Well, we went to a 4 day dog show in Duluth Minnesota to have fun and enjoy a fellow dog show exhibitors wedding. Yes, I said wedding. More on that later.
I got moving at 5 am last Wednesday to start the drive to Duluth. I stopped outside of Wausau to pick up my partner in crime - Karen and 2 lhasas. So off we go. Basically the ride is uneventful which is great. We get closer to Duluth and had to go around some nicely flooded and washed out road. The northern part of the State of Wisconsin had some very bad flooding and damage from crazy rain early in the week last week. So we make it through and arrive at our destination - Duluth Entertainment and Convention Center (DECC).
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| Double Rainbow after a quick rain at the DECC |
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| Our MOM setup at the show. Behind the rig is the city of Duluth MN |
I check us in and find out we get a 20 amp service and are two parking areas away from the dog show. That is okay, I need the exercise, but 20 amp service hardly runs the air conditioner with any thing else. Well, a friend of Karen's and now mine, showed me how to turn on my propane so I could take the load off and run the frig on the propane. So I now know how to do that and it worked fine all weekend and I did not blow up. YEA!!!! Gus also gave me some other helpful RV tips and I gave him some. SO it was great.
The dog show it self was great. The Duluth KC folks are really nice and work so very hard. The show went well I thought for the exhibitors. If you never have gone you should. The area that the show is in is the Canal District of Duluth. They have wonderful shops and food establishments there. Grandma's is the famous one that everyone loves to visit, but there is a variety of places and for every price range. We went to Grizzly's on Thursday for steak. It was delicious. It rained while we were walking back to the MOM. Also, an other important note of this show is that there are showers in the facility for exhibitors who are staying in their rigs to use. We used them while there and it was hot water and clean. There were lines at times, but it was worth the wait.
Saturday night, two dog show exhibitors chose to get married after the Best of Show. It was wonderful and the Coopers are now a married couple. The wedding was wonderfully done and you did not feel like you were at a show site. The wedding vows were personal to the couple and either done with singing or music to represent how they felt about each other. Good friends were the wedding party and that include dogs that represented the 7 groups. It was really a cool thing. There was as party afterwards at Grandma's and everyone had a great time.
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| setting up the wedding area |
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| one of the decorations |
The showing of our lhasas got complicated when we realized that we needed one more person to take a dog in when we went in for Breed. Thursday we asked a random exhibitor who was kind enough to help us out. Friday and Saturday our friend Tami and her daughter helped us. Sunday the specials played hooky so we did not need help. The two litter mates - Sydney and Faith did very well for 6 month old puppies at this long circuit. This was Sydney's first show as Faith had been at West Bend a few weeks ago. They adjusted to the schedule well and had fun playing outside when it wasn't raining back at the setup.
Sydney won the points 3 of the 4 shows, which gives her 3 points. Faith won one show which gives her 1 point. She also won Best Bred By Exhibitor in lhasas and then went on to take Group 1 Nonsporting Group. Sydney received Best Puppy one day and then on Sunday Best of Breed.Penny - Stewie's sister, won Owner Handler and did get OH Group 3 one of the days. Over all she did well going BOS. Our Judges were Dale Simmons, Barbara Dempsey Alderman, Thora Brown and Arley Hussin for our breed. All of them were wonderful with the puppies.
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| Day One - Point 1 - Winners Bitch |
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| Sunday - Best of Breed - Winners Bitch - 1 point |
Stewie was Best of Breed three days and went into the Non Sporting group having not been there since December. He was not sure of what was going on and why all these odd looking creatures were in the ring with him. He was extremely nervous. I tried to calm him the best I could. He got away from me and pooped in the ring on Thursday, but he managed to get through it. Friday he showed better but dropped his tail and got very anxious when he saw the Chow Chow, he does not like them for some reason. Friday he was way more comfortable with the Group Ring and showed very well. I think once he gets comfortable in that big ring where he can really stretch out his legs and move he will do so.
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| Stewie moving at Kettle Moraine, photo taken by Michael Yang |
The photos below are from his two Best of Opposite Sex at the Kettle Moraine shows- supported entry and specialty.
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| Stewie winning Best of Opposite at Specialty under Wendy Paquette |
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| Stewie winning Best of Opposite under Dr Alvin Krause |
Both of the above show photos were taken by Booth Dog Show Photographers. They are a generational photo family of dog show wins. I have over 35 years of Booth photos of my wins. I appreciate how hard the photographers work.
Well, the week was good . Now I take a little break. Rosie and I are off to the WIT State Rally at the end of the month to sit and meet and party with other Winnebago owners from around the state of Wisconsin. It is my first one and should be fun. Hope it is not too hot. I just cant believe that the temperatures in our Northeast Wisconsin area are going to be in the 90's later this week. That is hot. Summer is going fast, but it has been a good one so far. So off to bed we go. It is a warm night.
More after the WIT State Rally. Stay cool, enjoy your summer. More when time allows.
Jan and Rosie
