Elton’s First BIS!
07/03/2010
All is good at the moment 🙂
We went to a companion show today, no obedience but whenever we go anywhere like that I always take my stuff – good opportunity to give Solei a quick practice in a strange environment.
The weather was gorgeous and there were quite a few of my friends there, so we had a super afternoon sitting chatting! I handled a friends Clumber, who did NOT want to do anything! He was in a very much “I can’t be bothered” mood and was very hard work…in his first class it felt like I was moving a sack of potatoes 😆 but he still got a 4th. Plus a 2nd in Best Mover (he’d woken up a bit by then!) and another 4th in Most Handsome Dog. I knew the judge was aware of Phalenes, so I’d opted not to show Darwin but put Elton in instead. On his new lead! I was going to have an expensive leather show lead for Elton, but whilst waiting for him to finish growing I’d discovered he really isn’t keen on chains (they’re half-check/martingale style), so instead I’d been showing him on a show lead I had with no chain, and so for my birthday I had a lovely white silk show lead for him 🙂 This was the first time he’d worn it!
It is thereby dubbed “the lucky lead”, for my gorgeous little boy absolutely showed his socks off, won his class and then went on to BEST IN SHOW!! So, so proud of him…and he’s still only thirteen months old 🙂 He won a bottle of wine, which mum appreciated 😆
Vale had a 2nd in Best Veteran (unfortunately she was rather hampered by the fact her classes (Waggiest Tail & Best Veteran) were the last two classes I was showing in, so I’d already won too much 😆
Once I’d finished I got my bag out to do some work with Solei. I  I kept him on a long line cos I didn’t want to risk anything (there were ponies about), but he did some nice heelwork (on lead, not on the line), and two perfect retrieves 🙂 Didn’t mess about once! Then I tried a couple of sendaways. First one he went just past the target but I happened to have the line at that length so he got to the end and then realised what he was meant to be doing, then he did a couple of beautiful ones after that. I stopped there….I thought 3/4 sendaways and 2/2 retrieves + 100% nice heelwork was an excellent place to stop 😀
So yes, super day!