11/10/2014
I would like to congratulate an awesome dog trainer and friend Debbie Zappia and her dog,Iron,on their 2014 National Championship win. I would also like to commend Mike Caputo, Randall Hoadley and Peter Rohde on an excellent and consistent job of judging on all 3 days. This was some of the most consistent and fair judging I have seen at a championship trial in a long time. We need to see more of this!
To the helper committee--it was nice to see new faces as the helpers. Great work by Ryan White for the front half helper work and Dominic Scarberry for the back half who I watched throughout the years develop into a fine young man and awesome helper at only 20 yrs old!
Tracklayers--for those of you that don't know, we had world competitors,national champions and competitors laying tracks! Thank you to Sean O'Kane, Dan Cox,Brandon Wilson and Chris Taylor for humbling themselves and missing the stadium routines in order to make this a successful event. You guys were a class act out there.
Lastly, I would like to recognize the fact that there were 3 youths that participated in this event-Dominic Scarberry,20, Matthew Heldreth,20, and Olu Floyd,16. Unfortunately there was no mention at closing ceremonies about these 3 awesome youths. All 3 of these individuals showed incredible sportsmanship, dedication to the sport and love for the GSD breed. This is why I continue to do what I do. I promise I will always be and advocate and support the next generation of youth IPO handlers,trainers and helpers. Please help me-SHARE this post! God Bless