NEW YEAR, NEW PLANS

Oh how crazy the new show season started!  We took the winter months off after Gator finished his championship in New Mexico in November.  We decided to take a break for the holidays and enjoy family and make plans for the new year.  Our 1st return to showing started in March with the Phoenix Arizona Heart of the Deseret show.  6 shows in 4 days.  3 of them were specialty shows.  We had no idea that we would have such an amazing time.  Our goal was to go down, see friends, enjoy the weather and hopefully have some nice placements.  Our hope was that Nelli would beat some champions of record and finish her Grand Championship, and that Bash and Bonnie would place well and maybe pick up a major.  Boy, were we wrong.  
Bash won his bred by class most of the shows and took a Reserve Winners dog to the 5-point major at the Papago Labrador Retriever Club show,
Gator earned a Judge's Award of merit and also a Select Dog award to earn points toward his Grand Championship.  So proud of my boys and how they showed.  But the girls were the surprise dream team for us.
Bonnie took Winner's Bitch 2 days, went Best of Winners twice, was Best Bred by 4 out of 6 shows, and won a Group 4 Best Bred By sporting group award.  She goes home only needing 1 point to finish her championship.  She was very popular and the breeders and professional handlers that were there fell in love with her and were very complimentary. 
Nelli on the other hand was the superstar.  This little girl got in the ring and ROCKED IT!  She took 3 Best Opposite Sex awards behind the #1 lab in the nation, 1 Judge's award of merit and on Sunday before we were getting ready to leave, she won The Best of Breed Award.  She finished her Grand Championship in style and ended up with 4 major wins and now is halfway to her Bronze status Grand Championship.  I could not be prouder of how my crew did.  It was unbelievable.  We have never had that good of a win weekend.  We would have been happy with 1 or 2 of those major wins and called it a successful show weekend.  But, to get all of those opportunities to show off our dogs was amazing.  The people we met, the friends we were able to connect with and the club were just fantastic.  Needless to say we will be back next year.