Meet Kitaco's 1st National Best of Breed Winner!

Well, the 2025 National Dog Show has come and gone and we are thrilled to announce that we won our first Best of Breed this year with a Kitaco, home-grown Smooth Coat, NZ CH Kitaco Beam Me Up Scotty.

It’s not our first visit to the winner’s podium at the National Dog Show. We won the Best of Breed (and 4th in the Toy Group) in the Long Coats last year with our imported Champion, Narci (GR CH, GR JNR CH, NZ CH Mystic Legion Narcissus) aka, The Himalayan Floof Goblin. While it was a great thrill to get the handshake and the cheers from the crowd, the honour really belonged to Narci’s breeder,

Georgios Papadopoulos of Mystic Legion Chihuahuas in Greece.

Narci’s grandson, Scotty, however, is a 4th generation Kitaco on his mother’s side and he delighted us (and his many fans!) by taking the Best of Breed in both the Prelude Show (where he also took Best Junior of Group) and the National Dog Show.

No other winners in the Chihuahuas were showing their own dogs, so it was a great honour to win with dogs we have put so much heart and soul into breeding.

Even more thrilling was our baby puppy, Candy (Kitaco Hard Candy Christmas), handled by 9-year-old Shelby, who not only took Best Baby Puppy of Breed for both the Prelude and the National Show in the Long Coats, but took the Reserve Best Bitch in a huge field that include our Platinum Champion Ava and her own champion mother, Serena.

Speaking of Serena, this week marked her return to the ring after giving birth (and then abandoning her babies for her sister Kora to raise!!). She’s still a bit bald, as she hasn’t got her full coat back yet, but she performed exceptionally well for her handler, 12-year-old, Paige, taking Best Junior Bitch in both shows. Not only that, she did double duty in the Junior Handler finals on Thursday where she was shown by 10-year-old Mikayla, with only a few minutes practice before they entered the ring.

It is so great to see our Chihuahuas with their Junior Handlers. We work very hard to dispel the myth of snappy Chihuahuas and we breed for great temperaments above all else. To be able to hand over Serena to a child who has never handled her before and have them perform so well as a team at the National Dog Show is proof we are heading in the right direction.

Must give a big shoutout to Debra and her granddaughters. Paige and Shelby for handling the dogs and Deb for bring a great camp mum. The croissants were awesome and you absolutely saved us when Tracey had to dash off to work (she spent her entire week of leave, every single day, in the clinic doing collections and TCI procedures) by helping load up the van after the shows.

An even bigger thanks for the organising committee of the National Dog Show. This is only the 3rd time it’s been held in the South Island and they did a spectacular job. The Mainpower Stadium in Rangiora was a great venue (and only 20 mins from our house!), it looked fabulous and we really hope they put their hand up to hold it here again in 2028.