Our Amazing Ava is on a roll. She has just followed up her Best Intermediate in Show at the Geraldine Open Show last week with a Best of Group in the Purina ProPlan Forrester Park Exhibition Centre Championship Show on Saturday and the Reserve Best of Group in the Waikouaiti Kennel Association Championship Show on Sunday.
We always love our trips south. The shows are great, the people are friendly, we've stayed at Longbourne Lodge so many times now they ask us if we want "the usual" when we make a booking and we've sussed out all the good eateries around town so we're not stuck eating crappy take-out all the time.
We arrived early afternoon Friday to stake out a spot for our team, and the wider TRACS team, too, which has become a thing of late. Tracey works at the Tram Road Animal Care Services (TRACS) vet clinic owned by Dr Meredith Bath who owns Salaco Kennels. Meredith has recently imported a number of stunning Miniature American Shepherds. One of our clinic nurses also happens to be Desiree Hanson of Glenstar Kennels, breeders of top-winning Labradors and Lagotto Romanolos. So with 60% of the clinic staff actively involved in dog showing, Team TRACS is quite a force to contend with - not to mention we take up quite a bit of space!
So not only did we have to find a spot for the Chihuahuas, but Koda, the Mini American Shepherd, Skye and Mo, the Lagottos and Trace and Mocha the Labrador Retrievers. This would normally not have been a problem, except Dunedin has been recently inundated with rain so the grounds outside were unusable, meaning everything had to happen indoors in the Forrester Park Hall, which could best be described - if one was feeling generous - as "cozy".
Interesting aside on the Glenstar dogs. Trace the Labrador was named after Tracey who delivered him and Skye was one the litter of 7 orphaned puppies we babysat (and hand-fed every 2 hours!) for a week last year. So great to see her now, almost grown and thriving so well.
Anyway, despite a considerable wait outside until the committee let us in to set up and some jovial "rumble in the carpark" joslting with other like-minded exhibitors as we all lined up to grab a space for our show teams. We were set up with a primo ring-side location staked out, relaxing back in the motel, before dark.
We were up before dawn, and thankfully the forecast frost never happened, so we headed off to the shows via Maccas, where the breakfasts were a vast improvement on the last time we braved their Drive-Through.
Our team comprised Ava (NZ CH Kitaco Smashed Avacado), Alice (Kitaco Jappy Jalapeño) and of course, the Tiny Terror, Ben, (Kitaco Ben de la Crème).
Show 1 was particulalry fraught for us because the judge was Lavinia MacKenzie-Goodwin, one of the only Chihuahua Specialist judges in NZ. The last time she judged one of our dogs, it was Ava's imported champion daddy, Narci, and while she gave him Best of Breed, she didn't advance him any further in the competition.
Imagine our delight then, when she awarded our home-grown, Kitaco-bred, Smashed Avacado, Best of Group.
We are so thrilled to have Ava recognised by someone who really knows what they are looking at and can appreciate her quality. It's a great boon to our breeding program too, as our previous Championship Group and In Show wins have been with Narci and Flint, both of whom - while foundation studs for our lines - were imported from top European and Japanese kennels, and are the result of someone else's hard work and breeding (for which we are extrememly grateful!).
Ava, however, is our very first home-grown, New Zealand-bred, Kitaco dog to achieve a Championship level Group win.
She has been shortlisted by other judges for Group so many times before, and taken countless Age of Group titles, Open Show Groups and Open Show In-Show awards, but never quite cracked the prize in the Champ shows. Sadly, the eventual Best in Show winner was in the same class as Ava, so she was knocked out of the Age In Show judging by default, and we never got to find out if she had it in her to go all the way and take an Intermediate in Show award, but them's the breaks, as they say, LOL.
Despite this, what was most encouraging was the number of people who came up to us aftewards to offer their congratulations, including several judges attending the event who told us how impressed they were by Ava and that they would have given her the win, too, had they been the judge.
Not to be overshadowed by Ava's big win, Ben took Reserve Best of Breed, Best Puppy of Breed and the Best Dog CC, while Alice took Reserve Bitch and Best NZ Bred of Breed.
Kitaco dominated the breed wins in the second show, but didn't progress any further under judge, Kelly Martin. There were a lot of quality dogs entered this weekend, particularly in the Puppy and Intermediate Class, so even though we'd won big in the first show of the day, there was no shame at all in being overlooked in the line-up in favour of some very nice dogs lined up for the other Toy breeds.
