Best in Show 2007

It's the time of year again... No, I don't mean just Valentine's Day!! It's time for the Annual Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show!! The most prestigious title you can ever get - Best In Show - that is if you're a show dog.

Introducing Ch Felicity's Diamond Jim - WKC Best in Show 2007!


Wow.. what a grand animal. I searched for videos on youTube. Here's one of them. I think it might be too soon as the competition was just over. There are a few videos that show the preparation the owners do before the show. Really interesting. The official Judging videos are on the Westminster Kennel Club website.

It is certainly NO EASY task preparing for one of these shows! This reminded me of training with Chewie 4 years ago in 2003. But that wasn't for this kind of "beauty contest" show; it was for the "smarties" - Dog Obedience Trials. And boy was it tough! We had group training every Sunday and when the competition drew nearer, training was increased to twice a week and then to 3 times a week! That was excluding the nightly training on my own with Chewie.

We had to run through the basic set of commands - heel, stop & sit, stop & down, stop & stand, stay, come, finish, slow heel and running heel. Everything had to be perfect - the angle she sits, the distance she heels from you, the speed that she responds. It's all important.



In our category, which was Pre-Novice, the easiest class of the obedience dogs, Chewie did pretty well and PASSED!! A third of the participants were disqualified for serious mistakes, but Chewie made it!!!



My dog is naturally frisky and it was amazing that she managed to behave for those few minutes in the rink! For the recall (I call her to 'come' from about 6 meters away), she ran to me so fast and so happily that she could not brake in time!! Plus the floor at the Singapore Expo was quite slippery, so she slammed into my shin before sitting! LOL... the audience laughed too. I probably lost points for that but she was so cute!! I was so happy and so proud!! Still am :-)

SKC Obedience Trails Dec 2003


What happened after 2003 you might ask...? Well, work got in the way and I was too busy to keep up the training. Plus Chewie is spoilt silly by my dad at home, and he gives her all sorts of contradicting commands - I train her while he 'untrains' her. So Chewie had to give up the life of a 'show dog' and became a 'lap dog'. Oh,.. more like a "don't touch me, I'm the Queen" dog.