Atomic Nerds

For those of you that are wondering how we wound up as exhibitors at a dog show despite not being obvious Christopher Guest caricatures, it happened roughly like this: we chose a breed, one I had always wanted but couldn’t have for a laundry list of reasons when I was living at home. It seemed like a great fit for our lives and personalities, and being the zealous young animal lover I was, I went on a hunt to find an ethical and responsible person who bred these dogs. I found her, and we bought from her a male puppy, who turned out to have a lot of the best the breed had to offer and little of the worst, and was sound and healthy besides.

So pleased were we, that we went back to the same breeder- who, being a responsible low-volume producer of good dogs, generally has more people who want a puppy than puppies- and signed on to wait for a litter out of our boy’s half-sister. Time passed. The sister was bred, but did not catch pregnant- however, the breeder informed us, she’d had someone back out at the last minute on a contract for a show-quality puppy. Would we be interested in a co-ownership arrangement for this beauty contestant? Well… after listening to the deal… we were. At the very least, it would be interesting. (As Stingray will no doubt snort when he reads this, I tend to place a lot of value on an “interesting” experience, sometimes up to and including the “interesting times” of curse fame.) The deal was, she was our pet, but the breeder would show her to her championship, and if she passed all health clearances, an option would be left open for her to be bred once.

Time passed, Kang grew, and we’d stopped thinking of her as a future pageant warrior and simply thought of her as another of the beasties. Then, we got an e-mail about a show coming up in the region…

Technically speaking, we could have just dropped her off in Albuquerque and picked her up after everything was over, but we kind of wanted to see the show, as well as being just a *bit* worried for our baby all alone in the big city and such. Plus, we always have a list of things to do in Albuquerque, so things evolved from there into staying in the city for the weekend until the show was over- taking her down, taking her back. Then, as it turned out, the first day of showing was an Akita specialty (Akitas only, held by the local breed club), and afterward there would be a dinner for the Akita people there, and did we want to come?

At that point, Stingray was more than just a skosh skeptical. Me, I thought it’d be interesting.

Friday was hell in a circus car. We got up at oh-dark-thirty, flung our stuff into the pickup, and flung Kang into the shower for a fast pre-show bath. We drove down to Albuquerque, hungry, tired, and trepiditious, with Kang breathing moistly into Stingray’s ear for most of the trip for moral support. (Hers, presumably, not his.) We arrived at the show grounds, walked Kang, and tried to call the breeder to figure out just where in hell we were supposed to bring the little brat, only to discover- later- that the cell we were trying to reach was tucked in a glove compartment. A bit of hiking later, we located the relevant person, and were immediately- as long as we were there and everything- dragooned into learning how to properly groom her for a show. She was re-dampened, had he nails trimmed and then further smoothed and shortened with a Dremel tool (howling as though she were being skinned and trying to climb my head the whole time), had whitening shampoo on her white socks, was sprayed with volumizer, and then was blown dry with a tool that resembled a shop-vac in reverse while we pulled out every dead hair she had ever shed.

Due to the specialty, everybody involved had brought roughly every single Akita, living or dead, that could possibly be entered, and consequently everybody was very rushed, very stressed, and constantly had five things to do at once- including us, whether we wanted to or knew how or not. It also emerged that as well as being a crybaby for grooming, Kang- who under normal circumstances will practically start up a one-man band for the smallest scrap of salad- was completely uninterested in being stacked, gaited, or anything else, not for liver, chicken, green eggs and ham, or anything else we might have to offer.

It also emerged that she was more willing to work if she could not see us- presumably, as long as we were in view, she held out hope for a rescue. Therefore, we were immediately banned from being ringside at our own dog’s show. Understandably, but it still rather sucked. We watched from various positions behind objects while she balked, sulked, and reacted to the idea of having her teeth checked on top of everything by attempting to punch the judge.

To our immense surprise, she did not come in dead last- beauty contests not being won on good behavior. In a conformation show, dogs are divided up first by sex, and then by a number of exhibitor classes; bred-by-exhibitor (owner, handler, and breeder are all the same person), Puppy (under one year), 12-18 months (Kang’s class), American-bred, and so on. After the winners are selected from these classes, all the dogs of the same sex are pitted against each other; once a winner is chosen there (winner’s dog, winner’s bitch), they are pitted against any dogs entered who have already finished their championship, and best of breed is chosen. Winner’s dog and winner’s bitch win points toward their championship depending on how many other dogs they beat out for the title. Kang finished first in her class, but lost to the other bitches that won theirs.

After the specialty was over, we drove Kang first to her breeder’s to spend the weekend getting to know her- and being put through a bit of boot camp for ring behavior. After that, we re-enacted selected scenes from Death Race 2000 to get to the club dinner on time.

Being the only people there just *that* psychotic about being on time to anything and everything, the only other people at the restaurant were the ones that did not have dogs to put away and take care of after the show, which was how the very first person I wound up awkwardly introducing myself to turned out to be the judge that Kang had punched. She was a good sport about it, though, having gotten to where she was by putting up with decades worth of Akita shenanigans, and we wound up chatting for a bit. The rest of the dinner proceeded in a rush of wolfed food and general lostness, as we were immersed in jargon that I understood about half of and Stingray understood just enough to be annoyed about. After that, it was time to rush to our hastily rescheduled tattoo appointment so Stingray could finish off the entire miserable day in style by having someone carve his ribs with a hot needle for an hour and a half. When we finally got to bed, it was well past midnight, with wakeup call in about six hours.

The rest of the weekend went better; Saturday and Sunday were regular all-breed conformation shows (smaller entries per breed, and best of breed goes on to compete for best of group and then best of show), which were attended by less chaos. Kang behaved better with each successive day, and there wasn’t the added stress of meeting a bunch of new people speaking an unfamiliar language while we were exhausted and pre-crankified. We also broke our no-theater rule to go see Iron Man, which turned out to be one of the movies that actually lived up to all the hype- I can count all such films on one hand. We got no more sleep that night than the night before, but without the long drive and the dinner it was more tolerable. Kang continued her pattern of winning her initial class but not the next one. The discovery was made that the absolute best way to get through a crowded show is to be escorting an Akita- the breed has a somewhat deserved reputation for taking zero shit from other dogs, and a path cleared as if we had Moses on a leash each time. We also learned which other owners were completely clueless- it was nice not to be the only ones. Finally, on Sunday, we collected our little hellion and drove home.

Sunday was- spent mostly asleep. Monday was spent running headlong into reality, face-first, and then rebounding onto the floor.

And we get to do it all again next show… should be interesting.

Note: Stingray’s version is rather different, heavily laced with profanity, and bitterer than black coffee laced with Campari. However, he told ME to post this, so…

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