Exhibitions March 2025

The last day in February was the travelling day to the exhibition in Groningen/Netherlands. That’s 3.5 hours for 320 kilometres on a Friday afternoon. As always, we stayed at the Van der Valk Hotel Hoogkerk. I can only strongly advise anyone with a dog not to stay there. If you have registered your dog in advance when making the reservation, it costs ‘only’ €25.00 per dog. Otherwise it will be €35.00. These rates are not listed anywhere! Unless you have small dogs and smuggle them past reception, then you pay nothing. The hotel staff followed us to the restaurant to check whether we really only had 2 dogs. What a cheek!!! So we paid a whopping €140 just for Peter and Heidi. The food in the restaurant was barely enjoyable.

Nevertheless, it was a great show on Saturday 1 March 2025, judged by Mrs R. Lochs from the Netherlands. ‘Peter’ was alone in the junior class and so was “Heidi”. So both Excellent 1 with Junior CAC. Chris van Beirendonk was there with her ‘Winnetou aus dem Elbe-Urstromtal’ and won Best Male and ‘Peter’ was Res- Best Male. ‘Heidi’ won Best Junior over ‘Peter’. Heidi came away empty-handed in the honour ring.

‘Peter’ did great at his 2nd show ’ X’Texas El Paso aus dem Elbe-Urstromtal’

These were the 2 bitches from the intermediate class, from the UK ‘ Starjanda Cosmi” and Arie Bloemendaal with ’ Wickedwisdom’s Wicked Lady’

Chris van Beirendonk with the daughter of our ‘Multi Ch. Norman Harrison aus dem Elbe-Urstromtal’ Very VAin Viviane of Snowboot Bears’ She won Best of Breed and became Dutch Champion

The choice for Best Bitch: Junior Class ‘Heidi’ ‘X’Texas Amarillo aus dem Elbe-Urstromtal’, Intermediate Class ‘Wickedwisdom’s Wicked Lady’, not to be seen, Chris with Viv and Champion Class Bitch ‘ Brwyns Zelda

” Winnetou aus dem Elbe-Urstromtal” Best Male, The judge Mrs Lochs/NL, I was the helping hand with Best of Breed” Very VAin Viviane of Snowboot Bears” 

” Winnetou aus dem Elbe-Urstromtal”   17 months old

Impressions of Saturday

On Sunday, our alarm clock rang at 5.15 a.m. Heidi and Peter need even longer to finally have a wee and do the big business in the morning. They have to learn that first: hotel and lift and everything new. Walking the dog is also a lengthy process. Packing up all our belongings and taking them to the car and then waiting in the cold outside the hall at 7.00 am until it opens at 7.30 am.

Mr Rohling from Denmark was in charge. Never seen or heard of him before.

He was very enthusiastic about our ‘Peter’, a great judge’s report and to top it off ‘Best of Breed’ at 11 months. I couldn’t believe it myself.

The great imposing ‘ Winnetou ‘ from Chris became Res- Best Male

‘Heidi’ was again Excellent 1 with Junior CAC. The crowning glory was the Res- Best Bitch with Res-CAC. However, I must say that I did not agree at all with the judgement of the bitches.

From the left. Chris van Beirendonk with ‘VIV, who was 3rd Best Bitch with CACIB, “Heidi” as 2nd Best Bitch with Res- CAC and Best Bitch was Jessica van Dijk with ’Jemmac’s Four Roses’

As always, the patient waiting began until the judging started in the ring of honour. We now had to compete twice! Best of breed in the really big group 1, which was judged by John Wauben from the Netherlands. Standing in the big ring of honour with an 11-month-old newcomer is quite something. To my great delight, ‘Peter’ was selected as one of the last 6 dogs in the group. WOW

Then it took a long time again until all 10 groups were judged. Then it was the turn of all the junior dog groups, there were an incredible number of junior present. All junior groups and Best in Show were judged by the well-known Borzoi breeder and almost allround judge Mr A. van den Broek.

Our ‘Peter’ showed his great movement and won the Junior Group 1

But that was not all: he was voted BEST IN SHOW of all junior dogs by Mr van den Broek. Paul and I were so happy and proud. Unbelievable for such a young inexperienced dog.

Best in Show Junior Groningen 2025 ‘X’Texas El Paso aus dem  Elbe-Urstromtal’ why does it say Texas? Because our famous ‘Texas’ (Eldorado aus dem Elbe-Urstromtal) is the sire. We still had frozen  semen from him and this special litter was born in March 2024

At 7pm the car was packed and we returned home at 10pm

Impressions from Sunday

Our Chris van Beirendonk has once again embarked on the exhausting journey to Brimingham/GB for the famous CRUFTS show. The judge was Mrs Anne Esposito from the Dalewood OES on Sunday 9th March 2025. She had 119 entries from many different countries. However, 39 did not show up. So there were still 80 OES to judge. 22 males that did not come from England and 18 females. Of the many different classes that exist at the English shows, only 3 were won by foreign dogs.

