CIKC Show and Chili Supper Recap

Well, we survived another year of chili supper and dog show. We have so much fun every year, but we put so much of ourselves into the chili supper (26 quarts of chili, and only 4 quarts or so left!!) and showing that we usually need to go back to work on Monday to rest!! But man, did we ever have fun. I daresay it was the best January event we've ever hosted!! We had exhibitors and pet owners come and enjoy all of the festivities, and we even managed to con a couple of Working Group people to come and enjoy us "herding types" for a couple of hours (thanks for coming Steve and Joyce!!).;o) We also got to finally meet Joy (of Tracking Trekker fame) and boy did she ever get a crash course in Corgis!! LOL

We had 10 of us staying in our 1500sq foot house with 18 dogs. It was a big slumber party and outside of the fact that our 3 girls all decided to be in season, even the dogs were all very well behaved and we had no grumbling. The guest Corgis all made new friends and I'm sure there were not just a few people who wanted to smuggle Dove, Ell, and Zoe home with them! Oh, and not all of the dogs were Corgis either! We had our token Puli and a GSP also stay with us.

Everyone loved watching the 4 little puppies (all about 15 weeks old) romp and play and cause as much chaos as they possibly could before the humans decided they had enough and would put them back in their crates. ;o)

We watched the 2005 Cardi National on DVD and we all learned a lot. Thanks to Garrett for bringing his copy to share.

On to the show. I don't have the exact results (I was too busy shuffling dogs), but I think most everyone had a little piece of the winning, as it seemed that everyone came away with at least red ribbons and lots of smiles. There was a lot comaraderie between the exhibitors as everyone congratulated the winners, consoled the losers, and leads were passed between people as dogs were juggled between the classes and breeds (Pems and Cardis were back to back so it got busy right away). Thanks to Cindy McDonald for taking my brindle monster Bear into the ring for me right away on Sunday. I think it really helped calm him down so that he didn't feel rushed for his second weekend in the ring (he won Reserve Winner's Dog too with her handling him!). Congrats to all the winners, but big congrats go out to Connie for finishing Prophet, Sonja and Chelsea for their nice BOB win on Saturday, and to Emily for her Best of Breed win and Group 2 on Sunday with Picasso.

I also have to brag a little and say that Ransom won Best of Breed on Sunday and gained a huge fan following during the Herding Group. He had by far the largest and most rowdy cheering section in the Herding Group. The little man just took it all in stride and showed his little heart out.