TO THE MEMBERS & FRIENDS

OF THE LRCA

As the National Specialty Chair of the LRCA, I’ve had the honor of sharing triumphs with you and sharing in your fellowship. Today my task holds less appeal.

As social and global forces have prevailed and as Winter has turned to Spring, we’ve all wondered whether the 2020 National Specialty would be impacted…the short answer is “yes”. We’ve done everything conceivable to hold the line and provide you with the kind of show of which you have come to be proud. We’ve clung to the hope that this would pass in a few short weeks. We even secured an alternate date in August. We’ve considered every possible alternative to cancelling the show…today we lost the fight. Limitations on public gatherings have been imposed. Our partners at the Icelandic Sheepdog Society of America with whom we had teamed for performance cancelled last week. Parent breed clubs have been cancelling their Nationals on all sides around. Today the Mississippi Valley and Rhineland Kennel Clubs, our all breed hosts, cancelled the cluster. Our German and Australian judges are unable to travel…in short, over the course of two short weeks the ground has eroded underneath our feet. With the greatest regret it has become apparent to even the most optimistic among us that the 2020 show is no longer viable.

So here’s what we’re going to do…

2021 is going to be an extraordinary show and we’ll plunge into it with the vitality of two. For starters, we’re going to be fully autonomous! We’re going to be at a resort hotel in Sturbridge, MA with its own attached indoor event center and we’re going to grow our club an order of magnitude. We’re also going to venture into the unprecedented…from May 12, 2021 through May 16th the LRCA will be hosting three one day specialties back to back. For the first time we’re going to offer you an American breeder judge panel as Lisa Sobon (Sweeps) and Adrienne Perry (Regular Classes) officiate on May 13th. Friday will see a reprise of Keith Robinson (Sweeps) and Jochen Eberhardt (Regular Classes) who were the victims of this year’s cancellation, and Saturday will provide the intrigue of having Dinora Morsiani judge Sweeps before her husband, Giovanni Morsiani, presides over the Regular Classes. Will their tastes and eyes diverge? This is not a tragedy, it’s simply a brief hiatus. At the end of the day it’s not life or death, it’s a dog show. We’ll be back bigger and better than ever and we’ll make you proud. Promise.

Jeff Fischer