Let’s go back to March/April time when I got 3 firsts in three classes at the WT Club Open Show…  Few exhibitors, no challengers for my crown…. Skip forward to Sunday and the WT Club Championship Show.  Nearly twice as many exhibitors (for the championship alone!) and I only entered 1 class – Postgraduate.  I was beaten in the class.  I came second.

Why, one might ask?

It’s about what it means to be exhibiting at an Open or Championship.  At an Open Show, you won’t get the “title-hungry” exhibitors.  Open Shows are just as seriously judged, but don’t have tickets on offer to the winners, so those who are looking for their CCs or even their Championship often won’t bother.  Hold a championship show and everyone comes out of their little dens to try and grab a CC or BIS.  Some of them you will rarely ever see again.

It irritates me somewhat – not that I came second, but that Open Shows aren’t well supported across the exhibitors.  They struggle for entries quite often, or – they struggle for good quality entries.  And for a rare breed with small numbers anyway, you’d expect that everyone will pull together for the Open Shows to support the breed, the club and showing in general.  No.  They don’t.  And that’s my rant of the day over, pals.

My show?  I actually walked really nicely, stood nicely, but quite simply, the dog who won the class was far better groomed and more like the judge’s definition of a “correct Welsh” than I was on the day.

On to the next shows – two in one day !!!