Team Vizsla. Jamie and Jenny — here to represent!
Wow. What an absolutely FANTASTIC weekend. Last year was our first year competing at the Master Agility Championship at Westminster and we had to make it a tradition! This year though, Marc came along for the trip too! A huge thank you to our friend Stephen Ray who stayed at our house with Indy, Halo, and Schmavitz!
Off we go! Jenny and Karma all dressed in coordinating outfits and luggage — NYC, here we come!
Our trip to NYC was pretty uneventful. Flight was on time, catching a cab was easy, and thanks to Jenny’s frequent travel, our hotel room at Ink 48 was upgraded! If you ever need a great, dog-friendly, hotel, you need to check out the Kimpton brands…they are the best!
Thursday evening, after we were all settled into our NYC digs and Tokaji & Karma were pottied, we headed out to The Little Owl where we indulged in meatball sliders, truffle risotto, basil gnocchi, and New York’s #1 pork chop! This place was seriously cute — no bigger than a matchbox — a wonderful first night in the City with our friends Jamie & Chuck.
Friday we were all about the sight seeing — An artistic capuccino from The Jolly Goat Coffee Bar, lunch at the Russian Tea Room, the 911 Museum, and then we rushed to grab early dinner reservations so we could get to bed early for check in at the Piers on Saturday!
The Russian Tea House — so fun!
Saturday was more than we could have hoped for! The whole Westminster experience is special. They carpet the whole building in purple. They have fancy turf, and custom agility equipment emblazoned with their logo. And an extra special treat, a local Colorado agility judge, Kitty Bradley, was there judging! Kitty owns poodles so she has a special place in our hearts! 🙂 It was nice to have the briefing done by a familiar face — definitely helped with the early morning jitters! We also managed to sneak in a visit to the Meet the Breeds exhibit and Karma & Tokaji even got a picture with the Queen! (She was hanging at the corgi booth — complete with guards! Hopefully, they won the booth decorating contest!)
Karma had a wrong course in Jumpers picking up a penalty, but she was clean in STD and fast in BOTH runs. The only thing keeping us from the finals was if Jamie and Tokaji could run clean — and they did it!! Woohoo!! We had a Vizsla in the finals! We were ecstatic and hustled back to the hotel to let Tokaji rest before heading back for finals. The finals course looked great, but sadly, Tokaji had a refusal at the chute (the freaking chute!! Her mom (Karma’s grandma) Geli was a HUGE tunnel suck, so the irony was not lost on any of us!) which picked up penalty points and sucked up some time. Sadly, no ribbon for Smokes and Jamie — BUT they were on live TV and it was so fun to see all the comments rolling in from around the country. Our friend Rhonda even said she could hear Jenny cheering for Jamie and Smokes on TV! AND — we were also apparently on the lead in! A quick snippet of Karma kissing Jenny. What a fantastic day 🙂
Tokaji and Karma with the Queen at Meet the Breed — The Corgis had the Queen at their booth since they are her favorite breed 🙂
Karma’s quick National TV debut: https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=10107724604088364&id=8364198
Sunday was also pretty fab. We arranged to meet up with Jenny’s family — Aunt Jackie & Uncle Russ and their son Bryan. AND Aunt Maggie and Jenny’s first cousin CC with her 3 kids — Jilli, Calvin, and Ella! It was like a mini family reunion! After brunch Uncle Russ drove us to the airport and sent us on our way.
Family brunch before heading out — no family resemblances whatsoever! L to R — Jilli, Ella, and Jenny
It was such a great weekend, but as always, went by too quickly! Hard to beat coming home to Indy, Halo, and Schmavitz though!! Hopefully, we will be back in 2017!