Over this past weekend some of the finest purebred show dogs were on display at this year’s annual Cranbrook and District Kennel Club dog show.
The show was well attended despite rain clouds overhead for some of the days.
A walk through the Moir Park grounds where the event took place was akin to a look-through of an illustrated encyclopaedia of canine breeds, as over 50 distinct ones were at the show.
There were Afghan Hounds, German Shepherds and American Mastiffs. There were terriers, herding dogs, toy dogs and work dogs.
The main events began on Friday, Aug. 22 with two limited entry all-breed championship shows, and continued into Saturday and Sunday.
Margie Leopold, the show’s chair, said the event was a success, despite the weather conditions, which also had an effect on parking conditions. On Friday the rain poured down on the show, but Saturday and Sunday the sun was out between the clouds. The rain, however, caused problems for parking organization.
“Usually we park all the motorhomes and stuff on the grass on top, but because of the weather it was so wet we couldn’t park them all up there,” she said. “We had to park them in the parking lot. That was a challenge in itself.”
There were between 155 to 165 dogs in the show, as it ranged from day to day how many were there.
“This year we had the baby puppy classes and the veteran classes on Saturday and Sunday which was quite a hit actually,” she said. “Everyone loved the Scent Hurdling — we had that on Saturday after Best in Show. It was quite fun to watch.”
The Scent Hurdling relay teams had to go over a series of jumps and hurdles, then pick up their specific scent ball and bring it back to their team.
This was the second ever competition in B.C. for Scent Hurdling.
There were businesses in town that donated items for the raffle and those funds go towards next year’s show.
“There will be another show, we weren’t sure until (Sunday) whether we were going to be able to do it or not,” she said. “We’re very short of help; there are very few of us. We rely on donations to help our club.”
She said the cost of bringing in the judges is quite expensive.
They covered expenses to fly two judges from Mexico City, one from Victoria and one from Toronto.
Leopold said she heard back from some of the judges that the Cranbrook and District Kennel Club volunteers had done a great job.