6 August 2018

On Sunday 5th August, we (surprise surprise) went to another dog show and had more success winning Best Special Beginner at the SWTSC Open show. This lead me to thinking, what is it about Special Beginners?

This is how the kennel club classifies it:
https://www.thekennelclub.org.uk/activities/dog-showing/already-involved-in-dog-showing/special-beginners-competition/

This is the key criteria:
"For owner, handler or exhibit not having won a Challenge Certificate or Reserve Challenge Certificate, or for those breeds not allocated Championship Status, Best of Sex or Reserve Best of Sex at a Championship Show"

What this means is that new exhibitors and their dogs get a chance to compete on a more even level with other people at a similar stage of their dog showing 'career'. Many of the people showing their Tibbies have been doing so for many years and have so much experience, it can be difficult going up against them. It is a competition after all! But where Special Beginners classes are offered, Deb and Finlay know they have a fair chance of competing and that encourages us to both go to shows (both Open and Championship) and take extra classes which also means more experience showing. Actually, some of the people we meet at SB classes (the AV ones generally) have actually been showing quite a while, so they or their dogs aren't necessarily inexperienced, they just haven't won a CC or RCC yet.

Although we're new to this showing lark, I think Special Beginners (SB) is a fantastic initiative by the Kennel Club, and for us it is working. Of course we will blow this if we ever go and win a CC or RCC with Finlay, which at the moment seems a long way off :-)

We've entered into two main types of SB classes, either breed specific or Any Variety SB Stakes, where we meet loads of different breeds. We've had very good success with the breed SB classes, in fact Deb/Finlay have yet to be beaten in a breed SB class, which is pretty amazing. The AV SB Stakes are much harder. Sometimes these are AV or AV Utility, but either way, they are often pretty large classes, a dozen or so at least. So to get a placing at one of these classes is very satisfying but isn't easy, Deb/Finlay have managed it on a couple of occasions, but they haven't won one yet. 

What I like about the big SB stakes classes is getting a Tibbie 'seen' at this level. There are certain breeds that are there every single time we are in a stakes class, but not often are Tibbies seen. So I think we are given an opportunity that would be a shame to miss, so often you go to these stakes classes and quite a few entries do not turn up, often because they are still stuck in breed classes or couldn't, for whatever reason, stay for the class. That is a shame. We've had two cracks at the SB Utility Group, one of which we came Group 4, which I gather was quite a coup. These groups are always right at the end of the show, and at 4pm after a long day with a 2 hour+ drive home, it would be easy to give up and go home, but we've been good so far!

I don't think I'd have a different view on Special Beginners if Deb/Finlay hadn't been so successful in this area! But then you always sing when you're winning..... ;-)