Still Standing Episode 7: The Challenges Faced At This Year's Woofstock Dog Show

The challenges faced at this year's Woofstock Dog Show. A new venue, multiple judge cancellations and more, but the show went on...

Transcript

Welcome Back And Why Wolfstock Works

SPEAKER_02 0:10

Hello everyone and welcome back to Still Standing. I'm Wayne Kavanaugh. With me is Kimberly Meredith. Absolutely. The two of us are still standing, and we are here to talk to you tonight about some wonderful things in the world of dogs, especially one of the, well, let's just say the most fun dog show officially in the world. Well, I have not been to Transylvania for the Dracula show. Although I want to go. That sounds like fun. But in North America, Wolfstock has got it nailed, and it just went on. Huge success in spite of some challenges, led by yours truly over here, Kimberly Meredith. Tell me about a whole team.

SPEAKER_01 0:51

I mean, it's a lot of people. Yeah, whole team. I mean, talking about we are, and I'm just gonna give our little our our big team a shout out. We are a well-oiled machine. We've been together 20 plus years. There's no power plays. We're all friends. We all get along. We do things outside of dog shows, believe it or not. And it's just it's a lot of work. It's a lot of work. And you can't subject yourself to this much work if you're not working with people that you really truly love and then have become family. And that's us. Um watch the team.

SPEAKER_02 1:23

You all seem to finish each other's sentences. It's just like you all know what's going on. There's no big reason to have a powwow and a blowout. You all got it.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

You know what? We've all done these jobs for so many years, and I have relinquished a lot to other people because in the beginning I did everything. I was like, you know, I I looked at and I had a job at that point. I was actually working and doing it. I don't know. I I was young, youth was on my line.

SPEAKER_02 1:48

You didn't live three states away either, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:51

Correct. Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:52

Well, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Right near a little different.

SPEAKER_01 1:56

Yeah, yeah. I made an occasional visit to Ohio when I had to. Right.

SPEAKER_02 2:01

We got rid of that. We we bred that out. We bred out the Ohio Park.

Leaving Vallejo And Finding A New Home

SPEAKER_01 2:06

So anyway, this year though was a new venue for us. And we moved from the Solano County Fairgrounds, which we've been at for 20 plus years. And it it's an old fairgrounds. The city is in bankruptcy. It's dirty. They don't fix anything, they don't paint anything. And we really just made the best of it. And other clubs had shows there, and it really shows just how degradated the fairgrounds is. And we put up all of our tie-dye and our flags and our lava lamps and all that. And everybody comes in really honestly Contra Costa County Kennel Club, which no one even really knows the name of our Kennel Club. And that's exactly how we wanted. You know, we wanted to be Wolfstock. And we transform it, we put lipstick on a pig, and we made it work for 20 years. And we had a we'll even go into details, but we got a new manager at the fairgrounds who decided that he did not want to have dog shows anymore. He fired his entire crew, everybody, all the people that worked there, one maintenance guy, fired the electrician, fired everybody. And it made it virtually impossible for us to have a dog show with our speakers and everything that we, you know, their system was so broken down, we have to place speakers all over. And I have to give a shout out to Robert. Uh all you people out there that are young are gonna have no idea what I'm talking about. He is the road manager for the tubes, and the tubes are still performing, and he he's just great. And he brings, you know, all of his speakers and does all the wiring, and it takes days to get it done throughout the entire fairgrounds. So we left Solano County and we went to Woodland, California, which is a small town in farming country near Sacramento, and a lot of shows have moved there. So it seems like the exodus from Valleo, people are either going to Turlock down south, or they're going to Woodland.

