2008 Helsinki Winner Show

The International Helsinki Winner 2008 Show was held at Helsinki Fair Centre last weekend. Over 50 cairns were entered. Sassa was the judge. A couple of foreign cairns also took part in the show. Of them, Nordcairn's Poker Face won BOB (see Photo below). Satu chose Sanderfield's veteran bitch, Whirling Pound, to win the Best of Sex. The Winner 2008 show was the last show for cairns this year. Winner titles were awarded. And the Cairn of the Year competition (held by the Finnish Cairn Terrier Club, www.cairnterrieri.fi ) ended in the show. Thus, the expectations of many participants were high, and some of the exhibitors' and spectators' reactions to the judgments made were emotion-laden. It is not nice to see questionable or bad behaviour either in the ring or at the ringside. As far my ears could tell, the behaviour did not remain unnoticed either by the trainee judge. Given the stakes and/or the expectations bad behaviour may be only human. However, that does not mean it should be accepted.

Winner titles were awarded in the show. Besides the Dog and Bitch Winners 2008 mentioned above, Junior Winner titles went to McPippan Xtrasweet Nessa and Sanderfield Play Like a Pro. Congratulations to Tiina Markula and Theresa Silfver!
The Best of Breed Puppy was Janettan Waldemar and the BOS Puppy title was granted to Hillwill Naomi Campbell. Sanderfiled Whirling Pound was not only the best bitch in the show but also the BOB veteran. The Best of Sex Veteran title went to Pauper's Flamenco. Warm Strokes to all these fine cairn terriers! And congratulations to their breeders and owners!



What comes to photography, I followed judging but was also active in taking photos The halls of the Helsinki Fair centre are not, luckily, the worst place in which to shoot photos of dogs. The lightning is acually pretty good; nonetheless, rather high ISO values are still required to get a satisfactory percent of sharp pictures with a non-full frame camera like ours. I wish we could already afford to buy Canon 5D Mark II. Light and noise problems would likely diminish consideraby! An image stabilizator would be of additional help but this time our best lens, Canon 70-200 f4 IS USM happened to be under reparation last weekend. Yet, a couple of quite satisfactory, albeit noisy, photos resulted from the show also without the use of flash. After they have been edited in Photoshop, I'll uppload one or two of the better ones in www.vastavalo.fi later this week.

The year 2008 is coming to its end. In the cairn front, my own main goal for the year was to get the Finnish Champion title to our Polly (Carradine Polly Flanders). Polly made it as she got the missing two CCs in Saarijärvi Show in August (see photo below) and in our team's very final show for the year, the Seinäjoki International Show. Polly's first CC was granted by the British top judge Bill Cammish in FCTC's Speciality Show last year. Very well done, our beloved Polly! And thanks to Tiina for support, assistance, help and encouragement in many shows, to Riina for her skillful handling of Polly in a couple of key shows, as well as to Anne Skalin for Polly's skillful handling in the heat of Pori in July. Tanja, Anu, Riitta, Rauni & Jarmo, my parents and many others have also assisted in show related activities of the No Copyright Team. Thank you all!



The year also included 'the Swedish cairn week' in July. In association with that, me and Sassa were honoured to have Polly's breeders and our dear friends Dawn & Chris as our guests for a shorter time period. Thankyou for the great time together, Dawn & Chris! Thankyou also to Monica and Anders for your hospitability during the week. And last but not least, dear Pillan, many thanks to you for the opportunity to have Tobias live with us in August. And thank you both Pillan and Riitta & family for the two lovely babies Donna & Tobias gave to us and their new families!

Early next year we will mate both our Queen 'Jassu' and Polly. The fiances have not been decided and agreed upon yet. If everything goes well, our little Jippu will get more friends to play with in the later part of the Spring. We're really looking forward to these semi-planned litters!