Yesterday we were at a show at a working dog club not too far away from here, for Ringos début in the open class since he is now past 2 years of age. Boxers were, for once, not the first breed to be judged in their ring, so we only had to get up at 7 am to be there at 9 am. Quite a difference from getting up at 3 am for the last show.

Ringo started the morning by being very lively. He clearly knows that early mornings with the whole family getting ready means a dog show. Didn’t help my nerves, of course, that he decided to be pretty feisty. The judge for the show would be one that previously had given him a 2 for quality, in large parts because he really misbehaved. So, I was not expecting more than a 1 today and that only if he managed to behave.

After an agonizingly long wait (okay, two and a half weeks, but it felt like years ;P) we finally got Ringo’s X-ray results today. And he’s got excellent hips and knees, whee!

Today Ringo finally had his knees and his hips x-rayed (a bit late, as its usually done between 12 and 18 months, but we wanted to make sure he’d finished developing). This is a standard procedure for boxers, as the breed has some minor issues with their knees and some more major issues with their hips (hip dysplasia). Knees without any negative remarks and hips of at least type A or B are required for any dog used for breeding. You also need the same result to be allowed to get the title of KORAD which is given to dogs who pass a mental evaluation and a conformation evaluation done between the ages of two and four.

So, now we’re in for a nervous couple of weeks as we wait for the results (the x-rays are sent off to be analysed by the Swedish Kennel Club), though the vet who did the x-rays seemed to think it looked pretty good. That is, she first did a set she wasn’t happy with (the positioning of the dog is very important, and small deviations can change the final result), but when they redid them she seemed to think they came out fine. However, that’s far from a guarantee of anything, so I am telling myself not to take anything for granted.

Today is Ringo’s 2nd birthday. We got him some ice-cream cake (well, he didn’t get the whole to himself) and a new toy. The cake was served at the kitchen table (he loves sitting on the chair there) and he managed to eat off a plate without making too much of a mess. The new toy, a long-legged turtle with two squeaky and two rattly legs, proved an instant success. Which, of course, meant it wasn’t likely to be long-lived. In fact, he tore up one leg and cracked open one rattle within about 5-10 minutes. Hopefully, the little monster didn’t swallow too many of the tiny little steel balls in the rattle.

I think I am going to start a business making boxer-proof toys. From kevlar. That might do it.

But he sure had fun, at least.

After a few days of resting my arms and hands, I am finally up to writing a report about our trip to this years Swedish Boxer Championships. Ok, maybe that’s a little bit of an exagerration, but I did get quite worn out by handling Ringo for a whole day around a lot of people and a lot of dogs.

It began with a very early start (we left at about 3.30 ... am), and while we didn’t stay for the whole thing we were still away until about 5 pm. By which time I was quite knackered. The weather was rather cold and windy for most of the day, and Ringo was not as well-behaved as he has been for most shows this year. Outside of the ring, he was pretty stress-free (but he was very excited to meet his brother again, and his brother’s ‘girlfriend’, aka the breeder’s gorgeous new puppy girl from Italy), but inside he was a bit of a handful. Not as bad as he has been in the past, but enough to up my heart rate quite a bit.

Today we had our first show in a couple of months. Since we haven’t had much chance to train Ringo with a lot of dogs around him during the summer, I was expecting him to be rather charged up. He also started the morning off by being a little hellion already at home, so I was expecting a very bad day in the ring. It wasn’t even very warm, which might have helped to tire him out. ;P

When we got to the show (this one was quite close by, at least), he was his usual whirling dervish self for the first 30 minutes. But then he mostly came back down on the ground. Still, I was quite nervous when it was time to get into the ring. Unfortunately, we weren’t alone either. ;) Still, Ringo surprised me by not pulling too much at all as we ran the first lap, even though he was behind the other dog. He then waited mostly patiently while the other dog was evaluated.

