I ’VE BEEN EVERYWHERE, MAN. I ’VE BEEN ” EVERYWHERE. “ Like the song popularized by Johnny Cash... I John Pittman Gladystar Poodles ’ve been everywhere or at least every AKC Poodle club specialty show. Starting in 2015 when the goal’s seed was planted, I have shown a Standard Poodle at 41 different Poodle club specialty shows. Started years ago, with the local Greater Milwaukee Poodle Club specialties and ended this past December 2024 with the Orlando Poodle Club. The journey has been a very interesting lark with meeting lots of great Poodle people along the way. When my wife, Patty, and I started showing our Standard Poodles we decided a five-hour drive would be our limit. Sometime in the mid 2000’s, Terri Meyers convinced me to enter the Twin Cities Poodle Club show. That was an almost seven-hour drive which broke our time barrier. Then in 2015, I met Wendy Penn at the Great Lakes Poodle Planning long-range goals are right up my alley. The first thing was to make a list of all the Poodle clubs from the AKC website along with their show dates. Some clubs have two shows per year and the show that seemed to be their “main” show was listed first. Some dates have three specialties on the same weekend so entering every specialty is impossible to do in one year. A column was added for the region of the country where the shows were located. That way the shows could be grouped to see if any shows could be done in consecutive weekends like the Texas club shows in July. The first really long trip was in 2017 to the Quinnipiac Poodle Club and then a weekend later to the Poodle Club of the Lehigh Valley. Our longest duration trip was six weeks to “A Poodle specialty is the only place a Best of Breed is awarded. Grooming near the rings reserved for Poodle exhibitors is great. It’s easier to share grooming tips...” Club specialty. When Wendy told me she was from Ohio, I commented on how far she had traveled to Joliet, IL. Her reply was that she liked to support the Poodle specialties. Hmm. Just about that time, I had stopped competing in triathlons and marathons. It was a thing for runners to do a race in every state. I like making somewhat goofy goals, so voilà, I thought why not go to every Poodle club specialty show. I’m sure Terri and Wendy have no idea what they started. LOL. 74 January-March 2025 • POODLE VARIETY California where we made consecutive stops at the Poodle Club of Southern California, an agility trial; the San Diego Poodle Club, an agility trial; and the Poodle Club of Las Vegas Nevada. The farthest distance-wise is of course, the Poodle Club of Hawaii. Going to Hawaii definitely involved a lot of planning to get a Standard Poodle to a rabies-free state (that’s another story!). Along the way to every specialty, we always planned to visit other people and places. We stayed with a
Poodle Variety Magazine January-March 2025 January – March 2025: Page 74
