EDITORIAL: City Hall accessibility must be addressed A4
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Daily
Dave Bidini coming A6
■ Dog show
Full weekend for handlers and judges ALLan Wishart
allanw@pgfreepress.com
The grounds at 5100 North Nechako Road went to the dogs on the weekend – in a good way. The Prince George Kennel Club held its annual dog show from Friday to Sunday, and both four-legged and two-legged visitors enjoyed the weekend. “We had to stop for about 20 minutes on Friday because of the lightning,” said professional dog handler Larry Clark, from Calgary, “but that was it. If it’s raining, the show goes on.” Clark gets to Prince George as often as he can, showing dogs for other owners. “I used to have my own dogs that I showed, but now I just show for others.” He said with some of the dogs, the owner doesn’t do a lot of work getting it ready for the show, so he has to, but other owners do most of the work themselves. “This little chihuahua I just showed was a perfect example. The owner couldn’t show it, and she asked me if I would show it. She wouldn’t even let her mother show it. “It got me in the heart. That will be the biggest prize for this weekend.” Clark was showing a wide variety of dogs on the weekend, from the chihuahua to an Irish wolfhound. “I got into it by accident, really,” he said. “I was a trainer, and people kept telling me I should be showing the dogs as well. “It’s a knack you get. A good handler can make a bad dog look good; a bad handler can make a good dog look bad.”
Claire Boudreau is another handler from Calgary who made the trip to Prince George. Sunday morning, she held one dachshund in her lap while three others squirmed for position in a cage beside her. “These dogs are all from an owner in Regina. There’s six varieties of dachshunds, and they all have their own personalities. “These ones like to stack themselves together when they’re in a cage. They get along really well.” Judge Nancy Popovich had to keep shedding layers of clothing on a beautiful Sunday morning. “I’m from Kelowna, and I’m kind of a hothouse flower,” she explained, “so I find it chilly here in the mornings.” As with the other judges at the show, Popovich was handling all seven groups of dogs for one show each day, which meant she could be seeing up to 175 dogs of all breeds. “I’ve been judging since 1994, and I was showing my own dogs since 1967 or 1968. It got to the stage where my dogs got older and I retired them from shows, but I wanted to stay involved.” Being a judge at a dog show isn’t a matter of showing up and getting to work. “It’s a long process,” Popovich said. “You start by being allowed to judge half of one of the groups, then you work up to judging a single group. After that, you get licences to judge more groups. “It takes 10 or 12 years to get to the point where you A lla n W ISHA RT/ Fre e Pre s s can judge a full show, like Larry Clark was handling all sizes of dogs at the Prince George Kennel Club Dog Show on the weekend, this one.” from chihuahuas to Irish wolfhounds.
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