Don’t Stop Believing!

Karma is a champion!  Karma is a C-H-A-M-P-I-O-N!  What a perfect weekend 🙂  Exactly 2.5 weeks ago Jenny’s friend Darci convinced her she needed to enter a show in Iowa.  The show closed in an hour — but Darci promised a fun road trip and weekend away.  Our friend Jill had also mentioned that she would be attending the show a few weeks prior and she had said there would be a major.  So with exactly 3 minutes left before show closing, Jenny entered the Karm.  Imagine how surprised Marc was when he got home 🙂

The counts were posted, and sure enough there would be a major in girls, a 4 point major at that!  In the meantime, we were asked to babysit Karma’s brother Gauge over the same weekend, so Marc opted to stay home with Indy, Schmav, and Gauge, while Jenny hit the road with Karma.

The drive out went super fast, Darci and Jenny had so much to catch up on that the 15 hour drive felt more like a 5 or 6 hour drive.  With the boring part over, we geared up for the show day.  And on Saturday, Karmie and Trent got it done!  Judge Gloria Kerr found them in a very large Winners Bitch line-up and we were thrilled!  It was nice to be around so many friends who cheered and gave us big hugs.  Marc was half asleep when Jenny called, and after hearing, “Your baby girl is a Champion!” the smile on his face could be heard over the phone.

We stuck around to take a finishing picture on the podium and got to see Mason (the 2011 National Best in Specialty Show winner) go Group One.  Since the Vizsla would be representing the Sporting group we decided to stay and cheer him on.  And so glad we did because Mason went Best in Show!!  It was SO exciting.  Karma was even there ringside to show her support of the very handsome Mason 🙂

We had already planned a big celebratory dinner with Sheila (her girl Aspen finished her Championship too) and Jill (obviously we’d celebrate with Jill, but her boy Kato had picked up his majors on Friday and Saturday) and Karen (Mason’s handler.)  We had made these plans before the big win for Mason — so suddenly we were celebrating two new Champions and a new Best in Show winner!  It was a wonderful evening.  We found this really cool restaurant called Martini’s O Grille that was on the 4th story of this old brick building.  The building was built in 1912 as the Sisters of St. Francis Hospital.  And since St. Francis was the patron saint of animals, we thought that location must have lots of good dog show karma.  The restaurant overlooks the Mississippi, so we had a beautiful view of the river over dinner.  As we were starting to dig into our meals, Mason’s owners Debbie and Susan called — dinner was on Mason tonight!  Since they couldn’t be there to celebrate, they wanted to pick up the tab on the celebration as they headed out for their own celebratory dinner.  So generous and so nice of them!  We had a wonderful time with a big toast to Mason, Aspen, and Karma!

Today, Vizslas were lucky to have a late showing at 12:15, so we were able to sleep in and take our time packing up the car.  We headed over to the show a little early so we could socialize with all our Vizsla pals a little bit longer.  Today was another great day for Karma — she went Select Bitch over a special for a 4-point Grand Champion Major!  Wow, right?!  We weren’t planning on going for the GCH title on Karma, but if we change our minds down the road, at least we have 4 points out of the way!

Thanks to everyone who made our weekend wonderful — obviously to Trent for doing such a wonderful job presenting our Karma, to Darci the best road trip/hotel/dog show buddy ever, to Jill, Bailey, Sheila, and Karen for celebrating a wonderful weekend, and to Debbie, Susan, and Mason for sponsoring the celebration dinner!  We had a wonderful weekend and will always think fondly of Burlington, Iowa!

And, with her Championship out of the way, we get to cross another goal off our list!  As it stands, here is our updated 2012 goal list:

–Rally Excellent on Gunner & Indy — DONE!
–Rally Novice on Karma — DONE!
-And start competing in Agility — DONE!
-Rally Advance on Karma — DONE!
-Championship on Karma — DONE!
-Companion Dog on Gunner & Indy
-Senior Hunter on Gunner & Karma
-Versatile Certificate on Gunner & Indy
-Grand Championship on Gunner & Indy
-Get Gunner’s Open Standard & JWW titles
-Get Karma into Excellent B classes for Standard & JWW