Diva's awesome weekend

Proud mama with new Jr Hunter "Diva"

Diva (L) with brother Quest (R)

From conformation to hunting - Diva had an awesome 3-day weekend! At the Oakville Kennel Club's all-breed conformation show in Milton, ON on Friday & Saturday, Diva was Winner's Bitch & Best of Winners both days for 2 pts each day. Woo hoo! That takes her up to 7 points; she just needs 3 pts to finish her Cdn Championship. And Sunday morning, I rose at 5:15 AM & drove out with Diva at 5:55 AM to Darien State Park in NY for the GSP Club of Western NY's hunt tests. Both Diva & her brother Quest were entered in the Jr Hunter level. Diva just needed 1 more Q for her Jr Hunter title. She was the first brace up. It had been raining during the night and part of the morning. Everything was soggy, including the quail which didn't want to fly. They really wanted to hide under the cover.

Being the first brace, I think the judges were marking a little harder because they didn't have any reference point. Diva ran fairly well, far better than her brother. She went on a beautiful point but I couldn't find the bird! That was the challenge with all her bird finds. If I manage to find the quail, they were sodden. I was very pleased when she did a lovely honor of her GSP bracemate & she's also retrieving to hand. Because the birds were soggy & not flying, she did catch 2 but brought them to me.

Anyway, Diva did more than enough to qualify although I think her score should have been higher, especially given her brother's performance. To be frank, Quest just pottered. (I can write that because I bred him & he's 50% my dog.) He really didn't (IMO) show good hunting ability although his other 50% owner and handler said he was much improved over the previous day when all he did was pee on everything (he just missed qualifying by 1 pt). Half the time I couldn't tell what Quest was doing - gazing at the galley, sniffing, nosing the air - was it a point or not? Anyway, I think the judges were tired or trying to make up for the large number of fails the day before or were just in a 'spread the good feeling around" mood by the time they got to evaluate Quest because he just squeaked by and got a qualifying score. So all in all a good weekend for 2 of my dogs but it really was Diva's weekend.  Now she's known as Varazs Kedves Quickstep FDJ JH. Way to go Diva!

L - R: Ivy (new V friend), Diva, Quest with qualifying rosettes