Woodland Logistics Heat And Travel Savings

SPEAKER_01 3:55

And then they had shows at Dixon for a while. That seems like I don't know, maybe Dixon didn't want to have dog shows, but we're big, we're larger than any of these shows. So we can't go to some of the smaller venues. Like we love the NAPA fairgrounds, and the NAPA Wine Country Cele Club has their show there, a lovely show ran by lovely people. But we parked 300 motor homes. So, you know, there's just no, there's just no way. So now we ended up in Woodland. The positive about Woodland is that it's clean, it's modern. Cars don't get broken into. Uh, you're you don't have to worry about getting stabbed walking down the street. Um has some nice restaurants in downtown Woodland that you can walk around safely. And there's lots of outbuildings, all of them with kitchens, and the kitchens are very, very clean. So we were able to put, I think we had 39 specialties. I'm getting I'm just guessing. Eva Berg and Lois will few run the specialties. I try to stay out of it as much as possible. But we had specialties on Thursday, are all agreed on Friday, Saturday, Sunday. So it was June 10th, 11th, 12th, and 13th. No, a lot. June 5th, 6th this next year. June 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th. Each of these clubs and the buildings, a lot, one of them has actual air conditioning, but most of them have swamp coolers, which can or cannot be very effective. The large building, Expo Hall, where we decided you have to have the groups inside there because in June it's very hot. Our first two days were 96, I think, and 97 one day. And then it jumped down to 81 next two days, Saturday and Sunday, with a light breeze, which was delightful. But we made the decision to bring in rent four extra large small coolers that we put in each corner of Expo. Not cheap for sure, but I think necessary. And we it's a learning curve. Like we didn't realize with a small cooler, you have to have ventilation, you've got to have air for the hot air to escape. So everybody was running around closing the doors trying to keep the cool, which actually made it very humid. And we were like, oh, this sucks. You know, this isn't gonna work. So then we learned, you know, we cross, cross lead two side doors open, leave uh, you know, two end doors open, and then it was fabulous in there. Not a lot of clubs could probably afford to do that, but we're gonna do whatever it takes to make our exhibitors happy.

SPEAKER_02 6:25

Well, the other thing is that's it's near this, it's not far from Sacramento, Sacramento Airport. I used to have to fly into Sacramento and drive an hour to Malayo.

SPEAKER_00 6:33

Correct.

SPEAKER_02 6:34

It seemed like it was that far. Maybe I don't know. But this is an airport, too, right?

SPEAKER_01 6:39

Yeah. And what we had to do before, what I had to do was I had to get judges from SFO, San Francisco, or Oakland over to Malayo. And that averaged $500 per person, $250 each way. And rightly so, because the you're sitting in traffic. I mean, you just sit there and buffer to buffer traffic. So, of course, the transportation companies, you know, keep that in mind. And now they fly into Sacramento, easy peasy. The hotel is about 15 minutes from the airport, and the show site's about you know 10 minutes from the airport. So that is a big cost savings and a lot less hassle for me personally.

SPEAKER_02 7:16

You also used to have to pay to get the armored cars come in from Brinks to get the judges from the hotel to the ring without getting shot, which was expensive to do it.

SPEAKER_01 7:24

This is very true. And and we don't have to worry about now, they finally did enclose the Marriott Embolio completely with fencing because they would come in and break in cars and run over the hill and take everything.

SPEAKER_02 7:37

It was a nice, it was a nice hotel.

SPEAKER_01 7:38

Yeah, right off the freeway, lots of shade trees. It you know, it just had to come to an end. That's all there is to it. And working with a new fairground crew, which of course it creates, you know, some changes. But overall, I think that you know, it was a really good move for us as far as the facilities. We can put a lot of our special teeth in buildings inside, uh, which of course, you know, your terriers and you're not sporting and your toys and all of that. And we put some hounds in there with doxes and things went inside.

Five Judges Drop And The Scramble Begins

SPEAKER_01 8:07

What we did not anticipate, which started out uh very sad, is losing five judges off of our panel.

SPEAKER_02 8:17

Um, let's let's stop for the this is not a little show. This is the third largest dog show in America. We haven't been for the last 10 years, yeah. Yeah, so we're not talking about a few hundred. This is a giant dog show around 2,000 dogs. So replacing five judges isn't done like just like that, unless you're Wolfstock and with and a great crew of of AKC reps and and superintendents to pull. I don't think it's unbeding it. It's mind-bombing to me that there'd be that many, but we'll get to that.

SPEAKER_01 8:47

Well, I'm sure we set some sort of record. I mean, the everybody seems to think so. MBF certainly seems to think so. So it started out, we had Dr. Woods from Canada. We have, oh, by the way, we have uh four or five Labrador specialties in addition to showing for the three days. So we draw huge Labrador injuries. We love our Labradors and our Labrador people. Uh I mean, you know, who it's just they're so cool. They just put on their wellies and their jeans and they go and they show their dogs. I mean, I I love it. Uh and it pretty much anything goes. I mean, they just kind of roll with the punches, which is good. So Dr. Woods from Canada was judging. He's a very renowned Labrador breeder.

SPEAKER_02 9:29

Rightfully so. Wonderful.

