NORWEGIAN BUHUNDS
Pastoral Day at WELKS was Friday 27th, the week before the temperature had been in the twenties, but that had all changed, it was in single figures with heavy rain for most of the day. Many of you will know the Three Counties showground set in the Malvern Hills; it is a lovely showground when the weather is good but on a day such as Friday with the rings in the cattle sheds on concrete, it is quite a bleak showground.
We were first in the ring with a proposed 9am start but this was delayed by half an hour. Our judge was breed specialist Jacqui Cobb she found her DCC & BOB in Anne Smith’s Arnscroft Never Say Di, he is by Ch/Am Ch Visions Dino of Trollheimen (Imp USA) (Caspar) x Arnscroft Di Sing On Ice, this was his 4th CC always considered to be the icing on the cake, they have all been with BOBs, he gained his crown at Crufts. RDCC his 3rd Dawn Deeley’s Am/Can Gr Ch Kynon’s Bold Norseman (Idar), he is by Nor/Can Ch Vaulartun’s Tomba Kimura x Can Ch K Freidige Tora he also has 2CCs.He is in the UK to be shown and help the gene pool which he has certainly done, his son was BP at Crufts and has a CC and here his daughter Hildy did well. BCC her 10th Margaret Garvie’s Ch Rhialis Physche by Casper x Ch Ailort Just Jinks she also has 7RCC. BP& RBCC her first Liz & Lesley Butterworth’s Koromandel Gild the Lily(Hildy) by Idar x Ch MaidofCopper for Kormandel JW, this was her last puppy class, so a lovely way to finish.
Pat Williams was also there to watch the judging and help out, look after dogs and join the picnic at the benches, but once over with the inclement weather many made their way home.
The following day Alysha Branchflower took Knytshall Moon of Josephine who she co owns with Jacqui Cobb, to Rally, run by the Ilminster and District Lions Club held at the Seavington Millennium Hall Ilminster Somerset. Last week I told you that in Rally you start with 200 marks and lose marks for faults and at the end of the course you can do a bonus, so in theory you could end up with 210, well Alysha and Josephine nearly did just that ending up with a score of 109.That means they only lost one mark and were third overall in Level 1 what a fantastic score, it is timed so the two above them might just have been a little faster. They now only need one more excellent score to be out of Level 1. The successes did not stop there, Alysha’s Australian Shepherd Toyah scored 193 taking 4th place in her first level 3, which is the first level off the lead so many congratulations.
Jacqui Cobb sadly missed the entry for Ilminister so had entered Rally at Hatton as had Debbie & I. Friday was very wet over most of the country not just in Malvern, so that evening we looked at the Rally News page, there was a message saying there was hard standing for cars. It was being held on an Educational Farm and Victorian shopping village with 25 specialist shops so I accepted that, although they did say bring wet weather gear but that was sensible. They also said for those camping it would be better to travel every day as the camping was in a farmer’s field. It rained all night but still no cancellation message the following morning, so we all set off from various directions. I have competed in agility and obedience in the rain on a number of occasions, I did wonder though what Fizz would think about doing the sit and down exercises in the pouring rain! I never found out because as I drove in they said the show was cancelled. I managed to stop Debbie who was about three quarters of the way there. I know only too well the time and organisation and cost that would have been needed for a two-day Rally and Agility show. No organisers like to cancel a show but to do it as people arrive especially as they knew it was going to rain all night, I do think is acceptable. I had a 4hr round trip and Jacqui 6 hrs but she did drop off on the way home to support Alysha.
The KC says ‘In the event that a show is cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances, the society will refund fees, less reasonable incurred expenses. Competitors will be refunded in the manner in which they had entered a show, but in any event the society will refund fees within 3months of the show, to all those who had entered and requested a refund within 1 month of the show.’ This of course is why organisers do not like cancelling shows, however I do think in this case they may well have more claiming the return of entry fees, than if they had cancelled the show the evening before.
It is not just out door shows that can suffer cancellation, a few years ago we had to cancel our open show and AGM due to very heavy snow in the area of the hall, we were lucky though as we were able to rearrange both at the same venue and with the same judge a few weeks later.
There is an agility show that has already been cancelled for the Bank holiday weekend. There is a rumour that the weather will improve soon, so fingers crossed. There was a posting recently on FB that said ‘summer April 18th-22nd 2018 gone but not forgotten.’
Margaret Deuchar margaretdeuchar@gmail.com
The 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