I'm in the Westminster Kennel Club dog show!

 

Energetic, intelligent, and let's not forget, handsome:
I'm ready for competition. While this is not an actual photo
of moi, this goodlooking guy could be my double.

Well, I am not, but my relatives are. This year, for the first time, the Treeing Walker Coonhound will be competing in the prestigious Westminster Kennel Club dog show in Madison Square Garden. The ideal coat, according to the AKC, should be tri-colored: black, white and tan. Check.

Note the hype from the club's website: "The energetic Treeing Walker Coonhound is perfectly suited for the task for which it was bred - tracking and treeing wild raccoons. Developed from the Walker Foxhound, the Virginia Hounds, and the earliest English Foxhounds brought to America, the Treeing Walker is a fast, alert, hot-nosed hunter with superb endurance, treeing ability and the desire to perform. It has a clear, ringing bugle voice or a steady clear chop with changeover at the tree. Today's Treeing Walker retains the same color and similar conformation to the Walker Foxhound. The breed is intelligent, confident and sociable."

Though he lives in a nearby tree, this raccoon hasn't been back
since he realized that what he thought was his fish pond
is really my water fountain.

Energetic, intelligent, lovely voice: that's me, to the T. For a discussion on the difference between the Walker Foxhound and the Treeing Walker Coonhound, see the Coonhound Companions Long Ears Blog (to which Mom contributed a most touching essay). Let me say, however, the differences are not large. Still, the raccoon who thought he'd eat out of my fish pond clearly can tell. Haven't seen him since I treed him a few months ago.