Liberty woman’s pet honored at prestigious New York dog show

Hello again, dear readers.

Last week, my editor here at the Pickens County Courier, Zack Mauldin, asked me what I wanted to call my column, and I couldn’t come up with a name off the top of my head that I thought fit what I had in mind.

I’m still not sure if I’ve quite got it, but for now at least, I’m going with “Mountain Rhythms.” I wanted it to say something about Pickens County’s sense of place, because I want to write about places that make our county special. That’s where the “Mountain” part comes in, although Pickens County is certainly much more than mountains, geographically and culturally.

The “Rhythms” part comes from my connections to music, and because I want to write about the ups and downs, the ebb and flow of life here in our beautiful part of South Carolina. It also follows a pattern I used back in the beginning of my career in journalism, in the mid-1980s, when I wrote a column for The Messenger called “Life’s Rhythms.”

Mostly what I want to write about is the people who make this place special, and I don’t quite know how to get that into a two- or three-word title. “Mountain People,” or even “Pickens People,” didn’t seem quite right.

We have all kinds of people living here in Pickens County — many of them natives or virtual natives like me (since my family moved here when I was 2 years old), and many who came here from elsewhere.

The person I want to write about this week is one of those who came from afar and fell in love with the place and decided to stay. She’s a remarkable person and just had a remarkable experience in New York City that I thought I should share.

Her name is Shannon Barchalk, and the Liberty resident moved here from Ohio five years ago to go to school at Clemson University.

“I just kind of settled here and didn’t want to go back home,” she said. (Who could blame her?)

She got her undergraduate degree in pre-veterinary science and went on to get a master’s in applied health research.

As you’ve probably guessed, she is a dog lover.

This is where her 5-year-old female Spinone comes into the picture. Her name is Breda, and she just won one of the top honors at the 143rd Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show in New York last week. In case you don’t know it, that’s the biggest event of the year in the dog show world.

Breda was named “Best of Opposite Sex.”

I wasn’t sure what that meant, but Shannon explained that a mate is selected for each dog that’s chosen “Best of Breed.” Since the top dog among the Spinones was a male, that put Breda in the running for Best of Opposite Sex, and she claimed the honor based on her characteristics that would be complementary to the winner, to improve the breed, Shannon said.

So, I wondered, does that mean these two will settle down and have puppies?

“Ideally, yes,” Shannon said, “but no at the same time, because they come from the same line.”

In other words, they looked good together, but being cousins, it wouldn’t work.

But it was a great honor, and for that I congratulate Shannon, her proud mother, Jeani — and, of course, Breda. We have a famous dog in our midst.

This was the first trip to the Big Apple for Shannon, 23, and she and Breda soaked it all in over four days last week, sightseeing and experiencing the city from the Boardwalk to Broadway.

The finals were held in Madison Square Garden, with most of the judging at Pier 92 and 94.

“It was quite the adventure,” Shannon said.

Shannon is an old hand at dog shows, having shown dogs since she was in elementary school. This one, though, was “extremely nerve-racking,” she said.

“I felt like we had a lot of people watching us,” she said. “People flew in from all over the world.”

Breda didn’t seem to mind all the attention, though.

To be able to enter the competition, Breda ranked in the top 10 nationally after winning a show in Orlando.

Now, about Spimones. I’m a dog lover myself, and any dog that wags its tail a lot, smiles and loves its owner is wonderful to me. But Spimones are a fairly rare breed.

“You’re not normally going to see one walking down the street,” Shannon said.

They’re hunting dogs, bred in Italy, as you might guess from the name.

They’ve been Shannon’s favorite breed for a long time. Her first Spimone, Rufio, will turn 11 this week.

Breda has a son and a daughter that will be 2 years old in July and have already been in shows.

Showing dogs is “mainly just a hobby” and probably costs more to do than it may make in winnings, she said. Meanwhile, Shannon is working as a veterinarian technician at Foothills Veterinary Hospital in Greenville, and she hopes to use her master’s degree for research in animal reproduction.

Here’s wishing all the best for Shannon, and her beautiful dogs.

(Attachment: Shannon Barchalk and her dog, Breda, at the Westminster Dog Show in New York. Provided.)