Empress National Chin Show

So, this was back a few weeks ago now, but I never did post about it... because Jim is judging at the MCBA Nationals and my chins are boarded at his place, I can't show at that Nationals this year (or likely next year), so this year I took a leap and went and showed at Empress Nationals!  Quite the jump for me, considering... I'm not sure I have EVER showed at an Empress show before, much less Nationals, right?

The chins did ok.  The judges were tough, and focused a lot on size, unfortunately (in my opinion and the opinion of several others I know), some of the higher placing animals were big... but lacking in other areas that many people felt were very important as well, but you know, each judge has their own method of critiquing the animals, and that's why there's quite a few judges!

Notably, one of my standards got a 1st place, a nice dark standard male.  For my mutations, they were sort of all over the place, as I did show a goldbar and a curly, and those don't tend to do all that well at shows that DON'T put a lot of emphasis on size, much less the ones that do!  But... also notably, had some good mutations!  The two that stand out to me (in looking back at this, a few weeks later) is that I had on litter, out of Marty (a hetero ebony) and Cupcake (a pink white).  The two kits, a tan and a homo ebony, were one of the last litters born here at my place in Hammond, before the herd moved out to Ohio.  Both males were good enough to hang onto and grow out.  The ebony received a 1st place, and the tan male went National Champion Tan Male!  Who-hoo!!!

This is him:

So that was awesome.  And even on the not-so-highly placing animals, I got good comments that helped clarify what I plan to do with them and if I plan to keep them.

The show itself was awesome, everyone was great.  We also had a vendor table there:

...and sold quite a bit of stuff!  Great weekend with great people, hopefully we'll do it all again next year!