ORRINGTON, Maine — Beatrice the Parson Russell terrier might not have made her way to Maine had it not been for a chance meeting between an Orrington woman and a couple from Florida who run a kennel in Clearwater.
When the breeders found themselves with a potential champion on their hands four years ago, they thought of Elizabeth O’Roak.
“They had a puppy they were going to keep. They had somebody who wanted her but it wasn’t a show home. They were pretty sure she deserved to be shown and if they sent her up, would I show her,” the Orrington hair stylist said Thursday.
O’Roak and a friend had bought a puppy named Eli from the kennel earlier, after a puppy that O’Roak bred died from congestive heart failure. For O’Roak, it was a dog to show after having dabbled with other dogs that were not champion material.
Beatrice was Eli’s sister, she said.
That was four years ago. Little did O’Roak know that this year, she would be showing Beatrice at the 139th annual Westminster Kennel Club All Breed Dog Show, set for Monday and Tuesday of next week in New York City.
O’Roak will set out for the Big Apple on Saturday with Josie Lee of Blue Hill, who will show her Irish wolfhound, Ziva, named after a character on the television detective show “NCIS.” Beatrice and Ziva are among 19 dogs from Maine that will compete in the show.
More than 3,000 dogs from around the United States and several other countries will vie for wins in what many consider one of the premiere canine competitions in the country, if not the world.
Though her call name is Beatrice, the Orrington pooch’s full registered name with the American Kennel Club is GCH CAN CH Heart-Songs Be My Little Baby, CGC — translated to mean American Grand Champion Canadian Champion Heart-Songs Be My Little Baby Canine Good Citizen. Big name for such a little dog.
Beatrice already has earned champion and grand champion status in her breed, O’Roak said. She also is an international grand champion, thanks to points she racked up at shows in Canada, the first to do so from the kennel in which she was bred.
“They’re very proud of her,” O’Roak said of Randy Limintone and Lorrie Geyer-Limintone of Heart-Songs Haven in Clearwater, Florida.
O’Roak met the Limintones five years ago, when she went to the Montgomery County Kennel Club’s annual all-terrier show in Pennsylvania.
“I was just there to watch and I met this man who had four dogs there that he and an associate were showing,” she said of Randy Limintone. “He was extremely kind to me. We talked because I have other Parson Russells and I had one rough looking little character I took with me just for the ride.”
“He really started my education about the breed,” she said.
O’Roak said she didn’t intentionally set out to be an owner-handler.
“It was never on my list of things. It just wasn’t,” she said. Even after she did become interested she only dabbled in the beginning. But now that she’s smitten, she’s taking classes to improve her skills.
“I want to take a dog into the ring and know that we own it,” she said. “I’m going there to have the most fun a person can possibly have — and bragging rights. I want to be the one when everybody sees show up says, Oh god, we might as well go home.”