GSD Schutzhund Club of Canada Nationals - Photos

Calgary GSD Club members

Wayne Carnegie, Jan Hrouda (2010 Nationals Tracking Judge), Me

Wade Waters, Dan Waters (no, they are not related), Brian Currey, John Krayzel

Diane Carnegie (yes, Wayne's better half)

What a great bunch of people!

Another club photo, this one has Wade's better half, Melissa in it. Melissa was the official trial photographer. To see AWESOME PHOTOS of every dog, go to her website please - http://www.sleepingdogstudio.ca/

Dan Waters, President of the Calgary Club and Jacki Barnes, President of the Thunder Bay Club! If not for Jacki, I don't know if I would be into SchH. She invited me to the Wallace Payne seminar when Caden was 6 months old. I was interested in tracking, and the rest just fell into place! Thanks Jacki! It was great to see a Thunder Bay friend at the Nationals.

Dan's Ali Von Daechsel SchH 3 - Ali put on an excellent performance and was literally within 3 points of making it into the top 5 for the second year. We were so proud - and Dan won the Prairie Reigonal member trophy (below).

Dan and Ali, with judges Jan Hrouda (tracking) and Gunther Diegel of Germany.

Melissa Waters at work, one of the last photos of the weekend!

I love taking pictures of Jan Hrouda because he is such an interesting man both to talk to and in his appearance. I love to talk tracking, of course, and he is a passionate tracker and SchH tracking judge and SchH judge. Unfortunately this year, I couldn't watch tracking because it was on a private sod farm and having a lot of traffic would not have been good for the sod business.

John sitting with Vic Donza of Edmonton. Vic is the man I bought my dog trailer from. Jan Hrouda, above, John, and Vic are all Czech. Vic Donza had an amazing dog named Beamer. It was quite touching to hear his stories of Beamer this weekend, a SchH 3 dog. I feel like my trailer is a good luck trailer because of it.

And there is my trailer with my very cozy dogs enjoying their A/C. I prop the doors open a little. That is River's door on the driver's side. She actually hops in, she loves it - she has a little bed, a bone and her bowl of water and air conditioning. But she would like a TV. Such a princess! Jet and Ted share the back. Caden is on the tree side, so he can't bark at passers by - but he did anyway. It was far from the competition field, so OK. He could hear the gun and whip, and dogs barking and had no doubt what was going on!

I sat with Cade for awhile and took photos of him standing and listening to the competition. Some day Caden, you and I will be doing that! (I am being ultra-positive, and he is a good dog). It was great to see top handlers and visualize how to behave and handle, plus to hear the judge's critiques after each dog and know how important every little thing can be. By the way, that is John's van in the background!

This was one of the dogs I just loved and he got high score obedience with 95. The next highest score was 90. This is Satoris Darko owned by Gerhard Rohde.

Darko takes off like a shot for his verous, with a great platz at the far end of the field. He is a bi-colour.

Good boy! I got choked up after a lot of these performances.

Another dog I loved was Kofi vom Kiebitzende, owned by Raino Fluegge of PEI. I took this candid shot of him, as I didn't have my camera handy when he was on. Very nice dog, beautiful working and beautiful in appearance. Super athletic.

Gabi Hoffman and Yoschy vom Steintal, the 2010 National winners, from the West Coast

Lance Collins and Zando vom Cap Arkona, second place overall

Jacki Barnes of Thunder Bay is on the far right with Bizzy in the group photo. The judges are lined up here - Wilfried Scheld at the left was the Show and Breed Survey judge. He is from Germany and also judges HGH herding, and he knew Manfred Heyne who bred Caden's grandsire Nicky (Alf von Fafnerhaus). Gunther Diuegel of Germany was the trial judge and Jan Hrouda the tracking judge. I am pretty sure the exhibitor next to Jacki is Darryl Haringsima with his dog Alon (BC).

All the participants - Dan on the far right with Ali. In first to 5th were Gabi, Lance, Robin Winter and Wichita (Narnia), Raino, then Robin again with her Czech dog Dix in 5th. For final scores scroll down... 

Team Canada - Gabi, Lance, Robin, Raino and Rosalyn Jamieson with captain Jim Crisp of Ontario