SPEAKER_01 9:30

A giant. And the nicest human being you'll ever meet, and a good judge. Okay, what a rare combination, right? So about three weeks before the show, I received a call from him, and um, his wife had received some bad medical news. And he said, you know, I uh obviously have she's gonna start treatment and I have to be home. I said, absolutely, of course, right? So I busily, you know, got busy and I had to bring in actually two judges to replace him, and actually three, because I had to hire, we always hire breeder judges for the Labradors. So I brought in three judges to replace him, and then one ultimately, one of my replacements backed out. So I was down to two. And I'm we're still going along. We have everything taken care of. We brought in Patty Keenan Dudu Terriers and some other things. And then three days before the show, I get a call from a judge and said, you know, I'm a retired nurse, so in here with my husband, and he's quivering and he's got the shakes and he's cold and he's you know in terrible pain. And I'm calling you from the ER. And she said, it sounds like to me it's a kidney stone. And I said that I just had one about eight months ago. I said, it sounds exactly like me crying, throwing up, shivers, chase, you know, in horrible pain. So she said, I think we're gonna they're going to admit him, so I won't be there. And I said, Okay, all right, okay, I can deal with this.

SPEAKER_02 10:52

You have to understand these things, you've got nothing they can do about it. They want to do it.

SPEAKER_01 10:55

There's no absolutely not. I mean, these are legit, you know. And so I get on the phone with our darling, darling Tim at MBF, who I adore and is just the best. And we're working it out, trying to figure out, you know, and I trying to add another judge. So then two days before the show, I get a call from I see Jimmy Moses' phone number on my phone. And I thought, this is not good. This is like two days before the show. I answered the phone like this hi, you better not be calling me to cancel.

SPEAKER_00 11:31

And he says something like and I went, Oh, you sound great.

SPEAKER_01 11:39

And he had that RSV flu that I had and that Marjorie Morterell had, and it's vicious. It's kind of like having COVID, but you don't you don't ever test positive. Actually, I'm a month past it right now, and I still can't smell or taste anything. It's crazy. So he said, I I can't come. I went, okay, hmm. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 11:58

Then I Jimmy would crawl across glass to get to a dog show, right? Absolutely. All of these things. He lives, he it's it's who he is. He'd never miss it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:11

And he said that, you know, he um hasn't been able to eat and that he'd lost like 15 pounds. And I said, Well, there's the upside, you know.

SPEAKER_02 12:19

We didn't need to lose weight.

SPEAKER_01 12:21

Yeah. So then, um, okay, how'd it go? Okay, so then this is the day before the show. So I was supposed to leave on Monday to go down and set up because the specialties are on Thursday. And I now am at home on the phone with MBF and trying to figure out and how trying to hire people and do everything. So I end up I have to I have to leave on Wednesday because especially needs start on Thursday. So I'm getting ready to leave on Wednesday and the phone rings, and it's it's another judge and it's Marjorie. And she I said, You better not be calling me to cancel. And she's having, I mean, then how rude. I mean, I never even said hello. So, because at this point I'm a stressed out mess. And so she said, Look, you know, she's been in out of the hospital, she's having some issues, and she said, you know, I can't I can't fly. And I said, Well, of course you can't, you know, when she explained everything going on, and I said, Of course you can't. So now we're down four. That's four. So I'm so freak out.

SPEAKER_02 13:21

You go into planning mode. This is Ken.

SPEAKER_01 13:22

You just go, yeah, we get the computer out, we round table, we start talking, and then I I went and perused the uh specialty list of judges that were only supposed to be there on Thursday. And I'm calling the people from there that I know are really good judges that are doing specialties, and I'm like, okay, Daryl, hi. Yeah. Guess what? You're gonna judge on Thursday, and then you're staying through Sunday, and you're gonna be judging. And he said, Well, I may have some conflicts with another show. I said, get on the phone and call her and bang. I'm I what does she want money? Whatever it takes, just get on the phone. So then I said to Peggy, Peggy, you are staying, you're staying through Sunday. Okay, I'm staying there. And then this is the really funny part. Well, not a lot of it's funny, but some of it I can't talk about. But George Voltanovich, who we all adore and love and is a great judge, he had made arrangements to have the take the lead booth at the show. So we put him in a prime spot right by our t-shirt booth, and he's got brings a tenant and he's got all dudes got all of his stuff set up and I and he's already set up outside, and I go running outside. I go, George, how you doing? He goes, I'm doing fine. Why? Sir Pom I go, yeah. Guess what? Take your booth down because you're judging. And he says, but but but I but I have to be here. I said, no, no, no, no, you can't. Take the booth down. I said, you're gonna stay through Sunday and you're gonna be judging. And he just stared at me and I said, Come on, George, come on, let's go.

unknown 14:54

Come on.