Ava took Best of Breed, Best Intermediate of Breed and the Best Bitch CC, while Ben took Reserve Best of Breed, Best Puppy of Breed and the Best Dog CC, and Alice took Reserve Bitch and Best NZ Bred of Breed.
We headed back to the motel that evening (via a very nice Chinese Takeaway), tired and thrilled and convinced the weekend couldn't get much better.
We were up at the crack of dawn again on Sunday and off to the shows (if you've ever had to find a car park at Forrester Park, you'd appreciate why you need to get there early. It too, is "cozy"), this time for the Waikouaiti Kennel Association Champ show.
We had a quiet word on the way there to the puppers along the lines of "if don't win anything in Group, we can head home straight after the Toy Group. It's a 5 hour drive, kids, so if we get away early, we can make it home in daylight!)
Ben and Alice listened to us, dutifully taking Reserve Best of Breed, Best Puppy of Breed and the Best Dog CC, and Alice took Reserve Bitch and Best NZ Bred of Breed, but not progressing any further. Good puppies!
Ava, however, had other ideas and our "we're gonna get home in daylight" plan went out the window when, under judge, Kirsten Price, she took Reserve of Group.
This stunned us almost more than her Group win the day before. A Chihuahua specialist would naturally appreciate Ava's quality, but to have another judge, with no particular connection to our breed, also recognise how good she is was, completely blew us away!
The downside of this awesome and amazing win, was that the Group winner was also in Ava's class, which meant she was again, by default, knocked out of the Age in Group award. We had to hang around, however, for the Best in Show judging, just in case the Toy Group winner won Best in Show.
But as it turns out, that had a silver lining too, Koda, the gorgeous Miniature American Shepherd owned by Tracey's boss, Dr Meredith Barth, is in the same class as Ava, so she didn't have to go head-to-head with him because with Desiree as his handler (Koda is besotted with Desiree, BTW), our new TRACS star took Best Intermediate of Group in the Working Group in all 3 shows. Our little orphan Lagotto, Skye, took Puppy of Group in the Gundog Group, too, so we got to watch them both doing their thing and cheering Team TRACS on.
So Team TRACS, (Team Salaco, Team Glenstar and Team Kitaco) had a great weekend. We didn't get home in daylight but we had a fabulous time, won heaps of prizes, and did make it home safe and sound in time for dinner.
A big shout-out to the Forrester Park and the Waikouaiti show committees for running 3 excellent shows and also to the exhibitors who, despite being crowded into a very "cozy" venue, managed to be considerate and understanding of the awkward necessity that the mud-drenched grounds imposed upon the shows' organisers.
Results
Purina ProPlan Forrester Park Exhibition Centre Championship Show 1
Judge : Lavinia MacKenzie-Goodwin (New Zealand)
Best in Group & Best Intermediate in Group: NZ Ch Kitaco Smashed Avacado
Chihuahua (Long Coat)
Best of Breed, Bitch CC & Best Intermediate of Breed: NZ Ch Kitaco Smashed Avacado
Reserve Best of Breed, Dog CC & Best Puppy of Breed: Kitaco Ben de la Creme
Reserve Best Bitch CC & Best New Zealand Bred of Breed: Kitaco Jappy Jalapeño
Purina ProPlan Forrester Park Exhibition Centre Championship Show 2
Judge : Kelly Martin (New Zealand)
Chihuahua (Long Coat)
Best of Breed, Bitch CC & Best Intermediate of Breed: NZ Ch Kitaco Smashed Avacado
Reserve Best of Breed, Dog CC & Best Puppy of Breed: Kitaco Ben de la Creme
Reserve Best Bitch CC & Best New Zealand Bred of Breed: Kitaco Jappy Jalapeño
Waikouaiti Kennel Association Champ Show
Judge : Kirsten Price (New Zealand)
Runner Up in Group: NZ Ch Kitaco Smashed Avacado
Best of Breed, Bitch CC & Best Intermediate of Breed: NZ Ch Kitaco Smashed Avacado
Reserve Best of Breed, Dog CC & Best Puppy of Breed: Kitaco Ben de la Creme
Reserve Best Bitch CC & Best New Zealand Bred of Breed: Kitaco Jappy Jalapeño
