July 2011

Tuesday 26th July

Went to Leeds last Friday where Dave was the judge for the day. Had a lovely time. DCC & BOB was Calvdale False Arrest, RDCC, Sh Ch Trimere Thriller, BCC was Sh Ch Donarden Foxy Lady, RBCC Trimere Touch Of Black and Best Puppy, Calvdale Diamond Heist. Photo of main winners below....

Tuesday 19th July

No shows for our own dogs this past week but some good news to share on Peasblossom successes elsewhere. Rattan and Robin went to the SESSS Open Show at the weekend and both won their respective classes with Rattan finishing Best Bitch and RBIS overall. Lily (P Charm at Foordslane) also had a nice day at this show. Sorry we weren't there to see you all...

Robin and Halle (P Hope for Beresford) went to East Riding Gundog the following day (where do you get the energy, Trudy???) where Halle won Puppy and Robin, the Open Class and BOB. Unfortunately they couldn't stay for BIS. Well done though :o)

Peasblossom Heaven Sent (Hope) had a really super day at the CACIB show in Warsaw, first time out of puppy winning CAJC, BOB Junior and BIS Junior III all breeds. The judge was Erling Kjær Pedersen (Denmark). Congratulations!

Kitkat (P Eternity) has been doing well in her obedience training .. this is what her owner has sent us :- "We have just come home from a place called Vejen, where Kitkat got an Excellent in her Grade I obedience test - that means she has passed. She got 168 out of 180 possible points (150 points would have been enough to pass). The "worst" score she got was 8,5 out of 10 for one excercise (scent discrimination where I played it safe and did not let her do the finish. She found and brought the right article, though). In the other excercises she got 10s, 9,5s and 9s. She was very cool. The downstay was tough. It was disrupted twice by dogs who got up. She got a 10 there".  Clever girl, Kitkat!

A special well done to Eddie too, Seaspring Shipwrecked, a Seamus son on a bit of a roll at the moment who won two classes at the SESSS and three classes, BOB and G4 at Peterborough on Sunday under judge, Sue Pounds-Longhurst.

Finally, we have added a few photos to our Current Litters page, of the puppies at seven weeks. These are NOT our puppies, but a litter sired by Seamus down in the west country. Contact the breeder if you might be interested in a pup from his litter.

Sunday 10th July

The World Winners Show in Paris was certainly an experience! After the immaculate perfection of Windsor - Paris was quite literally the other extreme! Singing the praises of the UK Dog Show scene is pretty unusual at the best of times, but really we don't know how lucky we are. The problems we occasionally experience are often down to the weather rather than a complete lack of organisation. Our benching, the rings, the overall facilities and parking arrangments - out of this world compared to Paris!!
Firstly, there were no poo bins provided and when we say there were 30,000 dogs entered over the four days, this should give you some idea of how much dog waste was produced and just left! We attended on two consecutive days and no cleaning up was done between the first and second days - we hate to think what it must have been like after the fourth day. The human toilets were flooded to ankle depth too! There were very few entry and exit points with long queues into the venue. Nobody checked Seamus' passport on either day and we were just waved through. There were two-three hour queues for tick/tapeworm treatment for the 600+ dogs needing to get back into the UK. We gave up in the end and found an independent vet outside to adminster the treatment and stamp his passport. Very, very long walks from the carparks carrying our usual dog show paraphenalia on top of trying to avoid dog mess was quite simply nightmarish!

The judging ... hmmmmmm..... we are not that familiar with FCI rules and regulations but it was our understanding that a critique would be provided but no. Neither did we know or were told if the judge considered our dog to be Excellent or otherwise, whether we should stay in the ring, leave or what the blue cards meant that some exhibitors were given. On the first day of the French Championship - the judge had 15 Clumber Spaniela, 4 Field Spaniels, 8 Sussex Spaniels and 41 English Springer Spaniels to judge in that order. Judging commenced at 0930 hours and she had finished all four breeds by 1100 hours! At the WDS show the following day, the entry of ESS was 81 with a minimal number of absentees. Judge was the President of the French Kennel Club, Arthus Gerard. The order of the class judging on both days was odd, starting with Open, then Working, then Champion, Junior and finally Veteran. Wonder why?? Anyway, Seamus was placed second in the Champions Males class out of 16 males. We were happy with that and of course we already know that he is the Best Dog in the World anyway!!!! A wonderful day was had by Kennel Barecho winning Open Dog and BOB with Messi (Barecho Zuper Playmaker) and BOS with Claudia (B Quest For Success). Another special moment was to meet, for the first time, 'Lara' - Kye's daughter (Vendetta De Los Tres Robles) who finished on the first day with the Reserve CC and on the second the CC! We didn't take many photos sadly as even that was disorganised with class winners standing one way and the next set of class winners facing in the opposite direction and with very little time given to the photographers at all. So here they are ....

Paris, like London was congested with traffic. Fortunately our hotel was a great find and was not so far from the venue. We had to get back to England and had no opportunity to do any sightseeing but maybe we will have to go back some day ... although it will not be for a dog show! The very best thing about the trip was seeing some of our good friends and meeting new people and their lovely springers that we hope will become good friends in the future. As always, people make up the biggest part of the memories and in the case of the WDS, Paris, that is a very good thing.

On an entirely different note and back to springer reality, here is a photo taken of Desperado Ayo who is a daughter of Seamus and it is such a fantastic photo that we wanted to share it. Aya is on a leash to stop her from drowning as her swimming technique still requires some work :o)

Sunday 3rd July

Yesterday we took Kye and Holly to Windsor under judge, Jackie Weyman. The weather was perfect, warm and sunny! It was the first time in quite a few years that we have been to this show as although 'local', has no CC's for our breed but what a well-organised show! The grass was really short, the rings were a good size and even the toilets were lovely ... and it is not that often you can say that about dog show toilets!!! Well done to the committee - we will come again! Anyway, a good day for us as Kye won Post Grad dog and finished Reserve Best Dog and Holly was placed second in Post Grad Bitch. Rattan and Robin were there, finishing first and second in their Limit Classes and there were some nice wins for several Seamus children too along the way.

Some good news from Denmark, that Kitkat (P Eternity) went to the Danish Kennel Club Open Show in Sabro, won the Group and finished BIS4!! Not so bad at only her second show. Well done from us both xx A photo of Kitkat and also one of Poppy (P Harvest Moon) have been added to Gallery in the main menu.

Congratulations to Michael and Christina on a new Champion at Kennel Goldmoore's. Well done to 'Clive' (G. Clive Christian) who finished Best Dog today with the last CC required for his title. Proud Dad, Seamus, sends his warmest regards :)

Well now the countdown is on for our trip to Paris and the World Dog Show! Unfortunately our dog sitters have let us down yet again which means that our trip will be cut short so it will sadly mean the two shows and home again for us. I wonder if I will ever get to see Paris at this rate !!! We are taking only Seamus but are looking forward to seeing everyone, making new friends and seeing some lovely dogs of course. Hopefully some photos of the event will be forthcoming .....