News from Stateside

Celine Ventura

Here is an email from Dick and Nancy Lopaschuk who are wintering in the California and Arizona and showing their papillons in conformation and rally.

"Have been very successful showing in January in CA and this weekend in Phoenix. Celine finished her AM GR Championship yesterday taking BOB at the Toy Dog Speciality. Joey did well there too – it was his first show and he took BOS which starts him to his GR CH. Celine has been shown 3 weekends in CA and this is our first weekend in AZ – as of yesterday, she had 27 points with 5 major wins – it takes 25 pts and 3 majors for a Grand CH in the USA. They have to be won from the BOB class (Specials Class) Puppy Peter was only shown in CA and took 1 pt and several reserve wins.

Brie has also been a star in Rally, had her entered in 7 trials which completed her Rally Novice, Advanced and 2 legs to Excellent. We already had the first leg in Rally Novice when we came to the US. She still needs one more leg to finish the Rally Excellent title...but she is in season right now so will have to wait. At the last show in San Bernardino, I moved her up to Exc and since she was slated to be the last dog to do the course, she had to be the first honour dog and was attacked by an out of control standard poodle. He came running right over and tried to grab her. She swung and got away but she was very nervous as we had to do the honour again and then run the course. When we came near the shepherd honouring during her run, there was no way she wanted to go anywhere near the spot. That was her worse trial score with an 82...poor girl was just shaking like a leaf and was looking all over for that dam poodle. In the 7 trials, I think she got 5 high in class so that was not too shabby. Won’t be entering any shows now for a while....hope to enjoy some sunshine – if the weather decides to warm up. Also have reports to do for our business so the dog show weekends will have to end till the Scottsdale shows in March L Has been below freezing every night for the past week which is unexpected here.. we are wearing winter clothes most of the time and the furnace is running non stop in the motorhome. And then we hear on the news that BC is having record high temps! Geesh.."

Nancy & Dick