FRIDAY – LAZSLOLAND
Usually our roadtrips begin with 'We took off early in the morning…', but since this time we had to travel merely 460km to Budafest we started our journey at exactly noon. Our expedition consisted of Katja and Neca with Nuba and Firer in one car and Gregor and I with the Black Death in the other; we met with our usual travel buddies Živa, Uroš, Klark and Leia in Budapest itself since they came a few hours behind us. Sambo and Nuba had obviously hear that mud baths are good for the skin, so they decided to take the opportunity to bathe in lake Balaton (means Muddy lake) where we stopped for an hour to stretch our legs and let the dogs have some fun. We arrived at Budapest at 18.30 and had some trouble finding our hostel since the GPS lady failed on us right at the most critical point. After some struggle we managed to finally find it, unpacked our stuff, made ourselves some dinner, took the dogs for a walk to a park nearby and went to sleep. But not for long…
SATURDAY – STANDING, RUNNING AND RAINING
Saturday started even earlier than planned – we have planned to get up at cca. 6.15, get the dogs and ourselves ready and go to the show (which was 7 km from the hostel) at around 7.00. But it didn't quite go that way… To begin with, a mammoth stampede started pounding through the hostel's stairway before 5am, people were slamming doors, all in all, the wake-up call came a lot earlier than planned, but considering the way things developed further on this wasn't that bad at all. We took off a bit before 7am, drove through the first 4 km towards the show without any problems, and then… And then not any more. The traffic stopped, and when I say stopped, I mean STOPPED. It took us more than an hour to do 1 km and after this hour of watching an increasingly longer caravan of dogs and people migrating on the sidewalk, passing our car, we decided to join them as well. And so we did - Neca, Živa and I with Sambo and Nuba walked a bit more than 2 km to the show. In the rain. Heavy rain. When we got to the show grounds we wanted to find the hall for Great Swissies and Bernese Mountain dogs asap, which was rather difficult to accomplish as there was no map of the show grounds and the security guards and doormen only nodded their heads to our questions. After a tormenting rave through the show grounds we finally arrived to the right hall, completely soaked, found the Swissy ring, where Neca and Živa stayed, while Sambo and I went to find the Bernese ring, where Tončka awaited us with an expression of total relief. Due to the traffic hold-up the judging started with a delay, so after two hours of agony I could handle little Bina after all, the Bernese puppy with whom I was training the last few weeks. Sambek guarded the Bernese headquarters and dried himself, while Bina and I went to the ring to compete for a nice placing in the puppy class with three more females. The babe was very cooperative, she ran beautifully and stood really nice, and most of all was all thrilled and happy to be doing something with me again; I was at least as happy because she convinced the judge she was the best and we won! We were all overjoyed, including Gregor, who finally got to us after two hours and a half in the car (for 3 km)!!! The second I was finished with Binny we took Sambo and rushed through the hally to our clubshow. And almost got there with an empty leash. While we were running, a guy was standing in the middle of an isle with an Akita on a long leash and was probably thinking about his winter vacation or something; he sure wasn't thinking about his dog, who, without hesitation and any overture, jumped right at Sambo's neck. Sambo somehow got off his collar and tried getting rid of the dog that was hanging from him, without any success - he only managed to move him 2 m away. Then the guy finally woke up and tried pulling the dog back but apparently the dog didn't think it was already time to let go, so the guy lifted his dog by the collar - and Sambo as well, since he was hanging from the Akita's teeth. When the dogs where in midair, I dropped the leash from my hands and jumped to them, screaming again, and swinged towards the dog; he released the grip for a sec, which I took to push Sambo away. I put Sambo back on the leash, cursed the guy's complete family and ancestors back to Adam and Eve and I think he got the point even though it was in Slovene. I quickly checked Sambo's neck, ran forward and yelled to Gregor behind me if Sambo was limping, but luckily everything was ok. Again, thank God for Sambo's mane, if it wasn't for that I don't think his neck would still be in one piece…
And so we were back on the rain again, running towards the other end of the show grounds where our clubshow was being held under a tent. We came there just in time for me to borrow a towel and wipe poor Sambo, soaked all over and covered in Akita saliva, and relax and calm him down an bit. We were on in 5 min, with Vito de Chemin des Sorcieres keeping us company in champion class. Sambo ran and stood quite ok, but it was obvious he wasn't his usual self (how could he be, considering the circumstances); apparently he wanted to get some revenge for the early wake-up call and stretched the whole way to the show in the car because the only critique the judge had for him was that he was a bit long in body. My French isn't the best, but I managed to overhear part of the description – among other things he has an excellent expression, ear setting, eye shape, topline, a well balanced, connected and elegant movement, and the comment to the ring steward that he is the only dog that let himself be touched without any problem. Which was unfortunately true (the ones I saw) as most dogs started shrinking as the judge approached them and some even snapped towards her… A sad truth with a working breed. Anywho, Sambo did well except for his lengthy body, he got lots of compliments from the judge and R CAC after Vito. Since we were wet and very cold due to the low temps, the rain and the wind we headed back to hall A to the Bernese ring after our judging. There we defroze a bit and after that Binca and I went to our next battle – with the male puppy to go to the BIS. We presented ourselves very well again, ran super and – won once again! We were really ecstatic, happy that the running up and down in the rain payed off. So we went to the BIS as well; we didn't get far, but we were still happy with the result and with showing off a bit in the BIS of a Eurodogshow. The day ended with a lovely walk in the park where we relaxed, got some fresh air and gathered our stregth for our Eurodogshow.
