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Balanced Great Danes! An Interview with Barbara Bristol & Ronnie Wilson of Symmetry Great Danes By Chantel O. Johnson Barbara Bristol and Ronnie Wilson live in Fort Worth, Texas. They are long-time dog lovers and have been involved in various aspects of dog sport for several years. Their love of Great Danes came together after Barbara’s mantle girl “Patience” (It Takes a Little Patience, UD RAE) served as ring bearer at their wedding. Ronnie’s Saint Bernard was also at the wedding. True dog lovers, indeed! Before they were married Ronnie had shown in conformation and obedience and done therapy work and drafting with his Saints while Barbara was very active with obedience training and trialing her dogs. She trained her mantle Dane Patience to the higher levels of obedience and obtained numerous titles with her. Barbara made history with Patience, earning the ultimate Rally title (Rally Advanced Excellent) as the first Great Dane, the first of any breed in Texas and only the eighth dog nationwide to gain the title. Not to mention that Patience was ten years old when she gained the title! Over her life-time Patience also worked as a model and actress featured in many advertisements and television commercials. That mantle girl (also known as Patience the Wonder Dog!) was a rescue Dane and was never bred. About eight and a half years ago Barbara and Ronnie got their foundation bitch, a fawn named “Kinsey”, and proved through her and her puppies that Great Danes can do anything and be truly balanced with titles on both ends as well as work in acting and modeling! Please enjoy reading about how Barbara and Ronnie took their first litter to championships and obedience titles all owner-handled. Please tell us about your kennel name and why you chose it. Ronnie - Symmetry implies balance. A dog with good symmetry and balance will have proper proportions and one part will not stand out from the others. We appreciate dogs that look and move as if they are one integrated structure, not a conglomerate of individual parts. And we also like the balance of a dog that has a title at both ends of his name. Conformation and Performance are equally important to us and our dogs. Barbara - Since performance titles (at the non-championship level) go after the dog's registered name, there is an old joke in performance circles about a "well-balanced" dog having a title at "both ends" (of her name). This seems symmetrical, and since we firmly believe that performance events are as important in their way for testing breeding stock as conformation is the kennel name "Symmetry" seemed to fit. If I remember correctly, Nancy D. Simmons may have suggested the name first. Nancy, of course, is not only a multi-breed conformation judge but also judges all levels of Obedience and Rally and has had several Danes and Dobermans with "titles on both ends" - so she obviously "gets" the importance of having a dog who is able to compete in performance as well as conformation.
Please tell us about your foundation bitch, “Kinsey”. Ronnie - Kinsey is CH Calypso’s Vrroom With a View, RN, NA, AXJ, NF. She was bred by Vicki Monson and is out of BIS, BISS, CH Calypso's Disco By The Bay and CH Rockingdane's I Am Woman. She is our foundation bitch, which sounds kinda funny since we have only bred one litter. But we kept two from that litter and now also have a grand-daughter of hers. Her one litter produced four dogs and one bitch. We kept the bitch and one of the dogs and found wonderful homes for the other three boys. We were lucky that two of these three homes were with friends who allowed us to show their dogs. Both of those boys finished their Championships and then we finished the boy and girl we kept. Kinsey’s show career started well, with wins at several small shows when she was still fairly young. But we just couldn’t seem to win those two majors. Kinsey is not a big bitch and that may have gone against her against more competition (at least that’s what I’d like to think). Eventually, she seemed to tire of these shows, so we entered her in Agility classes to add some variety to her routine. This seemed to perk her up again and she then won back-to-back majors to finish her Championship. We continued her Agility training and she really took to jumping. While the rest of the obstacles were OK, she has always loved to jump. Her first several (actually much more than that) Agility Trials were all very similar. On her first run of the day, she’d do zoomies around the ring and only take a few jumps or obstacles. But she was under perfect control for her second run and usually got a qualifying score. Eventually, we learned to take her for a lap around the building before her first run. This sometimes helped, but getting on the dirt for the first time each day still often set her off and running. Barbara - We were incredibly lucky to get Kinsey. She was bred by our dear friend and mentor Vicki Monson. Her sire was the amazing "Frisco", BIS BISS Ch. Calypso's Disco By the Bay and her dam was "Xena", Ch. Rockingdanes I Am Woman. She was a lovely and energetic bitch. Both of these dogs had attitudes that I really liked, as well as being physically sound. I had known Vicki for maybe 10 years at that point, but I had never competed in anything besides obedience. Ronnie had shown several of his Saint Bernards in conformation (and obedience and draft, of course!) but at that time he had never handled a Dane. I know Vicki took a chance, trusting us with Kinsey - she knew the dog would be well cared-for, but you never know how a novice show home is going to work out. Vicki - who is a motorcycle aficionado - wanted a