SPEAKER_01 14:55

He goes, Well, well, what am I judging? I said, Well, to start off with, you're gonna be doing hounds and there's Dachshunds, and it's a specialty, and there's about 70 entered. And he goes, What? He goes, but I don't judge hounds. I said, Yeah, I don't. I don't, I realize that. I realize that everybody was judging stuff that they were licensed for, right? And I'll tell you what, only George, God bless him. He, you know, he called he didn't sleep all the he through the night. He watched videos, he read the illustrated standard, he was just, you know, he study, study, study. And and then, oh, and then Patty Keenan says, I'll do everything except I won't do working and I won't do hurting. I go, guess what? You're doing herding. And oh, and you're doing a boarzoy specialty. She goes, Well, I'm not licensed. I said, That's okay. Yeah, you're gonna do some hurting, you're gonna do the borzoy specialty, and I'm just scrambling, you're right, trying to keep all this worked out. So then Friday and Thursday, the specialties go off. I'm still working on trying to put the panel together and pull everything together, find out who has conflicts as far as you know, time and distance. So Friday.

SPEAKER_02 15:59

By the way, in California, everybody's got caught for the time. Everybody has there once every three years. That's the way it works.

SPEAKER_01 16:06

Exactly. Exactly. So unless you put up the right dogs and then they want you back, you know, for some. But if you dump a dog, God forbid, you know, they don't see you again for a year. So Friday morning, it's about nine o'clock. It's nice, it's it's nice and cool, and it was gonna get hot during the day, but it's like in the mid-70s and light breeze. And I get a call on the walkie-talkie, you need to come to the ring, come to the ring. And our dear darling Judy Brown is down, like down, and the ambulance is on the way. I was like, no, this is this can't even be true or real, which it was, and she had some issues with her blood pressure pills, and so off she goes in the ambulance, and I'm sitting there going, okay, so now Ken is judging, Eva's judging, I'm judging, Phil Freilig is judging, all my friends that I have, you know, put through hell are judging. And we got through it. We we absolutely got through it. Do you know that that show went on time? Everything was on time. Now everybody had different judges, everybody. But then we were on time, the rings were on time, when the handlers showed up, they were, you know, they were there, and the groups went on time and it went well. I mean, I don't know.

What Judge Shortages Reveal About The Sport

SPEAKER_01 17:26

Larry Cornelius Rep said to me, I don't know what other club could have possibly pulled this off at your club.

SPEAKER_02 17:32

And I'll bet he had this the he's so good at seeing the whole big picture and helping make it all work and knowing when to give you latitude and whatnot. Right. It's just the right team, it's perfect. But you know, Kim, one of the things that crossed my mind with this is that you've got you've got people out there, Patty, George, people that you know can do this. They don't have to jump through the hoops and get there. And would not be great at this. You got a guy who never judged me before, I bet he knocked out of the park because he has a good poor dog. He knows what the hell he's doing.

SPEAKER_01 18:06

So listen to me. One of the top handlers that has been handling Dachshunds for years came up to me and said, you know, I have to tell you that that he absolutely knocked it out of the ballpark. He said, I agreed with everything down to the classes on the wires and the smooth. And he said, the only thing I might have done, and I'm not so sure, was switched my best of breeding, best of opposite for long hairs. And I and I said, and that's like 70 dogs. I said, you know, I I knew that. I knew, I knew it. I think what's happening, besides the fact that everybody even loans it, and it's very true that we have too many shows, too close together, yada, yada, yada. You know, it goes on and on. But I think what's really critical right now is that our older, well-respected, well-tenured judges that people want to show to it, and and getting their opinion on a new dog means a lot to them, and they value and they'll and they'll ask you later, you know, well, so what do you think? And you know, those our group, this our age group is we're old and we have illnesses and you know, weaknesses as far as health goes, and it's becoming more and more and more evident because it's hard to us now.

SPEAKER_02 19:14

Travis, yes, it's more stressful on your body and your brain, and it makes it difficult to stay healthy and stay in the groove, you know. We we just go through this all the time, and we are now we've created a system where the good ones are gonna get sick more. I have not been to a dog show in two years where there wasn't a substitution. Yeah, every single day. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 19:34

Every single exactly, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 19:35

And by the way, I was just thinking about this. I wasn't on your panel, the chair, obviously, because I was and I've got another conflict. But if I was, I couldn't have come either because I was sick.

SPEAKER_00 19:44

Exactly. I could, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:46

It's terrible. I mean, and and you know, thankfully, none of these things are are life threatening, hopefully. But you know, what are clubs gonna do? I mean, like we are a well-oiled machine, we are a well-oiled group, and we also have four judges in our club that all all we judged almost all weekend, right? So I I mean, I don't I don't know what these smaller clubs are gonna do.

