Success in the show ring

Like all the best and most famous show dogs I get my handler flown in from across the Atlantic...it is important to have international expertise at these show things. So this is my cousin Dylan. He has flown in from the USA specially to enter a show with me. Well, ok, maybe it was so his mum could come to a wedding but I know that this has been the highlight of Dylan's trip. He says that the USA is far far away but they do have Vizslas - Brisztow, Winnie, Dennis, Miss Laila, Zoe and Mia at least for starters!

We entered 'best condition' with mum and Dylan and I came third (nice biscuits, thanks). Then Dylan and I entered 'best young handler' and WE WON!!! I like to think that my calming presence helped seal the deal but actually I think it was cos Dylan had been to dog training with his dog, Maggie, and nailed all the tricky questions they asked him about dog handling.

This was A Good Result. And kindof made up for the rather embarrassingly poor effort dad and I put in in the gundog tests. So we tried a 'long retrieve'. I was awesomely steady to the gun, sighted the dummy well, but then went 'so what'. Dad had to retrieve it for me. I have him well trained but apparently my training skills weren't up for debate. I was supposed to pretend that he had trained ME. Well pshaw. The retrieve pens weren't much better. The 'up and over' was great to start with - I mean I did ALL the 'up and over' bits. I just didn't bother with the retrieve bits. But really if you want me to retrieve then you ought to be a bit more specific in the title. 'Up and over and fetch two dummies' would have made much more sense.

The crowd had a good laugh anyway. On our way out much later they'd left a dummy next to the up and over area and we nailed it properly loads of times in a row. See. When someone explains things clearly it's quite simple. Perhaps I'll go to the next one and show them how it's done.