2025 National Specialty
We again had the opportunity to go to the Swissy National Specialty in 2025, this time at the Hueston Woods Lodge and Conference Center in College Corner, OH, from October 4–9, with the Lake Shore GSMD Club Independent Specialty immediately after on the 10th and 11th. It was a loooong drive from California, but it was definitely worth it and a lot of fun as usual. This time there were over 240 Swissies registered, twice as big as the 2023 version, so there were just Swissies all over the place—the picture (click on it for a large version) attempts to show 100 champion Swissies (including Rüdi) in the ring at once.
Of course we had to do a bit of everything while we were there, so there was only on day during the entire week that we had mostly “off”. Conformation for us was on Thursday for the Best of Breed competition, then again on Friday at the Independent Specialty. As I expected, Rüdi didn't do anything, so I wasn't disappointed; this is a combination of too many professional handlers and breeder handlers who live for this stuff, the fact that Rüdi is smack in the middle of the breed standard for size and weight and will thus never be selected over the bigger boys who dominate the ring, and that I just don't care about conformation that much. If I was willing to hand him off to a pro or to spend hours washing and grooming him he might do a little better, but conformation just isn't my thing and so it won't happen.
Where I do care a lot is in the activities, and here Rüdi had a fantastic specialty. Pack hiking was the first event of the specialty, so on Sunday we did a 10 mile pack hike for our first qualifying pass (out of four needed) for a pack hike title. It was a really pretty and mostly level hike through the woods surrounding Acton lake where the lodge and conference center are located, but I think Rüdi was mostly just saying “Do we really have to do this?” for the last two miles. However, he did just fine, and so we had our first ribbon in the bag.
The ribbon I most wanted to earn during the specialty was for drafting. Rüdi had finished his Master Draft Dog (MDD) title two weeks before at the Swissy Draft Test in Williams, AZ, but I desperately wanted a draft ribbon from the Nationals. After a bit of a panic while assembling his cart when I couldn't find a needed wooden bushing on Monday morning, things settled down and we went into the maneuvering course confidently. Rüdi had his best run ever, virtually flawless. The judges paid us a very high complement afterward when they told me they wondered why they were even out there — Rüdi's run was so clean we gave them absolutely nothing to discuss. The fact that they were willing to say that to me really made my day!
Tuesday was an interesting day — it was pouring down rain. Rüdi is pretty allergic to stuff falling out of the sky, so I had little hope of much success in Rally obedience. At least it was under a tent, but the rain was so hard that there were rivers and puddles all throughout the grass under the tent. First up was Rally Master, where Rüdi had a surprisingly good run—a 92, which was his second highest Master score ever. Then the water finally got to him. In Rally Excellent, the first sign was to come sit in front of me, then have me walk around him. Because the spot to sit was essentially in the middle of a pond, he absolutely refused to come around to do so. Despite much begging, cajoling, and pleading, no chance, so there was 10 points lost. Later in the course, he decided to go around the second jump rather than going over, so there was another 10 points. A 77 in the end, but that was 20 points lost to just plain goofiness. The Rally Advanced course after that wasn't too bad, but he clipped the jump bar with his trailing foot, so that was 10 points lost there; an 85 in the end. He earned a “triple-Q” and five Master points toward a putative Rally Champion title, but he was 20 points off the ribbon for “High Triple“ that I was hoping we would have a shot at. All things considered in light of the wet, soggy weather, however, it really wasn't a bad day, and the 92 in Master really was rather impressive.
Later in the afternoon, after the rain stopped, was the weight pull. This was our first time doing it, so I wasn't really sure what to expect from Rüdi. Because of all the drafting we do, I didn't think he would have too much trouble figuring out how to do the pulls, and I was mostly right. Because this test had the cart they needed to pull on steel rails, Rüdi would have to pull 14 times his body weight to earn a qualifying leg. He weighed in at 122 lbs, so he needed to pull 1708 lbs to qualify. The empty cart was 450 lbs, and they added weight in 198 lb increments. You are allowed to skip increments, so I decided to do every other weight, just to give him some experience. I didn't repeat the empty cart practice runs, so Rüdi officially pulled 648, 1044, 1440, and then 1836 lbs to earn his first qualifying leg. At the Independent Weight Pull the following Saturday, he did the same sequence to earn his second leg, but then we added in 2034 lbs just to brag that he pulled over 2000 lbs. For full disclosure, I should point out that the top dogs were pulling over 5000 lbs, so 2000 isn't really that impressive, but I didn't want to abuse him, either, so we stopped there. It still got him 3rd place in his weight class!
The icing on the cake was that since we earned qualifying scores in three or more events (pack hike, drafting, weight pull, and Rally in our case), he earned a special Tri-Athlete ribbon. This was important to me because it shows that he is good at so many different activities. Definitely a highlight to receive it at the awards banquet Thursday night.
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