SPEAKER_02 20:08

And having five off of a 1900 dog panel, who, you know, we're and the thing about you know about what's uh you have if you haven't been, and when people always say I it's on my bucket list, you gotta go because this can't go on forever. And Kim and this and the club made a brilliant choice a few years ago, and it was like this big thing. We had to write this press release about why you're cutting back from 15,000 shows to three, uh, which makes all if you didn't do that, Kim, you could have never pulled even you guys couldn't have pulled that off. You know, that was the smartest movie you ever did. And it's not taking any shine off Wolfstock, it's not taking the entry off, especially in the days of declining entry. You guys are really hanging in there. Yeah, good judges, you have you make it fun. Someone said in a post on one of my articles, whatever happened with fun and dog shows, and Linda Hurler, who we love, said it went to Woofstock, and she's right. Uh if we want to have fun at dog shows, we can't we have to forget this is supposed to be fun. We can't forget that. We have to keep it in mind. We have to forget all the nonsense and stuff and try to make it fun. And you guys have done that from day one. The you those Vallejo Care fairgrounds, as Kim said, not pretty, but you wouldn't know it when you walked in there for two reasons. First of all, it was decorated so beautifully. Physically, that changes the appearance of the day. Then you've got the music. And I'm sorry, I forget his name, Robert. Music guy? Yeah, Robert, yeah, Robert. He sets this atmosphere of the greatest music in the world that everybody, I don't care if you're 18 or 80, you know the words to those songs. That's the kind of playlist he comes up with. And when you have that music.

SPEAKER_01 21:48

Well, I remember Bob Birdwell. I'm gonna crush you just here. Bob Birdwell selects all of our music, records all of our music. He, you know, he plays the guitar himself. He's a musician. And when I first met him when I had this crazy idea about my show. He said, There's rumors going around that you're going to create this this show with music and uh with tie-dye. And and I said, Yeah, I'm I I am. And I had more naysayers, including AKC by the way, that it was not the image they wanted to portray, you know, et cetera. And then a lot of them, you know, this is a stupid idea. And I thought I said, well, you know, here's the thing. You think outside the box, you make people want to come, you want to have people to have fun because stock shows aren't always fun. And it's either going to fall flat on its face or it's going to be wildly successful. There's not going to be any gray area here. Right. And I I'm just and to have the same crew that we have all 20 years and also how many clubs you know break up how many circuits because the clubs can't get along.

SPEAKER_02 22:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:45

Right.

SPEAKER_02 22:46

And you can just take in this so you walk in, you see this thing physically your eyes are happy because you've seen all those tie dyes happy. The people are happy. The music is set in this tone and you're just in there and people that there are people that we've known 40 years. There's there are men that I've known all my life that I've never seen in anything but a suit right or tack and tie. So you get there in tie-dye in shorts and flip-flops, you know this is the this is this exactly what the sport needs. You don't want to replicate every week it wouldn't be special. And some clubs do a job of of making an effort like a theme thing that works. Charlie and Liz just kill it with this casino and all that they do. And they deserve by the way congratulations to that Keystone cluster as it should be cluster of the year for them. They needed they needed one of those. They've been so good. I'm so happy for them. But no one has quite pulled it off consistently like you have because of your group and if you didn't have that extra stuff to create that environment would have been a tall if a regular show that size was held there no one would go. And now you've brought I I didn't go this year. I I can't wait to see what you do year two because I know that year one people were raving about so you give that the year and get all the little kinks even and more important I I also want to brag on this group they sell a whole lot of tie-dye right a whole lot of tie-dye and not to beat the history to death because I've written about it Kim's talked about it this was a bankrupt club that that actually Kim's idea and the group's idea of getting this thing done of selling tie-dye t-shirts to raise money everyone thought that was funny and it's become not only hit but you're you're modest about your generosity you give more money away than any dog show I know of to your local businesses and people and causes from selling those t-shirts.

SPEAKER_01 24:34

And if you don't get there early Thursday morning you're not getting one so it's been well we had an issue this year because we with the new venue you know we only were two days last year and then we added the third day this year. But we were we didn't want to have we had some vintage left over from a year before and we didn't want we didn't know what people were going to do with this new venue. And we did get a lot of public in by the way which was nice and a nicer place to yeah which was you know in Baleo you really didn't really didn't want to act you're like no stay away and we sold the t-shirts out we put them out on Thursday Linda Roberts does she's taken over from me doing them and she does a bang up job and her colors I have on one right now were great and we put them out chose to put them out on Thursday because she's like I just want to sell it out. I want to sell my see where we are well by Saturday morning they were all gone.

