NORWEGIAN BUHUNDS
On Sunday 9th February Sarah Stonton took her puppy Pixie aka Wheatshade Snow Dreamer to a Level 1 scent trial in Peterborough where she was 4th, this with her previous placings means that she is only a few points off her Level 1 Excellent, which is fantastic as Pixie is not yet a year old being born on 22nd March 24.
I am sure you do not need me to tell you that Westminster Dog Show in the US is their Crufts equivalent and is the second oldest continuously held sporting event in the US. Unlike Crufts it is followed Country wide by the press and on TV, with the breed rings being Televised .Many public buildings are lit up during the duration of the show in Mauve and Gold which are the show’s colours. The show runs over 4days with agility, obedience ,junior showmanship, dock diving and of course showing. This year it ran from Saturday 8th February to February 11th, with Buhunds being shown on the Monday. The breed has been shown at Westminster since 2009 when they were accepted into the AKC Herding Group, which gave them Championship status. At Crufts dogs have to qualify but at Westminster Dogs are invited to go, with only the top dogs in each breed having an invite. This year there were more than 2,500 dogs from 201 breeds entered, there are 7 groups, but they are not the same as either our or FCI groups .This year the show returned to Madison Square Garden and the Jacob Javits Convention Centre New York for the first since 2020, when it moved outside in the summer due to the pandemic. The judge was Jussi Liimatainen from Finland who awarded BOB to GCH Cloudpoint Nothing Betta Than This CGC(Eirik), Amie McLaughlin posted on her FB page that she was the proud breeder/handler /and co-owner with Sarah and Kevin Woodworth. This was her 6th time of winning BOB at Westminster and her 4th as breeder/ owner /and handler. Sadly, her Buzz (Cloudpointe Ringside Gossip) although entered was not able to defend his title as he has not fully recovered from an injury. Eirik is by Arnscroft Be A Sailors Boy Di aka Skippe ( who is litter brother to Sarah Stonton’s Ch Arnscroft In Di Ana Jack) x Jotun Kola Karin(Karin). BOS GCh Bo-Co-Pa, You Can Call Me Bee At Cloudpointe (Queenie)who is also co-owned by Amie and is by Buzz who is by Skipper x Norsklyn’s Lucky Charm For Bo-Co-Pa. Faye Adox GCh Fabraj’s Enchantingly Loyal(Hagrid) was Select Dog which is rather like our RCC.
This year at Crufts over 200 pedigree breeds will compete along with agility and obedience dogs making an entry of over 18,500 dogs, with an overall entry of 24,000 dogs with other competitions and displays being included . There are 3,962 dogs from over 10 overseas countries with the most 376 coming from the Netherlands.
The Norwegian Buhund Club of the UK support and offer prize money of 1st £3, 2nd £2 3rd £1 in each class plus £10 for BOB and £5 for BP ,at the National Working and Pastoral Breeds Premier Open Show. Below is a report on the show by Marie Corin she writes,“ 15th February saw the NW &PBS Premier Open Show held at its usual venue of The Sports Connexion in Ryton-on-Dunsmore. As my alarm went off at 5:30am and the two sleeping Buhunds on my bed looked at me as if to say, ‘really, this early?!’, I must admit it made me question why we do this! The dark, cold wet day was not inviting, but get up and get out we did, arriving at the show just as the doors opened at 9am, giving me an hour to set up, exercise the dogs and get us ready for the 10am judging start. There was a good turnout of Buhunds, with 8 present across 4 classes. Our judge was Lisa Strong, who was also being assessed for level 3 judging (and happily, we later learned, she passed). There were four in Puppy, one Limit, two Open and one Veteran, so a good range of age as well as a mix of dog and bitches. Lisa found her Best of Breed in my 5-year-old male Bergen (Ch Kligenthal Almuric ShCEx) her RBOB and BP was Ollie Wheeler’s Inky (Knytshall Thistle Ink It Up Koromandel), handled by his mum Jenny. Being first in the ring meant a long wait for groups, especially since Pastoral were done after Working, so there was a lot of chatting, watching other breeds and trying to avoid the cold blast of air every time the door opened (the rain didn’t let up all day either). Lisa had brought Sam Guillod-Rees with her, who gallantly spent the whole day stewarding, so there were quite a few Buhund people there until the end. By the time I got home at about 8:30pm (journey made worse by an extra hour-long traffic jam), I was exhausted, as were the dogs!” Thank you, Marie and congratulations, on your BOB. I was thrilled to read about young Sam stewarding, young people getting involved in stewarding and helping at shows is so important for the future of shows.
I am told that warmer weather is on the way, I really do hope it is !
Margaret Deuchar margaretdeuchar@gmail.com
Any views expressed in Margaret’s Breed Notes are hers and hers alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Norwegian Buhund Club of the UK