When I watched the weather forecast on Tuesday I thought we would have the best day to be showing at the Bath & West, and it looks like I was right 🙂 Wednesday was absolutely horrid – poured with rain all day – and judging by the weather here when I was out this morning, today is going to be too hot. Yesterday was just nice 🙂 A touch hot in places and I got sun burnt, but on the whole very pleasant!

I bought a new camera on Monday, so I took it for a test drive. I didn’t get to photograph anything except dogs and I haven’t got them off the camera yet, but if they’re as good as they look on the camera screen I think I shall be very pleased 🙂

In terms of results it was one of the best & worst days for me for ages! 😆 Jeanie decided that as it was her first time showing on grass it would be much more fun to gallop and bounce round the ring than actually trot nicely – of course when I took her round the ring before judging started she behaved beautifully! Never the less she didn’t show too badly and got a 2nd…I hadn’t taken any notice because I was concentrating on Jeanie, but mum said the judge looked very hard at her so if she’d behaved better maybe she’d have won it! But no matter, happy with a 2nd for her first outdoor show & still only a baby at just 9 months. Then it started to go downhill 😆 I had Darwin (Jeanie’s brother) in Graduate. There were 7 or 8 dogs in the class and she was placing down to 4th, she threw him out! Jason was in Open (6 or 7 dogs) and again placing to 4th she threw him out too which is absolutely unheard of. He went well so obviously not her type for some reason! Always fascinates me to know what they didn’t like when that happens – he’s a gorgeous dog with not much to not like, but evidently whatever it was she didn’t like she really didn’t like! So not a good day with 2/3 dogs being unplaced – which then made me wish I’d entered Solei even more, he couldn’t have done any worse than the other two boys!

They declared a BOB and RBOB and then went on to BP. Darwin had been the only puppy in Graduate so despite being unplaced he was still an unbeaten puppy and therefore eligible to challenge, along with an unplaced puppy from Open and the winner of Puppy. I actually would just as soon have not have gone in (after all, the judge had already binned him once!) to the point where a friend offered to take him in for me but I said no, as it had to be done I’d do it. So we went into the ring, stood in line with the other two puppies whilst the judge made her decision….and omg you could’ve knocked me down with a feather as she handed me the Best Puppy in Breed rosette!! The look on my face must have been priceless, I don’t think anything has ever been so unexpected in my life 😆

So after that we had to wait for the Toy Puppy Group which wasn’t to be before 2:30pm. When we did the entry I’d asked S to put Jeanie in AV Puppy as well, and Darwin in the Puppy Stakes. Of course I got that wrong again – S had forgotten to put Jeanie in AV Puppy & I had to withdraw Darwin from the Puppy Stakes as they were being judged before the group and he needed to remain unbeaten! Should’ve gone for Jeanie in the stakes 😆 (good prize money)

As the groups had a not before time we had a bit of time to spare so went for a brief wander around…didn’t really anything of note! Though had less than half an hour before I had to get back, so didn’t get that far. Again, I wasn’t expecting anything in the Puppy Group – maybe as far as the judge was concerned he was the best of a bad bunch of Paps! – but I feel if you’re fortunate enough to get BP or BOB you really ought to stay and represent your breed in the group, bar emergencies. They always do the regular group before the puppy group so I groomed Darwin up and then tested a few features of my new camera out on the BOB Papillon! He wasn’t placed but I think I got a couple of lovely photos of him in the ring. Then it was the puppy group! Darwin was flagging a bit by this time, it was way past half two – in fact almost 4pm – and fairly hot. He stood absolutely beautifully at the beginning when the judge had a first glance round and then felt ok on the move but after that was very quick to think about dropping his tail! Never the less he can’t have looked too bad because he ended up with Puppy Group 3!! I didn’t see that one coming either 😆 though I wasn’t quite as surprised as the BPIB.

That was my very first Best Puppy in Breed 🙂 So obviously my first Puppy Group placement too, but actually also my first open show group placement – I’ve only ever had one other group placement (a Group 2) and it was at a limit show. I always thought Sarah should have had a BP but she never did. Largely thanks to her brother – lost count of the number of times she was 2nd to Sam!

Then talking of firsts, this morning Solei had his first agility lesson. I was so pleased with him! I think our trainer was quite impressed with how much he’s come on since she last saw him six months ago, too 🙂 We started off making him go round a cone – he’ll follow a pole beautifully but isn’t so good at working away if he hasn’t got something definitive to follow, so that’s our homework for this week! Then moved on to doing a recall through two jump stands but with no bar on them, then rested a bar on the floor and progressed from there until by the end he was doing two jumps in a row with the bars about an inch off the ground & with me running along side him rather than calling him to me from the far end 😀 He also went through the normal tunnel a couple of times with no problem. Lastly we tried him on the up part of the dog walk rested flat on the floor which he trotted along beautifully, so she raised the top of it up on a box so it was on a very slight gradient – again no problem! After that we called it a day cos it was getting hot and he’d done an awful lot, but all in all very positive, I think! There’s hope for him yet 🙂

The puppies were 2 weeks old yesterday! Won’t be long now before they’re toddling about and causing mischief and mayhem 🙂 Three of the five opened their eyes today, just the little girl and the boy that now has sabling on him -but still looks black at the moment so is now a mystery whilst we wait and see what colour he’s going to decide to be! – who haven’t yet opened them. The one that’s caught my eye from birth is the pup that is now the only true black and white, closely followed by the red sable boy – my opinion hasn’t changed, at the moment they’re still my two favourites 🙂 Though really they’re still too young to be able to tell anything other than whether they’re well marked or not.