How come it wasn't a holiday?

Monday should have been a holiday. We all should have had the day off.

I woke up to the realization that one of the more important events in my dog-show life was passing without the world stopping to acknowledge it. Satinka won her first major!!! (For you non-dog show people, this is a Big Deal.)

I've been whining for months that Satinka was becoming my Reserve Queen. She's won 12 RWB awards...12! If I bought 12 cups of coffee, I'd be working on my second punch card! But, then I looked a little deeper...

She finished winning minor points in July, and went Best of Breed at the Burbank Kennel Club show. In August, she got her first RWB to a major. Since then, she had that big one at the Siberian Husky Club of Greater Chicago, another at Sacramento Valley Kennel Club, and the fourth at the Golden Valley Kennel Club. Not too shabby. She's been in the ribbons more than she's been out...and here I am complaining? Sheesh!

But, anyway, she hit the jackpot last Sunday, at the Orange Empire Dog Club show. Winning the Open class is no guarantee that Winners Bitch is yours (see above results from the Sacramento Valley show )...but it's a good omen. Walking out, to the applause from friends who've been watching me since I first started showing 4 1/2 years ago, who've watched and advised as Satinka and I grew as a team...I tell ya, there's NOTHING like that feeling. Well, at least not yet. I'll let you know how it feels when the picture placard reads "New Champion." 'Cause, baby, we're almost there!