Featured Hound - Cinderella Story

While not a Cinderella story in the usual sense, this is a a quick feature on a Greyhound named Huntington's Cinderella. To be even more precise, she is known at this time as CH Huntington's Cinderella CD SC. What do all those letters mean to those of us outside the dog show and competition world? It means that "Cinder" is proving herself quite versatile indeed. In addition to her conformation championship Cinder also has an obedience title "Companion Dog" and a lure coursing title "Senior Courser".  At three years old Cinder is just getting started. With looks, brains and athleticism, this girlie Grey is the whole package. Her owner and trainer, Laurel Drew, is no stranger to versatile Greyhounds. She enjoys showing folks exactly how versatile Greys can be. If we are lucky, Laurel may be a guest writer on the blog sometime in the future. Though they do not live and compete in our neck of the woods, I asked for and Laurel was kind enough grant permission for me to share her Labor Day Weekend report originally posted to a Greyhound email list.

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Well, I guess I've finally come down to earth after a nifty weekend of obedience and rally.  I entered Cinder in 4 classes, two obed., and 2 rally, and she qualified in all four and earned placings in all four.  She got 3 seconds and a fourth with a 99 and a 100 out of a possible 100 in Rally.  She'd have had 1st place in Rally except for a tie and a goof on the stopwatch.  I had a choice to rerun for score and time, but I wasn't about to risk giving up a 100 so, I settled for 2nd.  Besides, the gal who took first was very deserving and really was thrilled.

I worked my tail off helping haul equipment back and forth from the Club training site to the trial site...and storing a huge amount of it in my big van for the week between our fun match and trials.  I think it's the first time my van has really been tested for hauling weight.  It was sinking a bit in the rear!

BTW, know anyone who needs a big van?  I just downsized to a Ford Transit Connect.  If you are just showing a couple hounds, look at one.  They have enough room for two big crates (4 feet) between the wheels, the first small van I've found with that space.  Economical too!  Well, enough of my customer relations gig.  Good luck to all at the Eastern.
             Laurel

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She settled for 2nd? Well, I suppose a near perfect 99.5 average score will just have to do. lol  Big congrats go out to Laurel and Cinder. What I love most is that they had fun and still showed that Greyhounds can compete well with the more traditional obedience and rally-o breeds. I look forward to hearing more updates on their adventures in the future. Things like this are part of what this project is all about.  

See folks, just because competition scares the bejeepers out of me doesn't mean others do not find it a blast. Perhaps some day I will get my courage up to get back in the ring. Laurel's report is almost enough to make me want to give it a try. Maybe one of you will want to do the same? If you are already competing, please send me a note. We love when people share their adventures... or in my case, misadventures. (Later, later, folks. I'll get to that in a future post.) 



For the record, I left the part about the van in there because we just upsized to a Transit Connect and love it so far.

[Note: You can find out what AKC's alphabet soup of abbreviations means on their prefix page for championships and their suffix page for titles. Don't ask me more about this. My girl is just a blue collar, working stiff of a hound. She can retrieve a dropped security badge but would need a Dumbbells for Dummies book before she could earn a CD. OK, honesty forces me to admit she would also need a new trainer and handler as well.]