SPEAKER_02 25:29

So yeah and we don't we're toying with maybe doing pre-orders maybe but we haven't in the past yeah you don't need to it's part of the fun you get it's part of the whole gestalt you get there early and you get excited I got one you know just the whole thing just yeah it's true it's true it's like it's like for a lot of reasons. It works because you guys work together. It works because you've set this theme that has historically been a thing you want to collect every year. It's worked because you get a good judging panel and you know how to do this. You how many shows I go to now where I'm the only one on the if I'm I'm on three panels with David Kirkland the next couple months or have been and another one's coming up I not only adore David but he's one of the best judges we have period oh absolutely yeah and I would hire every single year if I could you're one of them David's one of them yeah it's just one I was on a panel last week or a couple weeks ago it was David Kirkle and Angela Pickett and I don't you think we talked about dogs the entire breakfast lunch and dinner old dogs new dogs there's two dogs in the Midwest right now that I'm telling you and I don't do this often they might be the most exciting new dogs I've seen in 25 years. One's a working dog one's a terrier and I'm telling you these are great ones I mean great ones sorry Brody I didn't turn my do not screw off I guess but we really have it's exciting. So you got judges you can discuss it with so the two the three of us are just like we found a museum with a beautiful I mean it was so exciting. And then which was perfect Angela's provisional on a couple sporting breeds the second day I didn't have much of a load at all I was she we sat together and went over all the breeds together. We learned from each other why wouldn't you want to do that? If people were thinking about who we want to put up because we like them you're full of air because I'm telling you people who are passionate like we are we are talking about learning and sharing every moment of every day. You can do that we'll start with a good panel.

SPEAKER_01 27:32

You can do that beautiful so that people can come and they can do ringsides or they can do in rings if they want I mean I I'm going starting on the terrier group now petrified and I am now approved for 12 reads but I'm not stepping in the ring. I mean I I'm I could even apply for more but I am still doing in rings I'm still sitting at ringside I'm still doing kennel visits. It's like Bill McFadden came up to me on Saturday and he said so are you ever going to judge those terriers you're approved for and I said no not until I feel really ready. And he goes okay well there's two clubs that really would like to hire you but I told them I didn't know if he was judged I said well what is it he goes it's next year. Is that going to be too soon I'm like I am not walking in that ring not knowing what I'm doing. And I think that most of us that have been around as long as we've been around feel the same way.

SPEAKER_02 28:28

I have three invitations for specialties two are nationals that wanted wanted me to judge for next year. I don't have those breeds and I'm not even approved for those breeds. I said we'll hope you do that then I said well I can't legally accept the assignment and I can't tell you how long this process is going to take I feel there's three breeds I feel real comfortable with but there are people out there who treat judging getting breeds in groups like cabbage patch dolls. We got as many as we can even though we don't have what we're going to do with the cabbage patch dolls once we get them it's like dogs that chase cars. If they ever caught one what are they going to do with it? Well we find that out when they walk in the ring I got the group and they walk in there like they don't have any idea and they make pills out of themselves.

SPEAKER_01 29:09

You know this is a thing that when I was when I was grabbing all of my friends and the specialty judges to judge and like George says well I don't I don't judge pounds and Patty said well I I won't do I felt like Oprah you get a car you get you get a you get a specialty because these people are all good judges and I knew they would do well and they did.

SPEAKER_02 29:32

And I'm telling you knowing Larry he could sit at that ring and go that guy should be approved to judge oxygen and why wouldn't you want to do that? If he did his work he did his homework he shows he can do it he has the background and the eye two things you can't replicate he has that I'm sure Ly go over there and go yep he's ready but no can't do that. It's not fair. Fair is he can run around and get the most check boxes done and spend the most money going to seminars that's fair. I don't know I think the Brumby might have been the best way to go we wouldn't be in this mess you know and also you know too many shows that that would kill me remember Len Brumby was a guy who just now there are fewer shows and he would get to all of them because you could but Len would walk around and go you're ready for the work and that's how the system worked and you got it. Yeah and you would say no I'm not and you'd say yeah you are you really are and that made so much sense the Brumby factor I wrote about it last year. Half people said who the Brumby and the other people said hey great idea. You know you can't fix this fairly you've got to do it from the top of your brain not your belly and make it work and we're never we don't want to go there.

