19 May 2019

Finlay is now 23 months old, not far off his 2nd birthday, amazing!

Today's blog is some musings about both Finlay and dog showing. Not that long ago, I would have been largely ignorant of the massive number of dog shows that happen in the UK every weekend of the year. Some of them small dog shows and some of them very big dog shows. This weekend alone that I'm aware of, there were the following shows:
- Devon County show
- Redditch and District show
- Coventry and District show
- Christchurch and New Forest show
- Scottish Kennel Club Championship show

All of them had representation from Tibetan Spaniel exhibitors and even TS owners judging. But what is in it for the exhibitors, well.....largely just the fun of going and showing your dog off to the world and socialising with like-minded people. Since we've been showing Finlay we've probably won £30-£50 in prize money, there is never that much money on offer, so people aren't getting rich on it.

Today in Dorset at the Christchurch and New Forest Open show, it was a 'mixed weather' day. We arrived in the sunshine, it slowly clouded over and got very muggy and the weather forecast was exactly right with planned heavy rain. The heavens opened and it tipped down for a couple of hours. The very British weather brought out the very British spirit of smiling through all of this and carrying on, largely due to a friend of ours bringing along a massive gazebo for us all to shelter under.....well the Tibetan Spaniel people that is, not the whole show, it wasn't THAT big!! Yes it was a bit miserable for a while and such a contrast to earlier in the day, but "the show must go on". Organising a dog show through those conditions can't be massive fun, so a big well done to those that made it happen.

Finlay did pretty well today. For an open show, it was very stiff competition in his class and he came a creditable 2nd out of 5 entries and went on to win 'Best Opposite Sex'. Then got a 1st in AV Utility Open.....although only 1 in the class, due to some people not waiting around in the rain. But unplaced in an Open Stakes class....the only chance to win some money on the day.

Next week one of the 'big' dog shows, the Bath Championship dog show. An outdoor show like today, let's hope the weather holds out.

In other news this week, Finlay has had the best fun in his garden whilst we have our large conifer hedge ripped out to be replaced with a nice new fence. His new best buddy was Danny the tree surgeon, every day he went out for a big fuss before Danny got going. The love was mutual, Danny picked Finlay up for a big cuddle....and Danny was a very big man well over 6 foot tall, but Finlay still went in for the snog (and the wag of course). For the time being he can see into our neighbours garden, which is absolute heaven for him, because he can wag at our neighbour and therefore get even more attention. He's going to be gutted next week when the fence goes up, although no doubt he will befriend the fencing contractors!

This weeks spoils, the rosettes from his classes. Haven't had many 'Best Opposite Sex' rosettes, I think this is only his second. I'm pretty sure Finlay would agree he is the best looking opposite sex too :-)

Here is Finlay in the garden inspecting a big heap of felled conifer hedging, which has produced his largest stash of sticks ever! He'll be finding and fetching them for weeks to come....

Ohhh, sticks! Me want.....

Charity work....Deb occasionally does some collecting for our local RSPCA branch, so a couple of weekends ago, we stood outside a local pet shop and took Finlay along to help our cause. It is the first time he has done such a task, he certainly attracted the punters in. It was both a good ploy on our part, plus a good Tibetan Spaniel promotion event. The RSPCA have reported back on takings for our time there, it is safe to say the 'Finlay factor' paid dividends and proportionally we collected well above the average across the weekend. What a clever boy.