SUNDAY – ANOTHER VICTORY, PASSING THE SCEPTRE
Sunday was Sambo's day again, he was in a much better mood as the previous day (I would be too, dry and without an Akita hanging from my neck). This time the judge was Norman Deschuymere from Belgium. Sambo was in champion class again and his competition was Vito and Bergerac Fax - Chester, another old acquaintance. The atmosphere was much better, surely also due to the conditions, which were really awful the previous day to be honest. This time we were indoors, nice and dry, and we had more space around the ring to camp and follow the judging. Sambo was, to put it plainly, in a samboid mood – lively, playful and frisky, as usually he entertained the audience by doing tricks while waiting for his turn, and when his turn came he stood very well and ran like a train. The judge touched him from nose to tail, motioned us to run again and then pointed to the new winners – us! The happiness was indescribable, and so was the surprise – for me Sambo is the best anyway, success or no success, and I am also very well aware of what I have (probably nobody could find as many faults on him as I do), but still, winning champion class on a European dogshow under a specialist is a tremendous success, and if we take into consideration that the winning dog has nine years, the success is probably nothing less than amazing. But then again – Sambo IS amazing :) . Obviously not only for me as he had quite some fans there, among others our Italian Tervueren friends and a gentleman that applauded enthusiastically every time we ran (which I noticed only when running the third round as I tend to be totally unaware of what is happening around me while working with Sambo (even if I see only when looking at the video that I nearly knocked Gregor over while running), may it be on Rally Obedience, on the agility course or in the show ring). Sir, I have no idea who you are, but thank you for your support and I hope we meet again.
After winning our class we competed for the CACIB – European winner – title with the winner from open class. The judge examined Sambo thoroughly once more but decided for the other dog this time, so Sambo passed the sceptre and the new European champion became Apache de la Douche Plaine. Sambo ran for the last time with the second dog from open class, won and thus got the R CACIB and the unofficial title of ViceEuropean champion. I think we can be very proud of ourselves, Sambo showed (not only in my opinion) the best movement once again and I could see once more that even though we go to very few shows, even though Sambo doesn't come from a widely recognized kennel and even though he is a year or two or more :) older than most other dogs, we can successfully compete even on the most important shows.
And what is the most important thing after all the kilometres we drove, the rounds we ran and the (un)successes we achieved? That he is mine and I am his, that we have fun together and enjoy ourselves big time, what else! That I come home to a turbo tail, the biggest toothed smile on the world and a snout that shoves in between my legs and parks there, waiting for a portion of scratching. So I say – to many more fun and exciting moments and enjoying this life together!
Sambo after his win
CACIB male, Apache de la Douche Plaine
CACIB female and BOB, Paris de la Terre Sauvage
ps: if the title isn't obvious enough from my essay – the show was an organizational catastrophe; apparently the organization committee thought it was completely acceptable that at an event of European/World proportions the staff on the most critical points (food stands, entrance, stands with dog articles) speaks nothing but Hungarian. I'm well aware that a 60-year-old woman selling pretzels doesn't have a Cambridge certificate in English, but I think it is unacceptable that panic spread on 70% of the stands I visited when I spoke to them in English. Furthermore, they could have predicted traffic problems and did something to avoid them; I can, however, commend on the carpets in the rings as they were very good to run on and the size of the rings was great as well – on the European show, I would rather not comment on the clubshow (I admit, the weather didn't help the organizer)… All in all, we had a good time, as we always do, although the organizers could have done a better job. But what can we do, that's part of the game and we love to play! Plans for Bratislava 2009 are already in progress :).