motorcycle theme for the litter. Ronnie came up with the name "Vrroom With a View" and Vicki loved that. We also used the "Vrroom" pun theme to name Kinsey's litter. Vicki letting us have Kinsey worked out very well! Kinsey not only finished her Championship when she was 2 years old (with limited showing and Ronnie handling her all the way) but as of this date - she will be 8 1/2 on August 2, 2010 - she's got a Rally obedience title and a plethora of agility titles - even though we usually only go to local agility trials. She still competes at the highest level in Agility, and seems to love every minute of it. She is now Ch. Calypso's Vrroom With A View, RN, NA, AXJ, NF. Tell us about the dog you decided to breed Kinsey to for her one litter. Barbara - When we decided to breed her, aside from all the "normal" considerations (health clearances, stable temperament and physical traits to complement Kinsey's good and bad points) we thought it would be ideal to find a sire that had also proven himself in the performance ring. Add to that the fact that I really have a soft spot for Brindles, and it wasn't too hard to decide to use "Hammer" Ch. Jonor's Golden Hammer, CD, RE. The fact that Hammer belonged to a good friend of ours, Karen Schuller, was just icing on the cake - it is nice to know that your stud dog's owner is going to be a good person to work with!!!
Tell us how you reared the resulting litter with an eye towards competing in both conformation and performance. Barbara - Starting at about 3 days, I used the early neurological stimulation program on the litter. This involves exposing each puppy to six exercises each day which were designed to stimulate the neurological system. You use stimulations that they would not normally experience - things like tickling a foot with a Q-tip, holding the pup upside down for a few seconds, and placing it on a cool washcloth for a few seconds. The theory is that this improves the dog's abilities to withstand stress later in life. I also made sure they were exposed to different textures from the very beginning. As soon as they were mobile, the emphasis switched to socialization. I invited dozens and dozens of people of all ages to our home over the next 6 weeks. Of course I was concerned about disease - I made everyone wash their hands and take off their shoes! But I firmly believe that the extra socialization is worth the small risk. I also let the pups play on mini versions of agility equipment and other obstacles. Each day they crawled through a doggie door that led down a long ramp. They went through tunnels, climbed on a little teeter-totter, walked on lots of different surfaces including things like plastic and chicken wire on the ground, and were encouraged to climb over and through every sort of safe obstacle I could think of. Finally, I strongly encouraged and supported each new owner to take their puppy to at least a couple of training classes: a puppy kindergarten or handling class ASAP, and a training class within the next 6 months or so. Whether or not the dog will ever be shown, I believe that training classes are important just to make the dog a better pet, and increase the likelihood that his owners will never want to give him up. Tell us how you started your Great Danes training in both conformation and performance and why you feel both venues are good for the dogs. Ronnie - In many ways, we have come full-circle in our dog show experience. We both began in basic obedience with our dogs. It wasn’t until years after that beginning that we moved into conformation. Barb added Rally to her repertoire and excelled with Patience. And after several years of conformation, we added Agility when our dogs seemed to be getting bored in the show ring. We believe this helped add some diversity to their routine and gave them an added bit of confidence. Barbara - At least at the start, the preparation for conformation and performance are pretty similar. Lots of handling, lots of socialization, basic manners. Handling feet leads naturally not only to teaching the dog to tolerate having nails trimmed but also lends itself to teaching the dog to be stacked. I also do stacking training in wet weather - when I pick up a foot to wipe mud off, I teach the pup to leave the foot where I put it down. I still hear a lot of people say they are afraid to teach a conformation dog to sit, for fear he'll sit in the ring. That is only a problem if you let the sit become a default position - in other words, if you reward the dog for offering you a sit when he's not sure WHAT you want. I teach the Sit as well as the Stand and Down from the beginning. If you reward what you ask for, and ignore what you don't want then sitting in the conformation ring won't be a problem. The only time it has come up with our dogs has been a few times when a friend offered to take a dog into a Winners class at the last minute to help us out - and the friend accidentally held his or her hand in a way that the dog interpreted as a Sit signal. Even so it's really not that big a deal - but now I have started teaching a different signal to Sit, and with the left hand which is something that a handler is not likely to do accidentally. I don't want to give the impression that training a young dog for performance at the same time as he is training for and showing in conformation is a problem to be solved... just the opposite. In our experience, training and performing in Rally, obedience and/or agility actually HELPS our dogs succeed in conformation. Not only are the performance training and events good for the dogs physically, but they are VERY good for the dog's attitude! A "dual-ring" dog is MUCH less likely to get bored!
