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American Kennel Club’s Steel Valley Cluster dog show at the Canfield Fairgrounds
By Sean Barron
CANFIELD
During and after they perform certain tricks, you might say that Congo and Kolsch are all wet behind the ears – and then some.
“He’s high drive when it comes to this stuff,” Jenny Resendez of Mansfield said about Congo, her 6-year-old golden retriever. “He’s an athlete and loves to compete and swim.”
On Friday, Congo got to do plenty of both because he was one of a few thousand dogs of all breeds taking part in the 24th annual American Kennel Club’s Steel Valley Cluster Dog Show at the Canfield Fairgrounds.
The four-day event, which kicked off Thursday, continues today and Sunday.
The Mahoning-Shenango Kennel Club is hosting the show. The other three entities in the cluster are the Beaver County and Columbiana County kennel clubs as well as the Fort Steuben Kennel Association.
An estimated 2,053 dogs are to compete today and 1,861 are expected to do so Sunday at the show, which offers confirmation and junior showmanship competitions for children and young adults, noted Betty Jo Patterson, a Columbiana County Kennel Club member.
Congo and Kolsch, Resendez’s 10-month-old golden retriever, participated in a dock-diving competition, in which the animals run down a 40-foot dock and jump after a toy into a 4-foot-deep elongated swimming pool. On five occasions, the dog has jumped between 15 and 20 feet, Resendez said about Congo, also a therapy dog who makes weekly visits to an area cancer center.
Dogs’ scores are determined by the distance they jump as measured from the base of their tails, noted Debbie Markwardt, who runs the Midlothian, Texas-based North America Diving Dogs organization.
For his part, Kolsch recently began such jumps, Resendez said.
The best of a dog’s two jumps is used as the qualifying score in the competition’s five divisions, which range from novice to elite, Markwardt explained, adding that the diving event is good for the animals in other ways.
“It’s about building confidence in the dogs,” she said. “We go in the water with the dogs and give them life jackets – whatever we can do to make the dogs comfortable in water.”
Donna Colt’s 3-year-old Dalmatian, Kaeleb, certainly is at home in the water – so much so that he was ranked No. 2 in the May competition, the Haslett, Mich., woman proudly recalled.
In addition to being new at such diving, Kaeleb spends time visiting hospital patients as a therapy dog, said Colt, adding that her large Dalmatian’s best jump was 24 feet.
Also new to the competition was Fifi, a 7-year-old Doberman pinscher, said the dog’s companion (many people prefer this term to “owner”), Jocelyn Mullins of Dublin, Ohio.
Mullins praised Markwardt for taking extra time Thursday to offer Fifi a series of trial jumps for the show. It didn’t take long for the dog to display advanced skills and talent, Mullins said.
“She worked with my dog yesterday,” Mullins said, adding that Fifi had earned a qualifying score in the novice category.
Two years ago, the animal won Best in Show in the confirmation competition, she said.
In the confirmation events, each breed is judged on its own set of standards based largely on the dog’s height, coat, eye color, tail set, gait, structure, shape and overall appearance. Grahm Miller was hoping that Summer, her 2-year-old Pharaoh hound, would have favorable characteristics and go on to compete at the group level, then for Best in Show.
“She’s very affectionate – she’s a character,” the Dover, Pa., woman said. “I think she’d be a comedian if she was a person, though she also has her serious side.”
Miller noted that her dog was one of the nation’s top-ranked hounds in the confirmation rounds. Summer has been competing for most of the year, she added.