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International Flat-coats Sleeping Upside Down Week!Facebook page - International FlatCoats Sleeping Upside Down Week!!!

URL - https://www.facebook.com/groups/279734962102273/

Visitor Instructions - Please post the pictures of your Flat Coated Retrievers in their favorite sleeping positions! Upside Down!!!

Nanci Hanover of Los Angeles, California has been in Flat-coated Retrievers since 1989. Her first dog was Am/Can/Mex/

Intl/IABCA Ch Folly’s Bristol Rover, CD, JH, TDI, CGC (call name “Tucker”). She breeds under the kennel affix of Bristol in his memory.

Nanci started “International FlatCoats Sleeping Upside Down Week!!!” a year ago. Flatout spoke with her via Facebook messaging on the first anniversary of its launch.

Flatout - Did the Upside Down site start out in an inspirational flash or did you have plans to do something like this for a while?

Nanci - I think the site started after I had seen so many adorable photos of our crazy dogs lying on their backs in pretzel-like positions. It just seemed like a great place to collect those photos

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Flatout - Have you been surprised at the sheer number of postings and members? It’s a pretty impressive number, given the size of the FCR community out there.

I’m guessing not too many people had to actually go grab their camera to first photograph their dog sleeping upside down so they could post to the page. I’m thinking many already had loads of favourite shots sitting on their hard drives before the Facebook page came into existence. What do you think?

Nanci - I am not surprised at the numbers of postings. I think that FCR people are absolutely amazing people with terrific senses of humour! We have to! We love these crazy dogs.

I think originally people started posting just because it was funny, but it caught on and it made our world a little smaller.

It doesn’t matter if you live in South Africa, England, North America, Japan or Australia; we all see the same thing in our dogs and adore them for it.

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Flatout - What makes FCRs the coolest dogs in the universe?

Nanci - It’s kind of the same answer as the previous question. Flat-coats are really something special. And so are Flat-coat owners.

I don’t know of another breed out there where there is such a ‘family’ as ours. With the Flat-coat Health page (Kass), we can share issues with particular focus. When one of us has a special win, a hundred people come back to congratulate them. When one of us loses a dog, it feels like we all lose it. Laura’s page of Pawprints Left Behind shows that. I think we can all look at our own dog and truly feel what that person feels. None of us is immune. I can honestly say that I have cried over the loss of dogs I have never met, and with the owners I know only through these pages.

On the other hand, we all know that feeling when a new pup enters our lives. The softness of its coat, the kisses, the tail wags, the look in its eye as it learns how to wind us around their little paw. One of my favourite things is to see an entire show ring of FCRs — and their tails all wagging in unison.

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Flatout - Can’t imagine the whole International Flatcoats Sleeping Upside Down Week!!! thing working as well as it has on anything other than a social media platform, can you?

Nanci - I can’t see this anywhere else. I wasn’t a fan of flickr even though a lot of friends posted pics there. There just wasn’t enough interaction. I think that’s the bottom line on this... it’s the immediacy of it. For example, someone we all know has just posted that she has lost her Flat-coat... in less than 20 minutes, almost two dozen of our friends have consoled her and sent love...We are truly an amazing group of people.

The Unofficial Breed Standard [excerpt] Retriever (Flat-Coated)

“It was the first of the retrievers to win widespread acclaim as an upside-down sleeping dog, and at the end of the 19th Century and the beginning of 20th, it was the almost universal choice of those who required a dog for formal lame sleeping and mild flopping. It has maintained its reputation as a dual-purpose sleeper over the years and there remains little or no difference between bed and couch Flat-Coats.”

Jet, England (Steve Ellis)

Guiness, (Teresa Otsa, Photo by K. Bechtold)

Moonie, Worcestershire (Malcolm Godefroy)

Mist and Denzel, Netherlands (Wies Boermans)

Fearless Inspector Harry of Dreamlike Star, Switzerland (Cornelia Corno)

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Flatout - What’s been fun for me — and others, too — is that no one posting to the site thinks it’s weird at all to be sharing photos of their dog sprawled in a state of utter relaxation and complete trust.

Owners of other breeds who have seen your Upside Down page on Facebook often shake their heads at the mildly eccentric nature of the FCR breed and their owners. Any thoughts?

Nanci - At Christmastime here in Southern California, we used to have a show where the specials would all wear antlers into the ring. We had a judge (Mrs. Alston) who insisted we all go around the ring singing “Jingle Bells.”

We had a parade through the show site with costumes. Bruce Broughton created Santa and his elves complete with train. Some of the other exhibitors would remark as to what a fun group we were and others would say they looked forward to see what we would bring to the show from year to year... We are as crazy as the dogs are!!!!

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Flatout - Do people who know you a little bit know its Nanci Hanover behind this site? Do you feel more like a house mother/den mother to this Facebook page?

Nanci - I make it a point to LIKE everyone’s posts. I don’t ever want people to go unacknowledged on this page. People love their dogs so much and take the time to share their photos. I want them to know they are appreciated.

I have started monitoring it a bit more closely because I want people to feel comfortable posting their pics and not see a bunch of advertising like we get on the main pages. Mostly I just want them to feel included, as though they are part of this big global family we have going! It’s my goal to make everyone feel a part.

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Flatout - The title of your Upside Down Facebook page says it’s a “Week”...guess it’s running a bit longer than 7 days. It’s now been a whole year!

Nanci - I had no idea this would take off the way it did. When it started, I had about 600 FCR friends. Now I am over 1,000. People ask why I met all those people. I just think it is so fun to meet people from all over the world who share this passion. It’s truly like being in a club that barely anyone knows about.

Did you ever notice how if you say you have a FCR to someone else who has one, you are

practically instant friends? You share that common bond. Like I said earlier, I know the crazy things your dog does! I ‘get’ that he sleeps upside down. Or the thing with his front paws being crossed. Or the ever-wagging tail. Or the woo-wooing as they see you coming up the front walk. After 24 years in this breed, I can never imagine being without a Flat-coat.

I feel really blessed to have found these dogs. I wanted a Lab. I got lucky attending a pet show where I met two wonderful people... Neal Goodwin and Bob Jones. They introduced me to Presto and Ike. I was smitten immediately. From there I met Peachie Orton and finally got my first FCR from Sarah Messick. He was a life-changing moment.

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Flatout - Know of any other nutty FCR sites that celebrate what we affectionately refer to as the “unofficial” breed standard?

Nanci - Yes, I also started Flat-coated Retrievers - Just Puppies!!! that has been very successful (people post pix of FCR pups) I had Flat-coated Retrievers LOVE Cookies!!!! (Started in Dec. 2009.) That page was before its time and it was too broad. It didn’t take off.

There are also a few pages that are based in Europe that are fun to peruse, but are hard to read unless there is a ‘translate’ button!

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Flatout – Great talking about this with you, Nanci. Like to add anything else?

Nanci - Well, you can mention that I sleep on my back, too!

You can see colour versions of these and other photos in our Upside Down album: https://www.facebook.com/FCRSC.

Post your own upside-down photo to Nanci Hanover’s page: http://ow.ly/jrfut

Upside down litter, Scotland (Senga Thorpe)

Upside down from Germany (Sabine Weiss)

Luna, Netherlands (Ria Nijkamp)

Perry Bochilbarley Ghostly Comet, UK

Neve, U.K. (Gemma Jacobs)

Springtime in Sweden (Carin Lundskog)