Tell us about your current pack and a typical day living with them. Barbara - Right now we have quite a houseful - 5 Danes, a Shih-Tzu mix, and a cat! Plus, most weekends we have a visitor or two - friends are always welcome to come visit with their friendly dogs, or we may be puppy-sitting for a friend or relative who is out of town. I've fostered a lot of Danes for rescue over the years too - we believe that it is important to teach our dogs to tolerate canine visitors. Dog parks make me nervous, because you have NO control over the situation. I'd rather have dogs come over to our house, or take our dogs to a friend's house to socialize. Ours are a very peaceful pack - everyone gets along. I was ESPECIALLY proud of our crew when the cat adopted us 2 years ago. Yes, out of all the homes in the neighborhood she thought OUR house was the one where she wanted to live!! Our older Danes had lived with 2 old cats a few years previously but after they passed I hadn't gotten another cat. Our younger ones had never lived with a cat so we were very careful about introducing everyone - but it really went very easily. Tell us about some of the accomplishments of your Great Danes. Barabra - Not all our dogs are show dogs - and we discovered several years ago that ambitious goals of showing multiple dogs in conformation, obedience and agility all at the same time is too hectic and too expensive to be practical for us!! Plus, we do this for fun! So we tend to focus on one thing for a while with a dog, then switch and compete in something else when they are ready. But our crew has still done well. I talked about Kinsey earlier. We have two of her puppies: "Teddy" Ch. Symmetry's Make Vrroom For Daddy, RN, NAJ, NF "Topper" Ch. Symmetry's Vrroom At The Top CGC Kinsey, Teddy and Topper are all still in agility training, and Topper is very close to finishing her first agility titles. All 3 dogs were owner-handled to their championships by Ronnie (as well as were two of their littermates that we don't own: "Keeper" Ch. Symmetry's No Vrroom At the Inn, CD, RE and "Gus" Ch. Symmetry's Vrroom To Grow, CGC). Kinsey had five puppies and four were shown. Our newest addition is Kinsey's granddaughter by Keeper and out of Vicki Monson's "Jazz", Ch. Calypso's Born To Hand Jive. Her name is Dakota, Calypso's Get Me Outta Dodge.
Tell us a little bit about yourselves, how you got started training and showing dogs and why you chose to own Great Danes. Ronnie - I began my “adult” dog ownership a few years after I graduated from college with a short-haired Saint Bernard named Sheba. As with many people, I found out about her from an ad in the local newspaper. She was about as far from what a conformation Saint should look like, but I didn’t know or care at the time. In fact, I didn’t even know anything about dog shows back then. I began with obedience classes shortly thereafter and found out about dog shows from people I met in class. Over the next 16 years, I owned seven Saints and competed in Obedience, Conformation, and Draft obtaining titles in each. I have been a member of the North Texas Saint Bernard Club since 1985 and the Saint Bernard Club of America since 1988. In 1998, I married Barbara Bristol and my household expanded to include a Collie, a Great Dane, and three cats. We lost the Collie, a Saint, and a cat in the next couple of years and then added two Great Dane sisters, Kinsey and Aeryn. I began training in Agility with Kinsey to give her a change of pace from Conformation. She finished her Championship quickly after this addition to her repertoire. I lost my last Saint a week before Kinsey gave birth to our first litter of Danes. From this litter of five, four were shown in conformation and all have completed their Championships. They were primarily owner-handled with friends pitching in to help when needed. Aeryn, Kinsey’s litter-sister, was never shown and is our beloved companion. We now have a granddaughter of Kinsey’s to expand our household to five Danes, one old Shih Tzu mix, and one cat. I have been a member of the Great Dane Club of Greater Dallas since 2003 and joined the Great Dane Club of America this year. Barbara - I met my first Great Dane when I was probably10 or 12 years old. She was a brindle and I thought she was the most beautiful, wonderful dog I've ever seen in my life. When I was 17 I bought my first Dane (from an ad in the paper) and I've never been without a Dane ever since. I even lived off campus when I went to college so I could bring my Dane with me! When I got my second Dane, a friend of mine had a new puppy at the same time and she talked me into going to obedience class together. I loved it, and ended up getting a CD on that Dane. That was in 1986 or 87, and I've been hooked on obedience and ever since! Needless to say, I am hooked on Great Danes, too!