Designing Fun Dog Shows With Purpose

SPEAKER_02 30:40

Anyway it was a roaring success if you haven't been to Wolfstock and I'm not just here to pimp Kim's show I'm I think the bigger picture here is to promote having fun at dog shows finding ways it doesn't have to be tie-dye it doesn't have to be a con it doesn't have to be a theme you can find ways to make your dog show fun. You absolutely can ice cream social is somebody that at the show couple and everybody talked about it right there are things you can do to make your dog show fun. And one thing you can do is to hire good judges not the ones who can just fill your dance card so you can make money. If you've got to do that stop having your show you don't have enough you just have or combine I totally agree.

SPEAKER_01 31:20

Yeah it you know it it's thinking outside the box it's you know also if clubs and they say we don't have any money well you know like I started no one was doing t-shirts especially other than Westminster when I started this and I thought no no no we're gonna tie you know capitalize on the tie-dye we make a huge amount of money and what's why we're able to donate a lot of money is through our t-shirt sales there's all kinds of things you can do no one played music I mean nobody on the West Coast anyway played music and I remember the feedback the first couple of years oh it's scaring the dogs and oh it's this and you know actually one of the worst our worst ones were the Labrador people. They had their crates over and the and the and the speaker was there and they're like they kept turning the speaker off and I walked over and I said now listen to me if you turn that speaker off one more time you're going to be asked to leave the show. Our theme is peace, love, music and dogs and music is going to be the format of this show. And she said I said and furthermore you should be able to shoot a gun over these dogs' heads let's get rid of speaker right and and now it's like if the speaker goes off or like the lab well the speakers weren't done in time to get out to the specialties way in the back which is a great little area in the back of the woodland verrace that people don't even use that we implemented because we're bigger and there were no speakers what guess who came to me and said people we we miss our music where's our music so we ran out there Robert put out you know the speakers and uh and between Bob with his selection if you've ever listened carefully when he's got terrier songs and non-sporting dog songs and then the the people that judge the groups he calls them and asks them what their favorite songs are and then he plays that while they're judging it's just the whole thing you know it's a thing.

SPEAKER_02 33:06

Yeah and someone should do because of the wolf stock theme someone should do Willie Nelson's Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die.

SPEAKER_00 33:14

I think that would just be a perfect way to end your I love it I love it I love it.

SPEAKER_02 33:20

I do another great farewell song for Vallejo. Anyway really it's not about it's not just about wolfstock it's about here's the here's the big takeaways you want to do the five takeaways have a club that learns how to work together. It's like marriage it doesn't just happen. You've got to work at it and they work relationship by hanging together outside the sport and inside the sport they have their assignments they know who's good at what it's not like I want to meet everybody does their what they're good at. And by the way here's a smart thing that Wolfstock does and you do it because it's great but it also is smart financially they put a spread out for the judges at best the show's going to go late it's a giant show you can't get up as a judge you can't go to people oh you're going to dinner tonight no we're going to bed we got to get up again at five o'clock in the morning so you guys put out this incredible spread of food no one needs to go to dinner.

SPEAKER_01 34:14

You can stay watch the whole dog show and all the judges and you have a lot of can eat and get a good meal to beautiful we supply beer and beer and wine and champagne and we encourage them to have a a little drink before they go in and do the group it's much more fun.

SPEAKER_02 34:30

Yeah the food is it's healthy and it's outstanding. So you're saving all the judges time and you're saving the club money rather than having these some of these people go out and charge up the world for their dinner or something or cheat on you all sit there and eat and go to bed it's all those little things to add up think of your clubs learning to have a great panel having a good time getting the right grounds and trying to keep your club members engaged and happy because that's what this is all about. This is just this is just people do all these things individually when you put it all together you get a watch so put it all together and do that damn it and also get 39 specialties.

SPEAKER_01 35:06

God bless Eva it was used to be 50 some right uh we we're up at one point to 70 and you know we finally said you know get the cane and hooker because you can't I mean and and then here's I'm gonna just one little more with the specialty clubs.

Specialties Teamwork And Helping New Leaders

SPEAKER_01 35:22

They're wonderful. They boost your entries big time there's no doubt about it. However working with them you know the president only lasts you see for six months or a year at the outside because they get fired or they get frustrated and they quit so every year you think you've trained somebody oh no it's a new person that's never done it before they never get their they didn't get their paperwork in on time to AKC to get approved to hold their specialty and there's a lot a lot a lot of hand holding and so you have no one has more patience than Eva and Lois and Linda Roberts who does it also there's three of them on this because you aren't even going to have you know 40 to 70 specialties if they can't even get their approvals done you know so um these are hardworking independent people who are doing these specialties they're trying their best you're right they're all new the newest person exactly but I had one this is how new they are I did a giant specialty at a giant dog show weekend and the next day the judge canceled and the the club specialty chair called me and asked if I could do it again.