Once it was time for our individual evaluation, he was lively (as usual) when the judge (a very nice fellow) checked his teeth, his head and made sure he still had two testicles. But then he actually didn’t act up on the individual run either. Well, he made one move to do so, but I managed to curb it. The judge looked him over some more, and then wanted us to run again. That’s unusual, so I figured there was something he wasn’t quite happy with, even though I thought Ringo had done pretty well (and I had tried to keep in mind some of the tips from the handlar class we did in spring).

We did get our 1 for quality, but when we were called back in with the other dog, he decided pretty quickly on that one after asking us to run to more laps. He preferred his muzzle (said Ringo’s was a little too short and also too narrow) and preferred his gaits (he thought Ringo’s were a little unsteady, even though he had good propulsion). The other dog was a rather English boxer, and that type is preferred by many judges here. His slightly longer muzzle is, as far as I can tell, typical of that type. So, not much to be done about that. The gaits ... well, we’ll need to try to work on getting him to concentrate more, so he runs mroe steadily.

Though I doubt we can work any miracles until next weekend, when we probably will be heading off to the Swedish boxer championships. Provided we don’t back out of doing the 4-hour-drive each way. ;P

Medium-sized, powerfully built. Good proportions. Masculine head, good eyes and ears. Somewhat short muzzle that is somewhat narrow. Adequate withers, firm back, big-boned. Fairly well-balanced, ground-covering strides, good propulsion. Good temper, eager to work.

After a few weeks of no shows, we had another one today. This was the same show that last year went very poorly, as the raspy speaker system spooked Ringo. He ended up with a 2 then, so I was definitely hoping to do better than that today. Of course, the last show (the boxer special last month) also resulted in a 2, though we have since heard that the judge there was so tough and so keen on handing out 2s that more blue ribbons had to be prepared. Still, he’s a little too round right now, since the heat has meant we can’t exercise him as much as we usually do, and his muscle tone is not as good as it was a month ago. With this in mind, I tried to keep my expectations realistic.

After looking over what I wrote about Ringo’s mental evaluation test a few weeks ago, I decided that I wanted to write up a more thorough description of what it was like. Especially since we were so nervous in advance that we didn’t bother to get a hold of a video camera like most everyone else does these days, and the regular camera hadn’t been charged up so we ran out of batteries halfways in. Oops. ;P For those who aren’t familiar with this sort of test it might also give a better idea of what its like. One important thing to keep in mind is that although the scale is 1-5 for each test, the numbers don’t mean the same each time. Sometimes you want a 1, sometimes you want a 5 and sometimes something in-between. It also depends on the breed what you want, since they’re bred to do different things in certain situations.

We’ve finally added a bunch of new pictures of Ringo. There’s one addition to the 2007 gallery, the rest are in the newly added 2008 gallery. They’re mainly from the last show, the boxerspecial on the 11th of May, and from his MH test on the 17th of May. I am also working on a more thorough description of what happened during his testing, which may be up in a day or two.

Today, the time had come for Ringo’s ‘MH’ test, which is an evaluation of his mentality. In general, it is done between 12 and 18 months of age, but we felt Ringo was too immature this autumn and then it took until now before the local boxer club arranged another one. Given that he has shown a fear of fireworks as well as reacted to gun shots, I was very nervous about taking the test (the last part of the test is four gun shots). In fact, I almost changed my mind about doing it today, as late as when we were out there and ready to start. But we decided to go ahead anyway, and given the end result I am very glad that we did it. Instead of scraping by on the shots, Ringo passed with the best possible score. Whew!

Now, mind you, I am pretty certain it had a lot to do with him being dead tired at that stage, because he had been so keyed up earlier and managed to get himself quite worn out from lots of pulling and from his usual sensitivity to warmth. However, even taking that into account, his reaction was miles better than I had expected. He also surprised us (less positively so) by not doing so great when it came to gripping things and when it came to curiosity. At home, he’s ferocious when it comes to grabbing and holding onto things, and tug of war his a favourite game. He also tends to be pretty curious. But today, he was actually quite reserved. I think he becomes a bit more passive when he has a lot to process, basically. It seems to be either going totally bonkers because his brain overheats, or becoming very pensive.

