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2007 Newsletter - Dogs

This year, the dogs section unashamedly focuses on Oliver's exploits, or to give him his full title Barhi Crouching Tiger ShCM. 2007 was a wonderful year.

Hampshire Gundog

In April, we once again went to Hampshire Gundog’s Limited show. It was lovely returning to the venue where we had won our first Best in Show in 2006, but there was a slight tinge of sadness that we had to return the beautiful trophy that went with that win.

It was a beautiful sunny spring day and as usual, the wonderful camaraderie of the show scene was in abundance. Following on from our amazing successes at Hampshire Gundog shows in 2006 where we were Best in Show at both their shows, I lost count of the number of people who asked me if we were going to make it three in a row. We made it through the first hurdle and went Best of Breed again, that in itself was a real achievement as there are always a number of good dogs to beat and then settled down to wait for the Best in Show competition at the end of the day.

Eventually the time came and we lined up to make our entrance, Crufts style, into the big ring. I do love the way that Hampshire Gundog announce the Best of Breeds individually and allow them to enter the ring moving, and I have to admit that it really suits Oliver as his movement is always one of the things that gets favourable comments in write ups and it just gets better and better as he gets into his stride in the big ring. As usual, the line up was impressive. The large ring in the tennis courts of the school that is the venue for the show was heaving with all the Best of Breeds that make up the Gundog group. Once again we were short listed. I scarcely dared hope that lightening could strike for a third time. As is usual for a short list, we had to move our dogs again and then came the decision. To my utter amazement and delight, for the third time in a row, Oliver was declared Best In Show, thereby making history as the first dog to go BIS three times at Hampshire Gundog. What a wonderful day, and we had the great pleasure of taking the lovely trophy home to spend another year on the mantelpiece.

Show Certificate of Merit

In June, we went to Poole Canine Society, they don't have breed classes for us, so we entered AVNSC Gundog. Poole do not schedule many gundog breeds, so the competition in AVNSC (Any Variety Not Separately Classified) is tough. I was obviously very pleased when Oliver won Open and was then declared Best AVNSC. In the group, we were just pipped at the post and were declared 2nd in the group. After the group, the Best in Show judge stopped me to say that he was disappointed in the result, so I could only wonder what might have been. The wonderful thing about this result was that it meant that Oliver finally had enough points to gain his, and my, first title, the Show Certificate of Merit, so his name is now Barhi Crouching Tiger ShCM. The required 25 points for this title have to be won at Open shows. Each BoB gains one point and there must also be a minimum of five points won in group competition. Oliver's group placements were at Hampshire Gundog (BIS), Exonian (Group 2) and Poole (Group 2).

KC Good Citizen Scheme

For some time now, Carol (who Oliver lives with) has been working with Oliver on his Kennel Club Gold Good Citizen award. Some of the exercises he can complete with ease, however ever since he was a puppy he has never liked lying on vet bed or other dog beds, merely deigning to put his head on them sometimes. In normal life, this is not a big issue, however the award requires a dog to go “away to bed”, which has caused Ollie and Carol some major problems. The other exercise which Ollie had trouble with was the Stop on Recall. The problem is that he returns so fast that you almost have to issue the stop command as soon as he has started to recall. Interestingly, Cerys had the same problem when she was working on her Gold. These two issues had seen Oliver fail his Gold twice previously and Carol was starting to despair that they would ever get the gold. Still, Carol persevered and increased her training efforts, attending class twice rather than once a week. Given their previous history, Carol wouldn't tell me the date of the test. I was therefore overjoyed when, one Wednesday evening in June, Carol phoned me to tell me that they had passed the Gold. They both worked very hard on this and are rightly proud of their efforts.

Leeds

In July, we went to Leeds Championship show. The weather had been pretty wet and the ground really suffered, in fact it led to the cancellation of the Game Fair which was due to be held the following week at the same venue. There was a sea of mud between our benching tent and ring, so Oliver, and virtually every other dog, had to be carried to ring to keep them clean. We were obviously very pleased to win our Limit class, particularly as it was a very strong class. We therefore took our place in the challenge for Best Dog. Oliver had a few good results at Championship shows during the year, and had been called into the challenge for the reserve CC a couple of times, but this was the first time in the year that he had been in the challenge for the “big one”. Having moved us all again and carefully looked at all the class winners, to my total amazement, the respected breed specialist judge Christine Knowles walked toward us with the big green card. It was my first ever Challenge Certificate after showing for almost thirty years, and started Oliver on the road toward becoming a champion. To say that you could have knocked me over with a feather was the understatement of the year.

