Message to the Region

Dear Members of the Pacific Northwest Region,

First of all, Happy Thanksgiving to all, I hope the coming week gives you a chance to renew contacts with loved ones, recharge your batteries, and get your cholesterol levels back up. If low cholesterol is a problem for you, I would be happy to provide suggestions…

The General Board meeting has been widely reported on a number of different email and discussion boards, so I won’t provide a detailed recap here. As soon as minutes are available for the meeting, I will send them, post them on the regional website or otherwise let you know where to find them. Big Sky, Cascade, Willamette, Tri-State, and BOTH Alaska clubs were represented at the meeting. In fact, there were (depending on the counter) 17-23 people there from Alaska, far outnumbering the rest of the representatives of all the other clubs in the region. GO ALASKA!!!! (too bad they didn’t all get to vote in the GBM!??!!). If you need more information on the results of the GBM, let me know & I’ll see if I can’t fill you in.

Congratulations go to Martina Wilson for winning the FH2 championship with her dog Orin! Tanna Ragan and Xuko were putting up a great protection routine until Xuko caught Patrick Wilson’s knee with his shoulder and was taken out of the competition. Kevin Nance and Vandal were on their way to a possible Universal Sieger title when a slip during the transition to the setup for the long bite made Kevin have to yell “PLATZ”, thereby eliminating him from the competition. Shade and Reiki of course put together a great routine. We’ve decided I can’t be anywhere within a mile from him when he’s tracking and he does just fine (98 at the Nationals)!

In other regional business, I know you would love to see the minutes from the Regional Meeting, but our secretary is buried in School, and probably won’t have the chance to get the minutes together until the semester is over. I want to thank her for her work on behalf of the region, and hope we can get this up on the web site soon. From a “decision” standpoint, there were not any earth-shaking items on the agenda. Twin County has offered to host next year’s helper seminar, Treasure Valley has offered to host next year’s Regional Conformation Show, and we were only able to get a very tentative offer for the Regional Championship. Since that date, I have also received inquiries from another club in the region about the Regional Championships, so I am in the process of trying to help both clubs work out which one would really like to bid, and trying to get their bids together. Stay tuned for more on this in the next few weeks.

One item that was not really on the agenda, but that took a lot of time at the meeting, was the resolution of the longstanding grumbling and animosities among some of the clubs in the region. I was very heartened to hear at that meeting that all of the club representatives at the meeting pledged to do their best on behalf of the clubs to support the other clubs in the region. If you were not at the meeting, I wanted to make you aware of this commitment, and if you were at the meeting I wanted to remind you of that discussion. The other item that became clear at that meeting was the number of clubs that have both brand new and green helpers and young dogs in training and not yet ready for trialing. It is my hope that the coming year will see a flurry of new dogs and helpers in the sport in our region, and a lot of travel to each others’ trials when the dogs are ready the the opportunity arises. As you will see on the regional calendar or on the USCA web site, we have two trials scheduled for 2011 with the same judge two weeks apart and about 100 miles apart. I encourage those handlers who have dogs ready to go this spring to do their best to support these two trials. Both clubs have years of experience, and the judge is a long standing friend to the region and USCA’s newest judge Andrea Duggan.

A final couple of items of business: the first is to say farewell to Boise Working Dog Association. The club mostly disbanded this summer, leaving only two members, and they have not been successful in recruiting enough new members to bring the club up to full charge. The second is to grant a waiver for a USCA event to the German Shepherd Schutzhund Club for 2010. I look forward to their successful trial in 2011.

There are some proposals coming up in front of the Executive Board that I will try and solicit input on when they are appropriately formulated. Sorry to be cryptic, but I don’t want to phrase it wrong and start rumors.

Yours in the sport,

Warren Jones
PNW Regional Director