He also showed some very interesting reactions to people. If the helpers initiated contact with him, he went wild with joy, jumping up in their faces. If they did nothing, he just sniffed them and ignored them. To some degree, I think this is because of his age; he’s started to learn that if someone doesn’t show interest in him, he’s supposed to ignore them. In any case, we were thrilled with him passing with such a good result on the shooting, and it was interesting to see how he reacted to the other parts of the test.

We sure had a busy weekend. First a kennelclub show on Saturday and then the boxerspecial on Sunday. The common denominator for both was hot weather and a very well-behaved Ringo.

Its been slow on the show front since January, though I have actually had plenty of other things (like our weekly trips up to the local club to train the little monster) I could have posted about. I’ve just been very lazy. That’ll have to change now. Today was the first of three shows in May, with the other two coming up the 10th and the 11th. We’ll have to hope for a better result there. ;) Today’s judge did not much care for Ringo, and we did not go on from the individual evaluation. This was the evaluation:

Male under development. Needs stronger sex characteristics in his head, somewhat small teeth, dark eyes, head needs to be somewhat larger for the body. Powerful neck, adequate length. Needs to come up a little on his legs, open forearm angles. Good muscle tone, somewhat thin coat today, good guard hairs, beautiful stripes. Needs steadier movements. Accessible and lively temperament.

Result: UKL-2

Some of these things sound quite strange to us, since they contradict things previously said, so we’re chalking it up mostly to the judge. ;) His coat is, however, not great at the moment, so that may affect the other two shows too.

What was great today, however, was his behaviour. Well, great for him, anyway. It seems like weekly training at the club has gotten him to be a little more responsive to me when around a lot of dogs and a lot of people. I have also learned a couple of good tricks for dealing with him when he goes into overdrive, such as just pulling the leash down and standing on it, and I finally remembered to take my time when he did act up rather than hurrying up because I worry so much about being an inconvenience. So, instead of pressing ahead with a dog hanging from my arm and growling at me, I stopped him, waited until he gave in (basically, he had to cool off a bit so I could communicate with him again, since he just ends up totally blocked when he gets too excited), and gave him some treats. I also picked up some useful tips about showing him at a show training this last Tuesday, and I think it helped a lot with keeping him posed fairly nicely in front of the judge.

So, despite a lack of red ribbons, I am pleased with the day, and I hope it made a positive impression on Ringo.

I am, once again, exhausted after taking Ringo to another show. This time, however, my efforts did pay off better than yesterday. He got his first prize for quality, though he only placed fourth (aka last) of the dogs that were awarded the red ribbon for quality. This probably had something to do with his behaviour (which was better than yesterday but still not good) but also with the fact that the judge apparently prefers lots of white markings on boxers, and Ringo is a ‘plain’ rather than ‘flashy’ boxer with hardly any white at all.

I started off by doing lots and lots of practice runs in the ring. This did seem to have some effect, because during the initial run with all the dogs in his class, he didn’t act up. He then waited pretty patiently (I did work a lot with him, though, asking him to sit, lie down, crawl, etc) as the dogs ahead of him received their individual evaluations. Then it kind of went pearshaped when the very nice judge said an enthusiastic hello. If we had been allowed to run before she checked his teeth, I think we would have done much better, but as usual I was too shy to ask for this. As it was now,  he got really charged up and picked a fight with me when we were doing our run alone. Elio had to step in and correct him with some water. ;P He remained very excited, though, and I was convinced for a while that she’d send us off because he wouldn’t stand still after running either.

Fortunately, she’s a boxer owner, and she told me to calm him down first by just asking him to sit or lie down. Once I heard from her that she was okay with me taking a bit of extra time, I relaxed so much and was able to get him to stand decently. I thanked her profusely for her understanding, and I was so thrilled that I ended up with a red ribbon. I did get my hopes up as I saw she was taking her time to write her critique, but I didn’t dare to believe it until the ribbon was handed to me. Whew. Ringo then behaved nicely for the rest of his time in the ring, even stood quite well as she did her final comparisons, and the fourth place felt very good to me.

