What a way to end our show year!

We decided this fall that we wanted to take a week long vacation to celebrate finishing our degrees. Of course we planned on bringing the dogs with, so I looked for a few locations that I'd like to go to and also possibilities for dog shows or trials. Low-and-behold, there were double CACIB shows in Wels, Austria, only 2 hours from Vienna. Even better, there was a lovely Wine and Spa hotel, that I had seen on CNN about 2 years ago as one of the top wine destinations in Europe, only an hour and a half away. We've been wanting to visit Austria for the past couple of years, but never made the 8 hour trek to Vienna. So after I finished my degree in October, the first thing I did was to book hotels and sign up for the dog shows.

Well, I have to say, our last dog shows of the year paid off! After a disappointing weekend in Geneva in November, in which Baxter received the Excellent 1, but the CAC was withheld, this was a great pick me up. Not only did Baxter receive Excellent 1 with CACA (Champion certificate in Austria) on Saturday, but he repeated the win on Sunday and, in addition, picked up another CACA and a reserve CACIB! The CACIB is given to the best male, so our little guy was picked as 2nd best male dog.

There were over 30 dachshunds from all over Europe there this weekend, so we were very happy about our first wins in Austria. Now we have at least 1 year to collect at least 2 more CACAs. :)

Not only did we have a nice time and, of course, had some nice wins, but we finally met the breeder of Freddie's father Kobeddus Effendi, Caroline, in person! We have been Facebook friends and emailing back an forth for years now, so it was nice to finally meet and chat.

Now Simon, the dogs and I are having our vacation. We explored Linz a bit and visited the Christmas market and had great views of the city, even though the weather was a bit crappy. Now we are settled in for the night at our fantastic fancy hotel. It is the best graduation present that I could have at the moment. :)

So with our wins, we are ending our show season. It has been an amazing year and I couldn't ask for more from the dogs. They have both done amazing and been incredibly successful this year. I can only hope that 2014 will be as fruitful as 2013!