American Shetland Sheepdog Association
1998 National Specialty Dog Show
How it happened

How do we get the results from a national Specialty dog show up on the web as fast as we do?

This year, I have a lot of help. Maureen Metzger, who is the Local Show Co-Chairman for the 1998 ASSA Specialty, phones the placings to her husband, Jim Metzger. Jim (in Tucson) then e-mails the results to me (in Fairbanks, Alaska). Until the catalog arrives - there is no such thing as reliable overnight mail to Alaska - Jim is also scanning in the relevant pages of the catalog and sending them to me via e-mail. He is also my main source for digital photographs. I use the catalog to transform Jim's catalog number placings into dogs' names and add the placings to the schedule page. I then upload the name-only page to Farokh Irani's server in New York. (This is the third year Farokh has hosted the National web pages.) As soon as I get time, I add the rest of the catalog information for each dog that places and upload the augmented files, so if you come back to a page later, you may find more information. Bob Miller (up in the Great Lakes country) is doing pedigree research on the first place dogs, and eventually most of these dogs will have pedigrees linked from their names. Isn't the Internet amazing in the way it can almost anihilate distance?

This is the third year we've done this. First year I got the results from Sheltie-list members who were in the area or were getting results by phone. Bob did pedigrees, I did pages, I e-mailed the pages to Farokh and waited for him to put them up. Last year I attended the specialty with a laptop (as did Farokh). I created the pages each evening, Farokh and I wired our laptops together (usually in the hospitality suite) to transfer the files, and he then uploaded the pages to his server from a friend's phone. This year I'm getting results from the show co-chairman and ftp-ing the pages directly to the server, and results are generally up within 12 hours, and sometimes less.

1998 American Shetland Sheepdog Specialty

sbowling@gi.alaska.edu