Of these 3 class winners, one was ‘Winnetou aus dem Elbe-Urstromtal’ from our Chris. That was a nice win.

Thank you Jenni Niitvlä/Finland for the excellent photos

Somehow I couldn’t resist entering3 dogs for the show in Hazerwoude/NL on 15 March 2025. The sheer madness when 2 of them still have to be shown in the junior class. After I had registered the dogs for the judge Mr John Wauben/NL, the judges for the different 10 groups were announced. For group 1 it was Mrs Vermeire from Belgium. That was a real shame because we were showing our top winning bitch ‘ Caro’ and I will never win anything with her or her husband. I would never register a dog with them! But yes, I had to go through that now!

On Friday evening we washed ‘Heidi’s’ and ‘Peter’s’ beards again, packed the car and set the alarm clock for 4am. We set off at 5.30am and were at the hall at 7.30am after 180 kilometres.

All 3 have to do their business in the morning outside with socks on and individually, which takes time. On Thursday I called our friend Chris van Beirendonk and asked if she could come and show ‘Heidi’ for us. I can rely on Chris.

A total of 7 OES were entered. ‘Peter’ had competition (Lafayette Touarg of Rocky’s Desteney) in the junior class, but he won and got his last Junior CAC and is now Dutch Junior Champion. This was also the case with ‘Heidi’, but she was alone in her class

BUT: ‘Peter’ won over the other male ‘Waco of Hillbilly Heights’ and got the CAC (which in the Netherlands is above the CACIB and can also be won from the junior class). ‘Caro’ had competition from “Ch. Brywn’s Zelda” but that was no problem to win over, she always does that 99,9% of the time. The open class bitch ‘Nika v.h. Nachtegaalspad’ got a very good. Now ‘Heidi’ had to compete against ‘Caro’ and of course ‘Caro’ won. Then the 2nd bitch from the champion class came to compete for the Res-CAC. This was won very easily by our 12-month-old ‘Heidi’.

We couldn’t win any more with the 3 dogs. Mr Wauben explained very clearly why he had made his decisions the way he did and it was 100% correct for the dogs.

‘Peter’ and “Heidi” had their birthday on 15 March and turned 1 year old.

‘X’Texas El Paso aus dem Elbe-Urstromtal’ and his sister ’ X’Texas Amarillo aus dem Elbe-Urstromtal’

Best Male ‘X’Texas El Paso from the Elbe-Urstromtal’ with Chris van Beirendonk, the judge Mr Wauben and Best of Breed and new Dutch Champion ‘Vorbildlich aus dem  Elbe-Urstromtal’.

Mike Dols has taken some wonderful photos of ‘Caro’.

The preparation for the perfect photo

my favourite photo of the day taken by PPP Prints

of course we were completely ignored in the ring of honour by Mrs Vermeire with our outstanding ‘Caro’, who has such ring presence and  fantastic movement

Impressions of the long day, we were back home at 8pm in the evening

The last show in March was extremely successful and only 1.5 hours travelling time. Mrs I. Hectors/BEL judged the 4 registered OES in Weelde near Turnhout/BEL. Maike and Liliane Friederich’s ‘Ch. Udo Jürgens aus dem Elbe-Urstromtal’ was the only male, Paul showed him excellently and he received his last CACIB for the International Champion title. This also marks the end of ‘Skipper’s’ short and successful show career.

Our ‘Caro’ was with 2 other bitches in the champion class. She won this easily and became Best Bitch and also Best of Breed ‘Vorbildlich aus dem Urstromtal’

‘Caro’ best of breed, the judge Mrs Hectors and Chris van Beirendonk with “Skipper”. So Paul could take photos.

Group 1 was again very full, many of the different herding breeds that are in Group 1 were present. The group was judged by Mrs Karlsdotter from Sweden and ‘Caro’ once again made Bella Figura and won Group 1.

This is a video of the Best in Show judgement, unfortunately the Danish judge Mr Birk did not choose the 3 top dogs, the famous Poodle, the wonderful Teckel and our Caro. World class dogs.

Mrs Laminger was with her ‘Wild West aus dem Elbe-Urstromtal’ on 29-3-2025 at the double CACB/CAC show  in Premstätten/Austria. She won Res-CACIB and 2x CAC from the intermediate class with the judges Mr D. Korosec/SLO and Mr J. Davor/CRO.