Archive for January, 2012

Just some more pics of stacking practice with Griffin.  I can’t seem to get a good photo of him stacking, but it’s not easy trying to stack him and take the photo myself.

When I look back at older photos though he does look much better than he did when we first started out.  He’s maturing quite nicely and I’m pretty happy with him.  He is 17 months old now.

We have a show this weekend but I don’t expect much from this show, I believe there are quite a few going to it.  But it’s all practice and it’s all fun and that’s the main thing.  He has certainly improved quite a bit over the last few months and stacks much better and gaits quite well now too.  This will be his last show in ‘Junior’ age group, he will move up to ‘Intermediate’ next month.

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In Shock With Griffins Best of Breed Win

After two months away from the show ring Griffin had his first show back on Saturday the 7th January.  I was a little nervous going into this show because I had done no training with him whatsoever during those two months.  But I tried to think along the lines that it really doesn’t matter if he doesn’t do any good because it’s his first show back.

When I arrived at the show and looked at the catalogue I saw that there were 5 Ridgebacks, 2 dogs and 3 bitches and the other dog was one that always beat Griffin, so I knew we wouldn’t do very well.

I think that because I went into the ring resigned to the fact that we would lose and not worrying about it too much being our first show back for the year, I was more relaxed and not worrying so much.

You can imagine my surprise when I was running around the ring following behind the other Ridgeback and the judge pointed to me and gave Griffin Challenge dog.  I was in complete shock, I really didn’t expect that at all.

Then came the next surprise when we went back into the ring to run off against the Challenge bitch and once again I ran around that ring expecting the bitch to get the Best of Breed and not at all expecting the judge to once again point to me.

So our first show back and Griffin got Best of Breed, giving him another 10 points toward his championship title.

This is the first time that Griffin has ever beaten another dog.  He has beaten bitches before but never another dog, so I am absolutely ecstatic that he won – so very proud of my boy!

We went back on Sunday and I think I was a little more nervous on the Sunday, feeling that there was more pressure now that he’d had a good win.  Griffin was terrible on Sunday too, he kept jumping up on me before we went into the ring and wouldn’t behave.  He wouldn’t stack well and when the judge came over to him he leaned right back, so needless to say he didn’t win on Sunday, but that’s ok, I am so happy with his win on Saturday that I will be happy for a while.

I remind myself that most dogs will have more losses than wins and to really enjoy those wins when they come.