Long Day

It was a long, but nice day. I think I forgot to mention, but the local great dane breed club hosts a double specialty the day before the all breed shows start. What's a double specialty? Aside from a really long day, it just means that there are two separate shows held on one day. Different judges for everything, but the same order and the same optional classes that are held at specialties. Because of this (and because we didn't have any other options), I only had Bess entered in conformation in the American Bred Bitches class.


The first show of the day didn't go all that well for us. I took Bess out to potty and walked her around a little bit before it was our turn. Once we were in the class and the judge asked us to go around as a group for the first time, I thought that maybe there was a hint of a limp on her front left leg. Hmmmm.....maybe it was just a combination of moving on the carpet and the way that I took the corner. So I set her up, the judge went over her, we did our down and back, and then we went around the ring. And there was most definitely an obvious limp on that leg. What????? We ended up placing third out of three, and rightfully so since I apparently had a lame dog. Okay, so I walked her a little more and then put her back in her crate to rest up.


For the second show I did the same routine. Took her outside so that she could potty if need be and I also watched her movement like a freaking hawk. There was nothing off. Okay. I decided to keep her out of her crate until it was our turn to make sure that nothing miraculously stiffened up. We went in for our class and there were no problems. No lameness what so ever. And even better, she actually won her class! With actually competition!:) I know it's corny, but I was so excited about that class win. Things have not been going so well in conformation and the thought of retirement is definitely on my mind. Even though we're literally half way there, we still have quite a bit of ground to cover.


Outside of the conformation portion of things, there was a great raffle! So much great stuff!! And I would have lots of pictures and videos of the days events for you if I had remembered to actually charge my camera battery. D'oh! It went dead the first time I turned it on. So I got nada. But I did come away with some nice prizes (which I had to take the battery off the charger in order to get).:)


Obviously I'm not color prejudiced.;0) My craft room is very definitely turning into a dane stuff repository. And I love it!! The collar is made by none other than Kennedy. She made a few and donated them to the raffle. Naturally I put tickets into all of the cups. The red collar just happened to be the only one that I won. I tried taking an adequate picture of it to better show off the detail, but the picture above is about as good as I got. The fabric is just gorgeous though! The picture doesn't do it any justice. Heffner is excited that he has a pretty new collar.;0)

And now I'm pretty much beat. It's amazing how tiring this day is when I don't really feel like I did all that much. Tomorrow will be a little lighter as it is strictly an agility day with Bess. I do plan on heading over to the dane ring and watching as much as I can. Fingers crossed that we have some nice runs tomorrow!