Discover Dogs 2010

This year we took 3 Darians with us! so having booked parking under Earls Court in advance we arrived on site at about 9:30. all three dogs walked into the halls totally unphased by their surroundings, Rupert decided that he was going to bagsy the bench and promptly settled himself in. We had originally planned a days shopping in anticipation of my sister's new arrival! as Ruperts little half brothers and sisters have finally arrived and Sara is an expectant Darian mummy! but unfortunately the day turned out to be non stop, Alice and Smartie gained a very respectable 5th in the Dogstable with Amy being 3rd in her catagory and both girls did a sterling job in their handling classes. Unfortunately as is sometimes the case the handling judge was obviously a breed judge and didn't really understand the complexities of a handling class, meaning that some very obvious handling errors were missed and all castrated dogs were dismissed! a bit dissapointing considering this was a Kennel club event which resulted in a crufts qualifier for the lucky child. Still you win some, you lose some! Amy was thrilled with Ruperts performance in the ring, he hardly flew his tail at all and actually looked like an old pro.
The top 3 from each dogstable age group went into the main ring for a final, and as Sara and I had been a bit naughty sitting right by the ring making Summer lose concentration and coming to say hello! in her first round we managed to stay out of the way for the main event, Summer and Amy worked much better together and to our suprise won the final.
All owners and dogs were very tired at the end of the day, the traffic getting out of the venue was as normal a bit of a nightmare but once we were back on the main A4 we were soon back home. Thankfully Steve had decided to make a lovely beef stew which was ready as soon as we walked through the door, so after feeding the pack we were able to settle down on the sofa with a lovely dinner and a bit of reality TV - Can it be true the Wagner is still somehow in X Factor!?