Dachshund Field Trial season started this past weekend. Phoenix is now running with the Field Champions and she had a great time on Saturday and Sunday but no placements.
Baby Ash, however, totally rocked it this weekend. She is run in a class called Open All Age Bitch. Open class is for dogs who haven’t earned their field championship yet. There’s three classes in the Dachshund Field Trials here in SoCal- Open All Age Bitch, Open All Age Dog, and Field Champions.
Ash was kind of overwhelmed in Saturdays trial. She hasn’t been around a lot of other dogs and she was just a year old when COVID put an end to most dog socializing. But she managed to pull off a 5th place finish, which is called NBQ aka Next Best Qualifier. NBQ gets a ribbon but no points towards a field championship.
By the end of the day Saturday, she remembered that the other dogs in the field are more concerned about rabbits than about her and she was starting to relax. By Sunday morning, she was raring to go. So frustrated that we were there but had to wait for things to get started- register, set up our shade awning, etc.
Then she won the Open All Age Bitch class! Big deal because she earns points towards her field championship (one point for each dog in the class, in this case: 11 points) and you need at least one top ten placement to earn the field championship, plus three top 4 finishes and a total of 35 points. So now Baby Ash has 19 total points, one 1st and three top 4 finishes. She is more than half way there to earning her FC.
But it gets better. At the very end of the trial, the Open winners (one dog and one bitch) compete along with the winner of the Field Champion class. From this final competition, Best Open dog is determined and also Absolute winner (best dog in trial, kind of like Best in Show). Baby Ash won it all, defeating 28 other dachshunds! Winning Absolute is a big deal- you get a bronze plaque from the Dachshund Club of America. Some dogs never win Absolute. I was hoping to win an Absolute this season with Phoenix. Didn’t expect Baby Ash to take that prize.
So here she is: little dog with her big haul of four ribbons, her bronze plaque, and the other schwag she won over the weekend. Really proud of her!