My weekend disappeared into a blur of cuteness
This is Conner, who somehow failed to get Winners Dog on Friday, but did on the other two days. (To be fair, the dog that beat him on Friday was probably okay, but I didn’t really look at him, since my attention was on Conner.) The two points from Saturday were useless since he can’t benefit from single points, but on Sunday he also got Best of Winners and thus a major. One more major and he’ll have his championship!
The one in the front is Kimmie, who didn’t do all that well — she got reserve on Saturday, and best bred-by-exhibitor Cavalier once, but that’s it for Kim. A particular ruby girl beat her twice. Since that ruby is now finished, Kimmie won’t be facing her again in future shows.
This delightful puppy is Leda, who to my surprise beat her sister two days out of three! She got Winners Bitch on Friday, beating both Kimmie and the ruby. This means she earned her first major, so depending on how you look at it, Leda is now closer to her championship than Kim. Leda has only four points but three of those came in a major. Kimmie has 9 points but no majors. It is a whole lot easier to whittle down the singles than to find shows with majors.
I guess I will now start showing Leda much more seriously. I wish I had last year because she still looks rather puppyish in some ways and will have a harder time in the adult classes, probably.
Most likely the reason two out of three judges this weekend preferred Leda to her sister is that she is more compact, more solid, with more “bone.” She is shorter-coupled — Kim’s worst failing imo is that she is “longer cast,” which means longer in the body. Kim is unquestionably prettier, though. You can bet I will be adding notes about all three judges to my file where I keep track of these things. Friday and Sunday’s judges prioritize other things over the prettiness of the head and expression; Saturday’s judge the other way around. In the future, I will make decisions about which dog to show to which judge based on that presumption.
I took my laptop to the hotel, but I wound up barely touching it. Mornings vanished into a rush to shampoo each dog’s ears and feet, mist their coats with a conditioner, brush the coat flat and put on drying coats, blow dry the dog and start the next dog. Then zip to the show site and rapidly show each dog, switching out armbands hastily but (amazingly enough) without ever entering the ring while wearing the wrong dog’s armband.
After those intense mornings, the afternoons vanished into naps and reading and taking the three dogs on long walks.
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