2016 Show Season Part 1


I guess the season started with the arrival of this leash. One day I was told a special package would be arriving from a NIPPO judge in Shikoku, and upon opening it, this leash was sitting there. That night I got a call about it, and was told it was a good luck charm for the upcoming show season which would culminate in the NIPPO Grand National hosted by us, the members of the NIPPO Chiba branch.

This leash has been used by 3 Grand National Shikoku best of breed during their winning show. Now, it's sitting here in my cabin. Don't know that I'll ever have the courage to actually use it...

Anyway, first show of the season was the Chiba regional. I showed my mentor's young male Chouhou Go. 

He's a very dry dog, with lots of potential, throwing strongly toward the Choushun type. It was his first show, and first time out of the house, so as you can imagine it was a bit iffy at times, but we took 2nd place in class.

Scheduling and other issues kept me from showing any more dogs the rest of the fall. My only show dog is Masa (Masamine Go), and he was ridiculously late blowing his coat, and didn't eat the whole summer. The females had gone through their heat cycles in the late spring, and everytime one would go in heat, he'd stop eating. Just as I got him to start eating again in the fall, the next round of heats started . It was a struggle to get any weight on him, and to try to get his coat to come in. 

I switched up his food a lot, added different toppings when he'd bore of his food, added hot water... encourage his coat to come in by washing him down with cold water every night and leaving him to air dry.

After the summer heat wave came to an end I started taking him out a few times a week off leash in the mountains, where suddenly he started chasing boar. Just when he seemed to be putting on a little mass, and his coat started to come in a bit, I injured my MCL and meniscus while surfing.

It just snowed today in Tokyo, which is ridiculously early, and it's freezing out there. But hey, time to walk the dogs now so I'll write some more tomorrow or the day after...

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