Hi All,
For those of you interested in finding out who won what at our National Specialty in St Louis, you will find all the results and catalogue entries online at http://www.deerhound.org/2009National.

Enjoy!

My son would love a dog named Tiger Woods! Besides, we're all intersted, well done to all.

Do check out the photos -- Steve's candids are fabulous, and Dan's coursing photos are great.

Wonderful photos
Congratulations to all the winners

Hi Tannochbrae

The National Specialty looked great. I really like the idea of having lure coursing and other events on as well as the showing. I wonder if that would ever be possible over in the UK. I remember though a Breed show in the early 1990's at East Grinstead where we had a lure coursing competition on the Sunday. We even managed to win a bottle of champagne for that. But since then I think the Breed shows have only been showing events.

I was also interested with the agility. I competed with my Lurchers at agility in the UK a great deal a few years ago. It seemed from the photos that it included standard tunnels and a dog walk but perhaps a slightly lower A frame and larger tyre. Is that the case? And do most people concentrate more on the 'jumping' courses rather than the 'agility' ones? Sorry if these terms aren't used in the US.

I do like to do more than showing with the deerhounds but I think agility in the UK would be very difficult for deerhounds to manage in my opinion. It's dominated by Border Collies who are just excellent, but most of the courses would be just too tight with our contact equipment and tunnels not suitable. Most training clubs also just wouldn't be able to adjust the teaching methods used for deerhounds. But obviously this isn't the case in the US as the deerhounds looked to be going well. Thanks again Elise

Great photos well done to all. I also would love to add extras onto the showing side and I know the dogs would love it to.

Some years ago (here in Canada) some of the lure coursing clubs offered 'show & go's'. This was where the hounds could compete in a conformation show - sighthounds only...and also coursed. I loved it because you got to see the hounds multi purpose ability. So, if a lure coursing dog normally didn't to alot of show, perhaps didn't get all his points, he/she was able to compete ..but the nice part was..only with other multi talented coursing...show dogs. Usually the show was on Saturday, after the coursing, because they had to qualify for coursing. If the dog was disqualified on the field..it didn't show. Of course, there is an added cost to the club, must have a qualified conformation judge, as well as the normal 2 or 3 coursing judges.