Buoyed by the blatant success of my hat-trick at the WT Club show, mummy blithely entered me for my first Championship Show without really doing any particular research about what a champ. show really was.

Breed clubs and associations typically run two shows a year, an open show and a champ show.  The basic difference is that you can qualify for tickets (Challenge Certificates, for example) at a champ show.  Three CCs from three different judges at three different shows makes you a Champion dog – so you can have CH before your name.  You generally have to win at least Best of Breed to get the CC.  That sort of explained why we saw some dogs appear at certain shows in the reports but not others.  If you’re seriously looking at your CH – and you already have a CC from a certain judge, would you bother entering it again knowing that if you did get another CC from the same judge, it wouldn’t count towards your CH?

The number of points you win by coming first, second etc in things at champ shows means you can rack up points to get your Show Certificate of Merit (ShCM). Some Championship shows are Crufts Qualifiers.  This one was.

So there are small championship shows which are breed specific and then you have general champ shows which are bigger, have many breeds, stakes classes etc.  Some of these have CCs on offer for some breeds, some don’t.  Only a certain number of CCs are available per breed per annum.  This is based on the number of pups registered with the Kennel Club.

Anyway.  We didn’t know any of that.  We just knew our first champ show was also a Crufts Qualifier.  We hadn’t read any of this document, which actually tells you what makes you qualify for Crufts entry.  We just assumed if you won, you qualified.  We thought it was really really really difficult to qualify and you’d have to at least win a CC.

Turns out, it’s really not as hard as that, but it can be more complicated.