What a great weekend at the dog show. Lucy handled beautifully even though she hasn’t shown since late July, and hasn’t spent and substantial time with me since November. I love love love this girl. I’m so pleased Floyd is permitting me to show her in pursuit of her Grand Champion title.
This weekend she picked up Select Bitch each day for another 3 points. 22 points down and 3 to go.
Kate returned to the show ring today to give one of my puppy owners a taste of showing dogs. Anthony has spent a few hours over the last couple of weeks plying Kate with chicken and learning the bare minimum to get in and out of the show ring in one piece.
Kate is such a good girl and her affections and attention were not difficult for Anthony to capture. Despite my slight concern that Kate would turn into a nerd under Anthony when in the ring simultaneously with Lucy and I, she handled very nicely for Anthony. I’m proud that Kate’s training held. And I’m very very proud of Anthony.
Today’s Judge was a hoot. I’ve never had so much fun in the ring. I don’t think any of us knew what to expect from the judge next as he had a complicated ring procedure and some gait patterns I don’t think any of us had ever observed let alone done.
One of the reasons I liked it was I think (think) all of us had our composure a little rattled. It put the very experienced handlers on the same uncertain ground as the novices. And I thought that was really cool because I know he was looking at the dogs and not the handlers. That was reassuring. He gave each of us ample time and opportunity to show our dogs to their best, and was patient when we goofed up from not knowing his procedures.
There was one dog today that he spent a lot of time on as the dog was discombobulated and not cooperating with the handler. Not standing and stacking, having an off day (two bitches in the ring were in season, he kinda lust his mind).
It was super fun and we had some really nice surprises.
Katie Rosens boy Merlin went Best of Breed! So exciting. A first for her and her boy. A Best of Breed is an incredible high for a relative novice and I’m so very pleased for her. Merlin is Gabbys brother, Sharon’s girl. Gabby went Best opposite sex.
I took notes on who else did what but left my catalog in the car.
The other cool thing is how well Anthony handled all the stuff in the ring and each of us in the ring helped each other with trying to get the unusual patterns right. On the last but the judge wanted us to start going around then cut across diagonally and stack our dogs in a line. Anthony was at the head of the line. He started doing the correct thing, then another of us (and I echoed) thought the judge meant something else. It was neat that Anthony was right and we more experienced handlers were fooled.
There was more but that’s enough for now. Great day.