As I mentioned in my previous post, the Louisville Cluster of dog shows is the largest group of shows in the country. As such, they do a few things differently than most All-Breed shows: they include a Veterans Class for every breed; and they award Awards Of Merit in addition to Best Of Breed, Best Of Opposite Sex and Best Of Winners.
Rowdy is 10 years old but he still enjoys showing and competing. So, knowing we had to drive up to Louisville for our Cassidy daughter, Juneau, to get to her handler Kimm McDowell for our National Specialty, we entered Rowdy in the Veterans Class. When Cassidy went into heat last week, we also decided to bring her along since we were interviewing a potential husband for her. That had us traveling with 3 generations of Rottweilers: grandpa Rowdy, daughter Cassidy and Cassidy's daughter, Juneau.
Friday turned out to be -- from Rowdy's viewpoint -- a perfect Rottie day. Because of a scheduling anomaly, the Veteran Dog was judged separately at 8 am after some Siberian Huskeys. The judge, Mrs. Barbara Alderman, has judged Rowdy in his younger days and had awarded him a Group 2 and a Group 4 so we knew she liked him. We asked his favorite little girl to show him: 13-year-old Michelle McDowell.
You could see Mrs. Alderman getting a little teary as this pretty little girl entered the ring with her "old, grey Rottie", Rowdy. Mrs. Alderman asked her to take Rowdy around the ring and as they blasted off, you could see that look of "awwwwww" turn into a look of "wow". Here's a shot of Michelle and Rowdy on that first go-around.
And here's a shot of him during the inspection.
Mrs. Alderman sent Michelle and Rowdy around several times and the non-Rottie people outside the ring applauded and whooped for him every time. It was really wonderful.
Two hours later, it was time for Rottweilers to be judged and Rowdy was now eligible to show in Best Of Breed competition with Michelle's mom, Kimm. Michelle and her 12-year-old Junior Handler friend worked on getting Rowdy "psyched up" during class judging.
And just before he went into the ring, Michelle wished him luck.
Once in the ring, here's the view that the judge had of this poor old doddering 10-year-old.
There were 4 dogs competing in Best Of Breed on Friday that had gone Best In Show in their careers. The judge selected as his Best Of Breed dog, Avatar's Luck Of The Draw (Ace) who was the #1 Rottweiler in the country two years ago; his first Award of Merit went to Nighthawk's Born For Highwood (Ozz) who is currently ranked #1. The second Award of Merit went to a certain Veteran Dog named Rowdy.
There is something about watching a dog that loves to show doing something he adores that makes you forget that he's getting older. Certainly, Rowdy doesn't think so. He believed he could outmove every dog in that ring on Friday and the judge agreed. Congratulations, Rowdy, we are very proud of you.
Jim
