Puppy Finlay's Casebook: 27 April 2018

WELKS championship dog show, Malvern, Friday 27th April 2018.

What. A. Day!

To cut a long story short, Finlay and my wife, Deb, had the most brilliant day despite horrible cold weather. Finlay has now qualified for Crufts at pretty much his first attempt, we're so proud of him. But now for the long version of the story.....

This proved to be a very long day, having arrived just gone 9am and didn't leave until 6.30pm, not at all what we were expecting. Right now our expectations are that Finlay will have fun, he will wag and smile at every person and dog that he meets and anything else (in terms of dog showing success) is a bonus. Maybe we have to revise our expectations after this!

Firstly thanks to the Tibetan Spaniel judge for the day Sally Lafferty. In all Finlay was judged a total of 7 times during the day and he did the best he has ever done. So in order of appearance:

Puppy dog - he was in a class of 3 dogs, one of which was his brother Taggart. I was over in another hall because Fin was supposed to take part in a puppy stakes class, but it clashed with the Tibbie puppy class so I gave up and ran back to Hall 5. I'm so glad I did. I didn't see Finlay strut his stuff and arrived just as the judge was going over the last dog. After one last walk around she walked up to Deb, I really couldn't believe it, it must have been around that point when I got something in my eye!

Special Beginner dog - we had also entered Finlay into Special Beginner, because both us as exhibitors and of course Finlay are new to this game, and in a class of 4 Finlay came first again. Two of the dogs in the class, Finlay and Rio, were bred by Aileen McDonald (Balgay) and it was ever so close, it looked like Rio was just going to edge it. But again the judge walked up to Deb and Finlay.

Dog Challenge Certificate - incredibly because at this point Finlay was unbeaten, it meant he got through to the 'dog final'. Surely it was too much to hope he'd get any further, well indeed it was. But to be in this situation was a bit unreal. The CC went to a lovely dog though.

Best Tibetan Spaniel Puppy Dog - here we go again. In line for another shot at winning and he did, he beat the Dog Minor Puppy for best Puppy Dog.

Best Tibetan Spaniel Puppy. A straight two-way fight between the winner of the Bitch Minor Puppy and Finlay. The judge took a while to deliberate and Finlay lost out to a gorgeous Minor Puppy only just 6 months old, a worthy winner.

Best Tibetan Spaniel Special Beginner. The best dog and bitch Special Beginner get to go up against each other to win the best overall Special Beginner. By this point my mind is a bit boggled, Finlay keeps on having to go back in to be judged. Incredibly there he was again, getting through again and the winner of a lovely rosette for his efforts. But more news, this meant that this was not the end of our day! Going home early we were not.....

Utility Group Special Beginner - this element of competition is still pretty new having been introduced by the kennel club in 2018. Each breed that runs a Special Beginners class has the option to send the winner through to a group final. So we found ourselves in the main arena with a bit of a wait because the Special Beginners is judged after the main group and Utility was the last to be judged after the Pastoral Group, judge was Mr Keith Nathan. The group was pretty large with 13 entries and they were pre-judged whilst the main group was on. Then at the end, all the entries get their time in the best in show ring and then the final four get announced. Oh my goodness, Finlay got Group 4! It was the icing on the cake of a very long day. Even more icing on the cake, we win £10 prize money for this win....our first ever prize money :-)

We left finally at 6.30pm pretty tired, even Finlay laid down on the walk back to the car as if to say "really"! But we made it, he slept all the way home, not a peep.

We came away from WELKS with Crufts qualification, two firsts in class, best Tibetan Spaniel Puppy Dog, best Special Beginner in Breed and Utility Group 4 Special Beginners. Lots of people congratulated us on our efforts and it all seemed a bit of a blur. We wanted to have fun with Finlay and there is no doubt that he loves what he is doing, that is priority number one. winning is a bonus, I'd be lying if I said it wasn't nice to have a judge say how lovely your dog is and place him above others. But it is still an expected thing.

There's a dog-showing community too, everyone getting together and talking about dogs, showing dogs and helping us. Loads of advice about how to get the best out of Finlay. He has been a bit of a handful since we started showing him, but we have had lots of helpful advice and practical skills show us how to get him into shape, suddenly it is all starting to work. We've really valued the advice, and tried to put it into practice. Many of the people we've spoken to have been doing dog showing for many years, so it proves that there is no substitute for experience.

So thanks for helping us get this far! Now also it seems we've got to start keeping a record of points for Junior Warrant, it's getting complicated!!

Next time out, different judge, different venue, different day for Finlay and different day for his humans. All variables that make the competition all the more exciting. If all else fails, we'll have a good laugh with some new friends and Finlay will wag his tail and woo some more hearts. What's not to like!

Here is the 'medal' haul

Lovely rosettes!

We did get some lovely comments from other people at the show just how well Finlay was standing, and he did some of his best ever stands today. Picture isn't the best, but you get the picture. Bless him.....