Conformation

After a few years of not having a "show dog", Ziva joined the family and we have opted to show her. She has participated in Junior Showmanship with Destiny, our family junior, and gone to some practice shows. We haven't had any competition yet in the classes but are planning to attend a show soon where there will be other class dogs.

The challenge for me is learning how to run around the ring without tripping over my own two feet. And I'm working hard on co-ordinating my leash hand and my cookie hand. That is one too many things for me to think of while running. I'm taking a class for practice so fingers crossed, I won't fall on my face.

My favorite part of showing is visiting with other Curly owners that I don't get to see often and comparing notes about who is doing what with their dogs.

Between show dogging, agility, field work and therapy work, Curlies tend to keep their owners very busy.

Q & A for the day:

The Curly standard includes the term "wickedly smart". What does that mean?

Curlies have an innate problem solving ability that requires a lot of creativity. Many people have developed an opinion of what "wickedly smart" means based on things their Curlies have done. Here is one of my own examples:

Bath day at our house used to consist of everyone getting a bath and going to the basement to dry (as they aged, the steps became a problem so we have since modified the routine). They would each get a rawhide chew (chewie) when they went down the steps. One day, Hunter needed an unscheduled bath so he was the only one to get one. As I let him into the basement Singer ran down the steps expecting a chewie too. I laughed at her and told her "No bath, No chewie". She barked at me, trying to make a good case for getting her own chewie but I just repeated myself, "No bath, No chewie". I came upstairs and went to the study to do some work but I kept hearing her bark from the other end of the house. Finally, I got up to go find her and found her standing in the bathtub. "OK" I said, "You can have a bath". Yes, I stopped right then and gave her a bath, then sent her to the basement with her chewie. She was happy. She had to work that one out to get what she wanted. Other folks have many, many tales - some much more wicked, but all equally smart.