national specialty Q&A
WITH THE AUSTRALIAN TERRIER, BEDLINGTON TERRIER, BORZOI, DANDIE DINMONT, ENGLISH COCKER SPANIEL, ENGLISH TOY SPANIEL, IRISH SETTER, KEESHONDEN, MASTIFF, SILKY TERRIER, STAFFORDSHIRE TERRIER, TOY FOX TERRIER, YORKSHIRE TERRIER & XOLOITZCUINTLI CLUBS
7. What is the biggest challenge facing you as you plan a National Specialty? Determining location and obtaining judges. What can be done to make this change? Plan ahead and have more member involvement. YORKSHIRE TERRIER 1. When and where is this year’s
trying to balance the events we offer to maximize entries while trying to eliminate the ones that no long draw interest from our exhibitors. XOLOITZCUINTLI 1. When and where was your first National? Our first AKC National was Friday, October 12th, 2012 in Canton, Texas. Indoor or outdoors? Covered area open to outside. Entry? 46 Judges? National Specialty judge was Mr. Robert E. Hall and the Sweepstakes and Juniors judge was Dr. Donald A. Gill. 2. When and where is this year’s National? Our 2018 National will be in Blackfoot, ID on June 16th, 2018. Indoor or outdoors? Indoors Judges? National Spe- cialty judge is Mrs. Penelope Inan and our Sweepstakes and Juniors judge is Jennifer D. Bridges.
National? Indoor or outdoors? Judges? Our National Specialty in August 10th thru 12th in Wilmington Ohio at the Robert’s Center. This site offers all the equipment and space required to host our National in a dog friendly indoor facility. We are joined by a Regional Club, the Yorkshire Terrier Club of Southeast Michigan and will
3. What is the theme of this year’s show?’ It’s Time To Shine’.
offer Conformation, Agility, Rally and Obedience over the three days. We will also host our annual membership meeting along with a dinner where the club’s perfor- mance awards will be presented. 2. What is the theme of this year’s show? (Please include your logo if you have one.) The theme for this year’s National is Yorkies Flying High. 3. What is your best source of fundraising for the National? Does your catalogue bring in good income? Trophy donations? The YTCA collects trophy donations for our 2 annual shows during our dues renewal process in May. Our members have been very generous over the years to support our shows. Catalogue sales seem to decline or at best stay level each year. We have been blessed with some very talented members, vendors and others that provide items for both raffles and auctions that provide funds for our specialties. 4. Are you offering special events? We are lucky to have Royal Canin as the sponsor for our club, and they provide us with a presentation on a topic of our choice. Genetics and DNA testing are becom- ing more available and affordable, so we plan to have a seminar presented by Dr. Kessler on the benefits of DNA testing to assist our members in deciding if testing is right for them.
4. What is your best source of fundraising for the National?
Each year at the show we have a raffle that is a great source of funding. Every year the raffle continues to grow.
5. Does your catalogue bring in good income? Trophy donations?
We are able to earn some income, but it is not our main source. We have an amazing group of Xoloitzcuintli Club Members who always help with sponsoring pledges and donations for our winners. Our National Specialty is suc- cessful because of our members and the trophy and raffle contributions they bring. 6. Are you offering special events? Due to our size for the breed, we focus on combining our National Specialty with all breed shows. At this time, we offer Sweepstakes and Juniors. As our club grows with our membership we hope to offer more at future events.
7. Is your national dedicated to any individual? No.
8. What is the biggest challenge facing you as you plan a National Specialty? Location is always a challenge. 9. What can be done to make this change? That is a good question! I can only hope that as our breed increases with our membership our location decisions will become more focused. Currently, we are spread all across the United States, so we want to make sure we are in locations that are good for that time of the year and easy to fly or drive too.
5. Is your national dedicated to any individual? No.
6. What is the biggest challenge facing you as you plan a National Specialty? As with a lot of clubs hosting this type of event, we face the challenge of declining entries and rising costs. We are
S how S ight M agazine , M ay 2018 • 259
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