This past weekend I attended the Chicago International Kennel Club show for one day. For those who don't know, it is a benched show, so it's a pretty long day. Half of the class entries dropped due to a handler injury during the week so it was down to 2 class dogs and 1 bitch (Zoni) and two male specials. So fast forward, when we were in the breed ring, the judge called me over, and practically whispered something to me which I really didn't catch. I sort of though she said Best of Winners, which is what I was hoping she would say, but when I asked her to repeat it, she said "Best of Breed". :eek: I think I had to pick my jaw off the floor because both the specials are really nice dogs and both have been in the top 10 within the past couple of years. So this show was a bit more of thrill than I was expecting. :D:D:D Would have been nice if BOB got her an extra point but I'll take it anyway. 
I hope the picture turns out nice.
I also entered the amateur owner handler class as they were going to have an AOH BIS competition (and entry was only $7 versus $27 :eek:). I thought it would be fun to pass the time showing her in the AOH hound group since it would be a slighly more level playing field than the regular hound group…and I wasn't expecting to be the regular hound group anyway. I put Zoni in her crate right after BOB was over and even though she had a 4 h nap, I think the stress of the day was a little too much for her. She was a little droopy before the hound group came up but by the time I got her to the ring, she was really droopy. Her poor little tail was almost completely uncurled half the time she was in the ring. It didn't help that a speaker was blaring the breed descriptions into the ring at us either. I should have skipped it in hindsight but she was a little trooper and made it through the hound group. I skipped the AOH group since there was obviously no point and she needed a well-deserved rest. Hopefully as she gets older she'll build up some more stamina so we can actually compete in the group better if the chance arises again.
Another great thing about the show is that she was wonderful with all of the people coming by the benching area early in the day. The overwhelming majority of people were very polite but even then there were times that hands were coming at her from all directions to pet her and she seemed to handle it fine without any issues. So it was a very fun, but tiring day. Although I think I'll wait a few years before I do a benched show again.
Clay
