We arrived Friday afternoon, very tired after the two and half days of driving. Our first stop on the trip was at the Paulsson's family. We had a great night at their place, their hospitality shows no limits. Then after one night next to Autobahn in Germany, we were finally parked up next to the showsite in Austria! Madelene and I went in and came just in time for the finals of group 9 and 10. There were Swedish dogs placed in both groups which we thought was a great start of the European show! Little did we know what was coming...

Helinn was first out. Saturday morning I went to get Helinn set up ringside. There we met Maria and Robban from Sweden (thanks for the company!). As there were 150 Ridgebacks entered they had two judges, one for males and one for bitches. Helinn showed well as always and she won the large champion class. After that she was going in agains all the class winning bitches but the judge chose her to win CAC, CACIB and the title EUW-05. After that we had to wait a little bit so that the other judge would finish her judging of the males, it was also this judge that was doing BOB. Finally the winning male from Russia was chosen to represent the breed in the group. But we were very pleased and when I spoke to Helinn's owner Janan (on vacation in Turkey) on the phone she first got very quiet, I thought I lost her on the phone, and then she shouted out loud! I do think she was quite pleased. :)

On Sunday morning I felt that Paris wasn't feeling great so I decided not to show her. She stayed on the bed in the motorhome with Peder most of the day. It turned out nothing was wrong with her, she was probably just a little too tired but I felt it was 'better safe than sorry'. Vega on the other hand was of course tired from the journey as well, but other than that her good old spiritual self. After getting her settled in and warmed up I sat down to watch a little of the Pharaoh Hound judging. 19 Pharaoh Hounds (2 absent) was entered under judge Januz Opara, Poland. First in the ring was Nairos, Enigma Special News. He was best puppy with the rating "very promising". Unfortunately he wasn't placed in the afternoon finals but we were very pleased with him! He seems to just adore his owners Radana and Alexandra and we are very grateful for that.



Then it was Vega's turn. The ring was really small and I worried that she would not be able to show her movement, but of course it was the same for everyone. Vega won her class which was the biggest class in the breed and after that went on to win the CAC, CACIB and the European winner title. In best of breed we had quite stiff competiton, but Vega pulled it off and went BOB!!

While Vega was resting up in the motorhome we had some time to go around and look at other breeds. For example we saw the Swedish Lapphund Multi Ch. Lillmustie's Goliat win BOB as well as Radana and Alexandra's Cirneco dell'Etna Rams doing the same thing. Congrats to you!

We had moved all our things into the main ring hall but I didn't get to sit down many minutes before it was time to go to collecting ring for prejudging.



We went in to the ring and oddly enough they had the Pharaoh Hound go in among the last dogs. The group judge Stephan Sinko made a first cut really quickly and then another soon after that - and we were still in it! The judge asked me to go up front and then he sent the five of us that was left (a Samoyed, a Siberan Husky, a Klein Spitz and a Shiba) around the ring one last lap before he placed us in that order. I just couldn't believe it!!

After main ring photography I had to go to another photographer and then straight from there to the collecting ring again as it was time for best in show. They played loud music and it was a great atmosphere. Then they started to call the group winners in to the ring one by one. The speakers sounded... From FCI group 5... The Pharaoh Hound... We ran into the ring and Vega showed like a dream. I could tell from the claps, whistles and screams that Vega was a favourite to many in the audience. The judge Steffi Kirschbichler went through all the dogs and then we had to go out again as the FCI flag was turned over to Finland who will be hosting these events next year. Again we were all called in one by one and the judge got a final look before she turned to the speaker man to give him the results.



The speaker man explained (mostly in German) that only two dogs was going to be placed, first Reserv BIS and then BIS. He called out the Reserv BIS winner. It was the lovely Grand Basset Griffon Vendeen from the Netherlands. The speaker looked me in the eyes and chills went down my spine, it couldn't be us... He said something like " Best in show at the Eurodog 2005... (pause) amongst 10500 dogs... (pause) is the... (pause, he looked me in the eyes again) PHARAOH HOUND! Tears came to my eyes and for a moment I couldn't move. Vega wagged her tail and gave me a kiss. From there a lot of things is a blurr to me. I was asked to take a lap of honour and so we did before we went to thank the judge and stack Vega for the photographers.



It was about 50 photographers and journalists, we were intervjued for Austrian Televison and then there was a special photo session for the Austrian dog paper. All of this took a little less than an hour and Vega worked really well all through it even though I could tell she was really getting tired. Even when several journalists wanted to be photographed together with her she was behaving like an angel, I am so proud of her! Driving the 2000 kilometers home was not so hard after all this... I still can't believe it is true!



Many thanks to all Vega's supporters and thank you all who has shared this special moment with us!

See more photos of Vega and read her critique here!

Results can be found here!

Text: Sofie Lonn. All photos copyright by ÖKV or Madelene Lönn where nothing else is stated.