We then had to steady our nerves and wait for the bitch judging to compete for Best of Breed. I did feel sorry for Oliver since the ground meant that we had to keep him on his bench for most of the time to stay clean. I managed to find somewhere clean to allow him to relieve himself, but the usual relaxation that our showing for the day was over came a little later that day. Eventually, the moment arrived and we were called into the ring to compete for Best of Breed and my day reached the stratosphere when Christine walked toward me with the big red Best of Breed card – what an amazing day, Oliver was, in Christine’s opinion, the best of the 104 Welsh Springers entered at the show that day. Nothing could ever prepare you for that feeling.

But it was not the end of the day, we had to wait for the group judging. Luckily there were a few goodies to be collected to fill in the time and keep me as calm as was possible. I had always dreamed of being able to walk into the Pedigree stand to choose a CC winner’s prize, but this was even better as I had a Best of Breed prize to claim. After due consideration, I decided to choose a folding chair – after all, my recent hip problems have meant that I need to spend much of my time at shows sitting down and resting. I also walked away from Pedigree with a car window sticker which I now display with pride. The next thing to do was to visit the secretary’s tent as Leeds is one of the few Championship shows where there is a cup for the breed. We found out that it is a lovely cup and was donated by Ken Burgess and named for his Plattburn kennel, it is such an honour to have all that history of the breed sitting in our house for the year.

Amazingly quickly, the time for the group arrived. It was very nice to see that a few people in the breed had spared the time to watch it. My experiences at Hampshire Gundog had given me a slight insight into what being in a championship show group would be like, but the “real thing” is so much more imposing. We all had our own chairs in the collecting ring as we gathered and then one by one we were sent into the main ring to allow the judge (Feffie Somerfield) to get her first look at each Best of Breed. Dogs are positioned in groups in alphabetical order, so Spaniel (Welsh Springer) comes almost at the end. It was therefore a long wait until it was our turn for Feffie to go over Oliver. As Brian’s video shows, he didn't put a foot wrong, I was so pleased with him – and very pleased that my hip managed (just) to cope with all the running. As it turned out, we were not short listed, however Leeds 2007 will be a day that I never forget. Never has the 200 mile journey home felt so short.

Belfast

We attended a few more Championship shows over the summer and Oliver was almost always in the first three, including another limit win at Richmond – a show which we wondered whether it would go ahead due to its proximity to the Foot and Mouth protection zone. Then at the end of September, we headed over to Belfast. This is not a show I had been to before, given how far away from home it is. However, I had often fancied the thought of showing in Ireland and this was to be the last time that CCs would be on offer for Welsh Springers at Belfast. This decision was hardly a surprise since the number of Welsh Springers shown and resident in Ireland is probably less than ten. The majority of the entry has historically travelled over from the UK mainland, however the strip of water has led to small entries over recent years.

The long drive north was uneventful, but I was very grateful to be able to share the driving with Brian. I had decided to take the Stranraer route which sails directly into Belfast. This way, we did the majority of the driving on motorways. I had used on-line resources to gauge how long the journey would take and they were thankfully accurate, but I will admit to being a little disconcerted when we turned onto single carriageway roads at Gretna and found that it was one hundred miles to Stranraer. Fortunately, the road is much faster than similar ones down south and there were virtually no towns actually on the road causing the speed limit to drop to 30mph. We arrived at the port with an hour to spare and had the opportunity to relax before getting on the ferry for the short 105 minute crossing. On the other side we had a short drive to our hotel. I had decided to make use of hotel points that I had accumulated on business trips and so we made our way to a Hilton country club just outside the city.

The following day, we made our way to the show venue. The Kings Hall complex is unlike any other show that I have been to, hiding behind houses as it does. Very few people made use of the benching areas provided, mainly due to the fact that they are so far away from the rings and the fact that areas for cages are provided very close to the rings. I felt very glad that I had decided to bring a cage with me. The atmosphere of Belfast is more reminiscent of a mainland open than championship show. Whilst this may be due to the smaller number of entries, I have a funny feeling that it was partially due to the Irish influence. We were second in the ring after Irish Setters, but even so we were in the ring before lunch time. I was obviously pleased when Oliver won his limit class, and shortly after we were in for the Dog challenge. The winner of Open dog was Sh Ch Ferndel Maverick who won the gundog group at Crufts in 2006. He is now in new ownership and isn't quite the same dog as he was before, however it was still a major thrill when we were awarded the Challenge Certificate. On this occasion, we were beaten for BoB by the bitch, but who cares – Oliver now has two CCs and just needs one more to become a Champion.

What a year 2007 was for Oliver. He really is a very special gentleman.

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