and then move onto the best of breed competition.

Today was Jazzy’s turn in the ring. She’s another Dude daughter.

She did well and took 2nd place in her large Open class.

Before the Best of Breed competition, they took a break and did a parade of rescue dogs. Some of the dogs had found their forever homes and some still needed to find one. It was very touching.

Sawyer waits for me to return from taking photos.
I just love this face!

Sawyer’s turn in the ring. Denise agreed to take pictures for us since it was such a large entry and we were split into groups.

After Sawyer was done I stayed to take pictures of Densie and Emma.  They looked great and made the first cut which is wonderful at a National specialty.

The shows are over.  It was a long and exhausting week. 
Time to pack up and start the long journey home!

2011 WCA Nationals – Day 5

May 19, 2011. All that was on the agenda for us today was another try at obedience. I got up early to watch Barb and Desi in Rally since I missed them yesterday while we were in the breed ring. Unfortunately I was a few minutes too late and missed them again but did see them get their first place ribbon in their Rally Excellent A class.

Look how cute the winners look.

After Barb was done we did some more stays with Desi. Sawyer was doing great. 5 minute down stays! We continued to work and rest while we waited our turn.

Waiting around for obedience to start and watching the Futurity is apparently very tiring and boring for Sawyer.

Sawyer did better with the on-lead heeling today because I picked up my pace. The off lead was still a little laggy but again, he definitely passed all the exercises.

My friend Denise was around so I was able to give her my camera to take some shots of our obedience run.

We had nice attention during the Figure 8

The heeling off lead wasn’t bad either.

The shots of the recall came out really great! Sawyer’s so enthusiastic to get to me.

I’m so excited. I can’t wait for mommy to call me over to her.

Yea, she called my name, here I go!

He was a little crooked when he got there but at least he didn’t almost knock me over like yesterday.

Then came the stays. We made it through the 1 minute sit stay and then the dreaded down stay was upon us. I thought I made too much eye contact the day before so I did not look at him directly at all today. It seemed to be working…for awhile. Today he made it 2 minutes and 40 seconds! UGH! 20 seconds short of success. Guess I know what we’ll be working on.

After we failed at obedience (sigh), we went to watch Prada in the Futurity. She looked wonderful and placed 3rd in a large junior class of 8.

The day started off promising with the weather, we thought we were finally going to have a day without rain but of course as soon as the show was over it started drizzling. We quickly got Daisy on a table because I wanted to get some stacked pictures of her while we were here. She can be difficult to work with and food just makes her even crazier but we were able to get a few pictures.

Sawyer and Daisy spent some time playing together in the motor home. They had a great time burning off some energy. I was happy with the pictures with the new camera considering it was not on sports mode and with a flash.

Daisy does enjoy her toys.

And shoes, bad Daisy!

Wrestlemainia with Sawyer was so much fun.

Daisy gets a little wild when playing but she looks like quite a beast in this photo.  Who is this evil puppy?

Looks like Sawyer wants to be saved from Daisy.

2011 WCA Nationals - Day 4

May 18, 2011. Today is our first attempt at Novice obedience with Sawyer. We’ve been practicing with Barb and Desi and hope to be successful in this ring.

Well our exercises were pretty good. A little lagging on the heeling but overall passing…

…until we got to the stays. We made it through the 1 minute sit stay and then all we had to do was the 3 minute down stay and we’d have our first Q. Two minutes and 30 seconds into the down stay (I checked the video), Sawyer decided he just couldn’t bear to be away from me any longer and just had to get up and come towards me. So we got a big fat NQ for the day. On a good note, Barb and Desi got their first Rally Excellent leg taking first place in their class.

After Obedience in the morning it was onto day two of showing in the breed ring for Sawyer. Luckily I had no conflicts this year.

Sawyer stacks nicely for me. We’ve been working on keeping his tail up on the stack.

Sherry hangs onto Sawyer so I can take pictures of Prada. You can see why he wasn’t successful in his stays across the ring. What a mamma’s boy!

Prada also had her second day of showing.

Sawyer and Daisy hanging out together after showing.  It was a pretty rainy week so we take advantage of any dry time outside we can get.

But of course they'd rather be with me.  Let us out!

After showing, Daisy had a play date with our neighbor Loui. He is Carol Dubuque's 5 months old puppy. What a difference in size one month makes.

They had quite a great time together.

Loui with the stare down and Daisy ignoring him.

It was like a puppy cage match. Let’s get it ON!

Loui’s a cutie!

The evening was the Top 20 Invitational and Dude would be shown since he was # 11 in Show Points and #12 in Breed Points for 2010.

If you look closely you can see his tongue is sticking out.

Sawyer and Jazzy hanging out in the ex-pens. Hopefully this sign isn’t very accurate.

2011 WCA Nationals - Day 3

May 17, 2011. Day one of showing for Sawyer and I. The Best of Breed competition kicked off the day. Since it was a large entry of 40, we were split up into groups and this judge wanted to see bitches first so I was able to take a few photos of Prada while we waited for Sawyer’s turn.

Prada looked great stacked, but she is a 15 month old puppy so she’s probably one of the younger specials in the line up.

Next up Sawyer was in the ring so Nadine took over the camera duties.

What a handsome man.

Movin’ round the ring.

The obligatory tongue shot from the Dude child.

During our lunch break, Prada worked on Ellen to share her salad.

Boy that salad sure looks good.

Oh poor me, I never get any food, won’t you please share your salad with me.

Ellen caves....sucker!

After lunch we started the next Sweepstakes. Cash, a Dude son was up first in the 6-9 month puppy class.

Daisy came inside to visit and socialize. We spent some time stacking her. As you can see from her evil eye look she was not amused.

One more Prada close up before we leave the building.

We stopped in the raffle room to take a look at all the wonderful things people donated. Here is the basket from the Garden State Weimaraner Club which I wrapped and transported.

We ended the evening with dinner at the hotel restaurant. It was nice and close after a long day of showing, with good food and great company. Lots of laughs are to be had when we get together.

From left to right: Heidi Warren, Anne McPherson, Ellen Gravatt, Philip Boyce, Barb Heuman, and Nadine Todd.