August 4, 2020
Dear Fellow Newfoundland Handlers and Admires,

The Pacific Northwest Club Water Test Committee remains optimistic that our community will adopt an effective Coronavirus response in the near term. The State of Washington has a four phase plan for re-opening activities to control Covid-19 transmission. The State, County and Municipal governments for our scheduled test site are The State of Washington, Cowlitz County, and the City of Woodland. The Washington State Secretary of Health has frozen the re-opening in Cowlitz County at Phase-2 and observes that “Washington State is in the early stages of an exponential statewide outbreak that has zero chance of being reversed without changes to our collective behavior and policies to support the change.” Phase-2 requires the social gatherings be limited to no more the 5 people from different households. Phase-3 was recently modified by Governor Inslee to allow social gatherings of up to 10 people.

We are hopeful that this improvement in “collective behavior” bears fruit within the next month. If it does and Cowlitz County proceeds to Phase-3, then we should be able to conduct group of social events that enables Newfoundlands and their handlers to demonstrate their skills. If we are confident that Cowlitz County will be in Phase-3 on September 19th, we plan to hold the water test. We will make a decision no later than August 31st.

We thank you for your patience.

PNNC Water Test Committee

Larry Roe, Jackie Leipzig , Jeannette Voss