JRTCA Nationals

People waiting for a judge in the ring. There are no professional handlers at the JRTCA, and there is no dress up -- a welcome thing in my opinion. It is supposed to be about the dogs, right?




John Broadhurst judges in one of the rings -- a long day of spanning terriers and checking bites. With over 1,200 dogs at the trial, some of the classes were quite large, but John did a nice job of keeping his end of it moving. He kept his sense of humor too!





A few vendor tents selling everything from high-quality leather leashes and custom embroidery to books, sweaters, fox nets, and jack russell-themed crafts.



I stopped by JRTCA Nationals on Saturday -- the one dog show I attend these days.

This was the 30th Anniversary of the JRTCA, and Alisia Crawford was there in honor of that -- she founded the JRTCA and was the guiding force behind the JRTCA's focus on registering dogs, not litters, and giving the highest awards in the Club for field work.

The weather was very good, but it had been windy the day before and I am told that a couple of pop tents took off flying in the 30-mile-per-hour winds, some only wrecking themselves, while others wrecked a car or two. That's what we have home-and-auto insurance for, right? Or let's hope. . . .

I saw a lot of very nice dogs. I also saw some enormous dogs, some odd looking dogs, and some dogs without tails. All in all, however, the quality of the dogs was very high, and there were some real stunners among the more than 1,200 Jack Russells that attended.

JRTCA nationals is a pretty impressive single-breed show.

On the working side, it was nice to see a rather lengthy parade of Bronze Medallion dogs -- dogs that have worked at least three of the six kinds of terrier quarry we have here in the U.S. -- Raccoon, Groundhog, Red Fox, Gray Fox, Badger, Possum -- before a JRTCA field judge.

I think about 50 veteran Bronze Medallion dogs were at Nationals, and 27 new ones were ushered into the ranks of the hundreds that have come before. Such stuff is the tip of the iceberg, of course, There are the dogs like Mountain, who have worked it all and who do not have scrap of paper to show for it, and the dogs like Sailor who got their bronze, and went on to work 400 more critters for the pure fun of it. And then, of course, there are the many people who are unwilling to take off a week from work to drive clear across the country for a dog show -- to say nothing of the many hundreds of wonderful old working dogs that have gone on to the Other Side to meet their maker. Without a doubt, more Jack Russells are being dug to in America -- and around the world -- than any other breed.

Events like JRTCA Nationals are a brain-defying amount of work. For starters, there are the registrations, collecting the trophies, and recruiting the judges. Then you have to make sure the field is mowed before any of the setup begins, you have to stake out the parking rows, assemble the intercom system, and put up the larger tents for awards, rescue, electronic equipment, etc. Then you have to find someone to bring in all the agility equipment and the go-to-ground tunnels, and do the set up for all of the same (to say nothing of taking it all down, taking it home, and putting it all away). On top of all this, you have to network with the small-business vendors, the food concession folks, the port-a-potty people, the folks running the BAER clinic, the Super Earth setup, and the folks that run and maintain Stepping Stone Park. You have to make sure the racing and agiltiy sections are well fenced, and that the show rings are properly measured, staked, and roped. You have to put up signs up for reserved spots, and you have to collect, organize, price, and lay out all the stuff -- shirts, hats, fox nets, locator collars, books, etc. that are to be sold. The work goes on and on and on .... made possible by a small cadre of volunteers who are never thanked enough. I do not know who they all are, but a tip of the hat to each and every one of them. There is a special spot in heaven for those who do thankless work.

And so what is the result of all this?

Well, Nationals seemed to go swimmingly as far as I could tell. Of course, there will always be a few whiners, pouters, ingrates, and misanthropes in any crowd. There is always someone with a Unified Field Theory about How Everything Should Work. For my part, I give simple applause. Nice work, all you nameless, faceless people toiling in private for the common good. And a nod to the front office too -- they make it all possible, and are the main difference between success and failure. Don't believe it? Fine -- look at how the other Clubs and organizations are doing. Compare and contrast. The JRTCA is simply better, and the management and the volunteers are the reason.