Tell us about the versatility of Great Danes. Barbara - Great Danes are - or should be! - Strong, athletic dogs. They do have a different attitude toward training than the more "traditional" breeds do, but once you understand that they get bored easily they are really easy to train.
Give us some examples of your favorite times at the dog shows and perhaps a funny story or two. Ronnie & Barbara - Luckily, there are many more good days at dog shows than bad days. And it doesn’t take a winning day to be a good day. Just being away from work and other daily tasks and becoming a part of the “Dog Show Nation” makes for a good day. Good day – Patience finishing her RAE. Another good day was the final day of the 2009 GDCA National. I was showing Keeper (CH Symmetry’s No Vrroom At the Inn, CD), owned by our friend Karen Schuller, in Best of Breed competition. We were excited to make the first cut of dogs, especially after seeing all the other excellent specimens of the breed. Then we went back in the ring and Keeper was showing at his best! We made the second cut. While this may be old hat to many competitors, it was a thrill for us. As we went back in the ring for a third time, I looked around the ring and I could name almost all of the remaining dogs and handlers. We were certainly in with the Big Dogs now! Keeper kept his cool, although the nerves were certainly getting to me. We didn’t make the final cut, but Keeper was one of the last two Brindle dogs left in the ring. We didn’t win a ribbon, but we both walked out of the ring winners that day. We have been so fortunate, we've had MANY good days at dog shows... actually, because of the wonderful friends we've made I guess EVERY day at a dog show is a good one! But some do stand out - one was early January 2005. I showed Kinsey in Rally obedience that morning and she qualified with a nice score. The schedule was kind of tight for her class in conformation - I came out of the Rally ring, handed her off to Ronnie and they ran to the conformation ring. And she won her first major that day!! Another really good day was later that year, when Patience finished her RAE title. Patience was a Dane I adopted from Rescue, and she was a wonderful performance dog. We finished her Utility Title together, which is an advanced obedience title and a VERY big deal. But what was really fun was when she was 10 the AKC approved Rally obedience as a new event, and it seemed like something we could enjoy together. We sure did! In just 5 months she finished her Rally Novice, Advanced and Excellent titles and then her Rally Advanced Excellent title which requires the dog and handler to qualify in 2 classes on the same day, 10 times. The day Patience finished her RAE, Ronnie and Stacey Johnson had bought some balloons and streamers and we had a little party ringside!! We found out later that she was not only the first Dane in the US to finish the RAE title; she was the first dog of any breed in Texas to do so!! And only the 8th dog of any breed in the whole country. A pretty good day for a 10 year old Dane! Which sort of reminds me of something else - I do believe that keeping dogs active is very important for longevity. Kinsey is still competing at advanced levels of agility at 8 years old, and as long as she enjoys it we'll keep going with her. Funny story for agility - in Standard classes there is a pause table, where the dog has to sit or lie down for 5 seconds before continuing on with the course. The purpose is to demonstrate control, but as you can imagine a lot of dogs (and handlers) just see it as an interruption of the fun. That's what Kinsey seemed to think about it anyway. The count doesn't start until the dog is either sitting or down - whatever is required for that class - so you want them to drop quickly into that sit or down. Kinsey used to jump up on the table and stand there looking at Ronnie while he told her, and signaled her, then started to beg her to Sit or Down. Her neck arched, her ears pricked, her head cocked, her tail gently wagging. It sure looked to me like she was enjoying his frustration!!! Ronnie: Kinsey, Sit. THANK YOU BARBARA & RONNIE! SLIDESHOW BELOW ENJOY!!
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