Playing "The Game"

Happy December 6th! It may be a little difficult to tell in this picture, but the truck has a set of reindeer antlers and a Rudolph nose on it!
Aaaaaaaaaaand, it also has some other Christmas magnets on all the other sides!:) (yes, I'm flying that Christmas freak flag for all to see!)

Bess was pretty resigned to her fate, and Adam caught a picture of her while we were getting the dogs into position. It looks like she's saying "here we go yet again!"
Today was more nothing in the ring. Each time we go to a show, it's always a learning experience. I learn something new each time. What I learn is not always directly related to dogs, conformation, or showing though. I've heard plenty about random people in the dog show world who do "dirty" handling. It's something that my breeder/mentor has never encouraged (and also hasn't even mentioned it as something that is remotely okay to do!!) or even really pointed out to me before. However, this weekend was an eye opener. I won't go into too much detail because this is an open blog and I don't want to seriously bad mouth anyone, but it was seriously ridiculous. I have never knowingly been the recipient of someone trying to throw my dog off until this weekend and I REALLY don't appreciate it. I would love to go off at length about what happened, but it's not entirely appropriate at this time. Thankfully Bess is very well trained and is rock solid in the ring and not really bothered by much at all. She stayed on course and showed well. I just really don't appreciate people who have the complete and utter lack of sportsmanship that would so blatantly (granted, it's probably not as blatant to someone brand new to showing) try throw off someone else's dog so that they could win. It's ridiculous. And to also talk down to a judge about their pick for their end placements is incredibly unprofessional and just plain mean. That's all. I'm pretty ticked, but I'm going to hold back (I've already vented to Adam and talked to a few other people about this so that I'm a little more calm) and that's all I'm going to say.

Today I am thankful for my incredibly awesome, bomb-proof dog who takes everything in stride and doesn't miss a beat! Bess rocks!! I'm also thankful for having a breeder/mentor who doesn't stoop to low handling just to try and win.