It was further improved as one of the major and most skilled breeders and showers came up to us to talk about our problems with Ringo. He gave us soem very good advice, and said that we need to get much better at seeing when Ringo is about to get all wound up, because once he gets there its too late. He gets totally blocked and just won’t listen to anything. So learning to break off the behaviour when he starts thinking about it is what we need to do. Harry also noted that since he is ‘plain’ but has a very good head, we should aim mainly for speciality shows (arranged by the Boxer club or, I would guess, the working dog club, since we have done well at such shows too) since those judges aren’t as focused on the flashy white markings and are more likely to appreciate his breed characteristics. Given this, getting a first prize for quality here felt even better.

So, I am glad we went. We also managed to acquire a replacement for a favourite toy that was torn apart a while ago, a duck that quacks. Ringo is now a very happy boy.

Dog show time again. Actually, Ringo has been to another show these past few months, but my parents had him then (they were visiting my brother in Stockholm) so there wasn’t much to report other than the fact that he behaved very, very badly. I will, however, belatedly be adding the critique from that show. You see, it goes nicely with the critique from today, which was also pretty terrible on account of him behaving very, very badly. Basically, the judges kind of rule him out right off because they don’t get a good look at him. And I have no issue with that. I just don’t know what to do about the fact that he gets so incredibly wound up. Today, I didn’t have any sleeves for him to bite. So, he did what he did with my dad last time and attacked my feet. He’s very resourceful. ;P He almost had me thinking he’d do fine, as he posed nicely at first. But then, when we were due to run together with the other dogs, he turned into mini-Cujo.

Oh well. ;P We did have some fun to lighten up things, though. While taking him out to the fairly nicely arranged doggy toilet (an area with sawdust and little tree stumps for the discerning male dog ;P), he ended up doing that whole back-leg kick and scratch after peeing. He did it so vigorously that he almost sent a poor chihuahua flying and probably shocked it for life when the sawdust came flying. He also got sawdust all over, I think, a little yorkie that looked like he had been groomed and readied for the show. Oops. ;P

Head is good for his age. Well-proportioned. Chest is adequate for his age, the topline could be somewhat better. Adequate angles. Very sloppy movements, needs to be better behaved.

Oh, I almost forgot. ;P We have another show tomorrow, heh. We’ll see if I want to look like an idiot two days in a row or not. But I am trying to tell myself that this is all just social training for him right now. ;P

Its been a while since last, but today it was time for the second to last of this years shows. It was also time for my dad to take over the handling, to see if Ringo might behave a little better and to get some practice in because they’ll be taking him to the last show for the year in Stockholm.

This was also the first time for Ringo in the 15-24 month class, since he turned 15 months three days ago. This meant his odds were pretty poor, since he’d likely be the least developed dog in his class. It also meant that more entries were likely, since more people show in this class than in the junior class. So, instead of being alone, he was up against three other dogs. And though he did get his first price for quality (as he has gotten at all but one show so far), he ended up placing last of the four.

His behaviour was better than with me (he jumps up on my father too, but stops when told to do so, at least for a while before trying again), though he was hard to get interested in posing well or running with a bit more interest as he was very easily distracted by just about anything. I think he probably would have needed to be worked with more before the class started, but my dad is a bit more laid-back than me. ;) In the meantime, I was extremely nervous, more so than when handling him myself. ;P

Overall, the judge wasn’t too happy with the behaviour of any of the dogs. None of them got a CK and he told all the handlers that they needed to get them to behave better. The critique .... well, it sounds very positive, but either it wasn’t quite enough anyway or he didn’t really consider the order too carefully. It did seem like he was in a hurry to get the troublemakers out of there. ;)

Masculine male. Dark eyes, good expression, good width and depth of muzzle. Noble neck. Square, substantial body. Good angles, suitable bone structure. Good coat and brindling. Moves well when he wants to. Very lively.