California ECBC 2013 Show
Hola! I'm Jedi, a chin at Chinn's Chilla Ranch and blog master extraordinaire. I'll post here from time-to-time about what's going on at The Ranch. (That's my baby photo at the left. Wasn't I cute?!)
Well, this show was the first of this year’s season. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to tag along because I was just out into breeding, so my owner decided to leave me at home for this one. I got the lowdown from my next-door neighbor, E2 (he’s a homo ebony). My owner brought Snuggles and his sister Amber (beiges), Whisper (violet), Sebastian (white v/c) and the last minute entry Earle Grey (standard). The show was in Sacramento, CA. My owner flew the chins down on Friday. It was the first time he flew with chins. E2 said the cargo hold for pets was small and cold, but Alaska Airlines handled them well and thought they were really fascinating. Anyhow, they got there in the afternoon, and they rented a car and made it to the hotel where the show was being held. They were transferred to the show cages and given pellets, water and hay. They were there with over a hundred other chins (E2 is a chinchilla, not known for their counting abilities). He said that evening was interesting with all those other chins in the show hall.
Saturday morning, our owner started grooming the mutations at 6am. He accidentally let Amber get away while she was being groomed, and she landed on the show cage and slipped fur! Needless to say, our owner was not pleased. So the show got underway with Maxine Lynch and Donna Read as the judges. The show results were as follows: Sebastian got a 2nd, Amber won class champion for beiges, Whisper won Class Champion for violets, Snuggles won a 2nd, and E2 won Class Champion for ebonies. The Mutation Show ended with Amber winning 3rd best in show for mutations! Our owner was thrilled that a chin he bred won 3rd best against some of the best breeders on the West Coast. He was so excited to have won his first trophy with a chinchilla on top of it! The day ended with a yummy awards banquet at the Old Spaghetti Factory.
The next morning, our owner only had one standard to show, Earle Grey (the chinchilla he decided to bring last minute). So, he didn’t get to the show hall until 8am after some much needed sleep. He spent over an hour grooming Earle Grey, putting him into the show cage and taking him out again three times! Eventually, he gave up and entered him into the show in the best condition he could get Earle Grey’s fur in. Earle Grey came up in the first of 10 classes. Maxine made some very nice comments about him and our owner was so proud when Earle Grey won Class Champion! Nine more classes to judge to see how he would fare on the final table against the nine other class champions. When the time came, my owner was so surprised that Earle Grey won Grand Show Champion! He was so honored when he won a huge 12-pound GSC trophy! Our owner never thought he would win that award. He then only had a few hours to get back to the airport to make his return flight. The only space for the two trophies was in his backpack. You can imagine the looks at the airport!
