Dog Shows On-Line

I enjoyed watching the Eukanuba (sponsored) dog show on streaming video on my computer Saturday and Sunday evenings.  Thought the quality of dogs was wonderful in most of the Groups, and the Group judging was uniformly good.  Loved 6 of the 7 Group winners and could have been happy if any of the 6 had gone Best in Show, but was absolutely thrilled to see the win go to my all time favorite Poodle, a gorgeous black Standard called "London", handled by one of the nicest professional handlers in the business.  Great fun! 

One of these years, IF they ever select a decent judge for Dalmatians, I'll go down and compete.  Generally have at least one dog qualify for the show (this year we had several) but the breed judges for Dals are such downers.  Breed results from this year confirmed my suspicions.  The BoB dog is a nice one, but some of the award winners were pretty marginal indeed, and there were no livers in the final lineup - despite the fact that the quality in livers was good.  Have to say there are very few foreign judges I would waste my money to show under.  The British judges generally come up with questionable selections and most of the Canadians are totally incompetent.  While there are certainly poor American judges (way too many, in fact) the percentage of poor Canadian judges seems to be much higher and they seem to be far more political.

Sparkle is now up in Canada, living with the Pella family for awhile.  She'll have a lot of fun for the next couple of weeks while Patti and kids are home on vacation.  She'll be back eventually, and looking for a home.  If you would be interested in co-owning a show dog, keep her in mind.  She's going to do well in the ring and I would love to show her, just don't need another dog body around here.

Letty was at loose ends yesterday, missing Sparkle, but enjoyed a trip to PetCo and a chance to run off leash for awhile.  Told her she had better be totally house-trained now, because everything got scrubbed yesterday, and all the rugs will be washed this week as we are expecting company on Saturday.  Tonight her cousin Meribel comes for an overnight, so Jess & Don can attend a Christmas party.  Because we got the backyard cross-fenced yesterday, it will be easier to keep the girls from tearing up the yard.  Good timing on the nice weather, and the ground being thawed enough for pounding stakes.

Still a lot to get done before Christmas, but no way to take any time off work.  My desk is buried in parcel files that need to be handled.  It used to be that the two weeks over Christmas and New Years were a bit slow - sure hope they are slow this year so I can get caught up, but I'm not expecting that to happen.  I can do the work required for my two jobs (inherited JoAnn's when she retired) but not the volume, primarily because the new accounting system continues to run so slowly.  I will be oh so ready for a couple of three-day weekends!