Kennel Heatwave

World Dog Show 2012
Salzburg, Austria

We started our journey on Wednesday 16th of May, towards Salzburg and the World Dog Show. Me and my friend Sjoerd went with two goldens, two dachshunds and two of Sjoerd's Irish setters. We arrived safe in Salzburg and met up Henric, the Almanza-team; Sussie, Ragnhild and Sofia and our American Akita-friends: Friedrich, Anci and Susanne.
Sussie had managed to get us the most beautiful hotel up in the mountains, and we spent a lovely weekend together!
I think none of us could imagine that All three teams would go back home with World winners!

Day 1 - Friday
This day it was time for the World dog show for my two girls, Connie and Prima. Our ring was outdoors, under a big pavillion, in a ring with asfalt covered with carpets. It was a tiny ring and all dogs had trouble moving out properly.
Connie was shortlisted among the 6 best in Open class, and Prima was placed third in champion class!
Sjoerd got two titles with his setters, congrats my friend!
Henric got two titles and Best Of Breed, just extraordinary!

Day 2 - Saturday
Close to Salzburg, in the town "Anif", most of the Club shows were held, and today was the Club Winner show organized by the Austrian retriever club.
The conditions for the dogs were so much better than the day before, and my dogs showed beautifully. Connie was in her best mood and really showed her socks off, and she won the Open class with CAC, such a great feeling!
Prima was handled to perfection by her breeder Henric and was second in champion class! I was so, so proud.
A text message then came from our friend Anna Mattson, who has Yoshi's lovely daughter, and she had just won Best Junior at the Dachshund specialty! Well done!

Day 3 - Sunday
While Sjoerd and Henric went home again on Saturday evening, I stayed to show my dachshunds at the World show on Sunday. Also Sussie, Friedrich and Anci were there to support me! I had brought Yoshi and Jolly, one champion and one junior. I felt very nervous this time, since Yoshi was Best Of Breed at the last two World shows, 2010 in Denmark and 2011 in Paris. It would be a dream if we could repeat this. No pressure!
84 longhaired dachshunds were entered, and a total of 810 dachshunds.
I knew nothing about the judge before, a lady from Poland.
Yoshi took part in a champion class of 17 males (!), and I thought to myself, we could win this, or we can be thrown out immediately, I had no idea what chance we had. Yoshi showed himself better than ever,
and after running what felt like a mile, he WON the class!
The feeling was just... incredible.
Short after that Yoshi had to compete for the CACIB, and the World winner title, against the intermediate-, the open- and the working winner. Yoshi won and was thereby World winner 2012!
Things went so bloody fast, and straight after this Jolly was in the junior class, a class with 14 entries. Young Jolly enjoyed the attention and showed like a star, and won the class! She is now Junior world winner 2012!
Yoshi's daughter was third in the class, and she looked absolutely beautiful!
In the competition for Best Of Breed, our friend Sanna Anderberg took Jolly, and I took Yoshi. 6 dogs competed, the two juniors, the two CACIB-winners, and the two veterans.

Yoshi did what few dogs have done before - he won Best Of Breed for the third year in a row!!!
I just can't describe how it felt, I was so proud, so honored and fortunate to own a dog like Yoshi. This will be a memory for life and I am always so greatful for all appreciation that is given to our dogs!
There is so much work behind this trip, so much planning, timing, endless exercising in any weather, and making sure the dogs are in perfect condition. And even if all this is under controll, it's still up to the dogs and wheather they show themselves in the ring. I can't praise my dogs enough, they always do everything I ask of them in the ring and show themselves to perfection!

Huge thanks to our friends who were there to support us during the day, you mean the world to us!

Later in the afternoon it was time for the group finals. Jolly had gone home with our friends in their car, and Yoshi had had some time to relax. Last year in Paris Yoshi was third in the group, and I never thought we could do better than that. Group 4 was a full group this day and Yoshi showed himself like never before.
He was shortlisted and placed second in the group!!! Just unbelievable.
It was, if I may say so, lucky that he didn't win the group, because we had to catch our flight
90 minutes after the group finished..!
We really flew home, in more ways than one!

Finally, thank you mum, for everything!

// Fanny