More silverware than the Mags

More silverware than the Mags - not hard, I know, as they've won nowt in the last 50 years but our little puppy has achieved it.

Pictured above is Hollybeck Carina (aka Tess) with her trophies and rosettes from the British Manchester Terrier Championship show held on Saturday 8th October. Here’s what happened on a memorable day.

The story starts about 2 months ago when Tess’s breeder, Chris Kirkland, got in touch and asked if we would take her to the Championship show in Leicester. We weren’t so sure but decided we would give it a go as it would be nice to meet up with Chris again and let her see Tess. Also it would be good to see the other dogs and perhaps meet their owners. On Friday night Chris phoned to tell us she couldn’t make it as one of her dogs was ill and she had to stay at home with her. One of the main reasons we were going was to see Chris so we almost cancelled. Chris said not to worry, she would arrange that someone would be there to look after us so we eventually decided to give it a go. That’s why, at 8 o’clock the next morning, we were on our way to Leicester, bombing down the motorway in the pouring rain.

We arrived at 10:45 to find that the show had already started and the dog classes were taking place. We didn’t know a soul in the place so I approached the judges table and told a lady of our predicament. She had a think then went and introduced us to our saviour, a man in his late 50’s called Glen. Glen was a breeder who was at the show but was not showing any dogs. To cut a long story short Glen agreed to show Tess in the ring. This was great as we didn’t have a clue how to go on and otherwise we’d have had to withdraw Tess from the show.

The dog classes finished, then it was the first bitch class, minor puppy bitch. Tess was in this one and Glen took her into the ring. The judge had a good look at all the puppies walking round the ring and then stood them on the show table. Tess behaved impeccably, despite never having been in the showring before and having just met her handler. A bit more walking up and down the line and then the judge pointed towards Tess, she’d won her class! To say we were shocked and excited would be an understatement - our Ross was beaming! Tess was entered into three other classes and came second in them all, against older dogs, so we had 4 rosettes, 4 certificates and a trophy, the Presidents Cup, for best minor puppy bitch.

After all the bitch classes had been completed there was a competition for best in show and best puppy. Unfortunately, because Tess had come second in one of her other classes, she was not eligible for best puppy, even though she was best minor puppy bitch, but the bitch that beat her actually won best puppy. What happened next was that Tess came up against best minor puppy dog (who had also won best puppy dog) and she beat him so she became best minor puppy in the show (another rosette) and reserve best puppy in the show. Figure all that out if you can! To top it all she was also best newcomer and won the Admiral Lad shield for that.

As well as seeing Tess do well we also met a lot of the other owners and their dogs and had a great day out. They were all very friendly and welcomed us to our first show although I do wonder if some of the ‘old timers’ were perhaps a bit miffed that the ‘upstarts from up north’ had more or less hijacked the prizes.

We left the show at 4pm, just in time to catch the England game commentary on the way home. Sounded a poor game on the radio, glad I didn’t stop at home to watch it.

What’s all this got to do with football – NOTHING, but it goes to show there is more to life than football and we should all make sure we have time for other interests as they can be very rewarding.