SPEAKER_02 36:23

So no you can't judge the same show two days in a row. But it's not her fault. She doesn't know these are new people trying and you work with them. You don't you don't make fun of them and you certainly don't get mad at them you try to help them so we did we went and found another judge for them but you've got to work together and it can't be a contest it's got to be the contest for the greater good and the greater good is fun dog shows that are reasonable size with breed entries you can get your teeth into and talk about this little show I went to a couple weeks ago in Mommy Ohio Toledo Kentel Club I can't think of the one's name and she was terrific that it runs it anyway it was a great little show it wasn't big the judging panel well it's you know David and Angela and I and some other good ones and the grounds were just like a polo field grass perfect cut perfectly cut and raped. It was great all outdoors under giant shade trees. This place is nothing but giant shade trees with rings under them no sun. It's we had a and they do they're the right they're the size they need to be for that club and they work together. So it doesn't need to be a 3000 dog show it can be an 800 dog show that's done well that can be fun. And I'm telling you we had a blast out of the dog show we really did and we also found well I've seen these two dogs before but I'm telling you if when you the one's a terrier one's a working dog and I'm telling you when you see these are new when you see these coming if they're not that's that's the next year I'll turn in my license because they are and we all never see and I we all hear those words come out of your mouth don't ever say that and there's remember we're still standing what he I know it's a buck up oh I don't know I've got to apply for more breeds again and it's just driving me crazy.

SPEAKER_01 38:12

It means I don't know it just and some of these breeds I know I don't just buck up keep going we need you can't there's things you can't put on your application like we sat up next to Ted Young and Richard Bauer and Art Benhoff all the great cockers people I have cockers but but all the cocker spaniel people in the world happen to be in New England at the same time and working for Forsyth we sat up right next to them we helped each other we were there every day years of this every weekend every weekend I think I might know a little about cocker spaniels but I had to put down all that other stuff I couldn't put that in one judge trust you should include in your applications because this is what we're lacking box checking I'm tired of box checkers I'm tired of I'll be doing an in-ring with somebody or a ringside with somebody that I've made an arrangement I've called in advance and then these people will come running over like three of them with paperwork in their hand and kind of stand over the chairs and listen and then they'd say will you sign my papers and and I tell the judges no do not sign

Wrap Up Thanks And What Comes Next

SPEAKER_01 39:13

the paper. This is not we're we don't want box checkers you know so with that I I want to thank you for you know for for just loving Wolfstock I I know so many people do.

SPEAKER_02 39:25

I'm hoping that one year when things change that we're gonna get nominated for show of the year because we've been sorely whacking and it's been your turn it's yes yeah exactly and fairly Charlie and Lizard and that whole group I don't mean to just Charlie and Lizard but they've done a great job and they need to recognize you out there it's not as famous a show it's getting there. But yeah you I mean it's almost like you guys would win every year and then someone else would be second. But uh you know we're on the West Coast some people at the in New York think it's probably too fun too much fun. It should be more serious too much fun yeah too much fun there isn't any show that's too much fun trust me never got even more ideas more ideas coming keep it going keep it going all right Kim let's wrap this one up we're gonna probably do another podcast today and I'm too lazy to change so instead of trying to fool you thinking it was two different days I'm gonna fess right up now. We're not gonna change you're gonna see two of us in the same clothes. Now that means for the poor editor he's gonna go wait a second maybe I should put my hand on back or something. Anyway I need a haircut that's the hat lots of stuff to talk about and we can't we can't run them all together and be five hours long. Yeah we're wrapping up our time here. Kim thanks again I will see you soon ladies and gentlemen I I can't even thank you enough for the response we get on these on the articles on your articles especially they're fabulous and they're truthful and they should create change. I'm almost embarrassed to say and blown away 65,000 views on one article. You bet. I'm not the least bit surprised and that's not to my writing that's the fact that people are interested in these topics and want to do something as long as we're getting buying an interesting views we know that people and I it ain't us people are out there trying to do the same things and agree. With that agreement we hope to move forward. Anyway wrapping it up it's been wonderful we'll see you soon I mean real soon. Anyway I'm Wayne Kavanaugh for still standing and this is Kimberly Merrick and we're signing up and most important we want to thank the Canon Chronicle for making this all possible celebrating 50 years of excellence in the dog magazine read through them look through them I'm telling you there's good stuff in here thank you all very much and uh for your support and let's keep moving on because because we're well actually we're sitting right now but we're still standing one bit. Good night everyone thank you