Fete du Chien - La Verdiere

As mentioned in an earlier post, we attended the dog show on July 24 in La Verdiere, a town high on a hill in the middle of nowhere. It was a windy day but beautiful, lots of people and lots of dogs. mostly hunting dogs. No tourists, no English spoken. The show was well-organized although difficult to park on narrow tiny roads, we all managed. Avril was in her element smelling and listening to other dogs, in their pens in the shade.

Many hounds, only one PBGV who was a visitor. Spaniels, and pointers, but not hearding dogs. A few terriers and smaller dogs as they always are easy to sell. Fortunately, in reading the flier I noticed that even dogs visiting as well as showing had to have a tattoo and proof of vaccination, which was checked before we could pay and get our hands stamped. The dogs were all on display, clearly a goal from the breeders was to sell puppies and we did observe a few being sold. The breeders were not expensive and included vaccinations, papers, and tattoo.

We were interested to see many breeds not in the US, including a Griffon Blu, and a Basset Britagne. The blu was a larger griffon, scruffy with blue/grey mixed rough-coated fur and scruffy face. The britagne was like Avril but all brown. We could definitely go for that one. But D. was obsessed with the Grand basset griffon's although way too much dog for me, they were adorable. He wanted to take one home immediately, all I visualize was the dog running around our house and destroying it. Too much energy, but happy.

There was no beauty contest like in the US or at least I couldn't find it. There was a bird-calling contest, and other hunting-related activities and vendors. The agility and other working dog activities were in the afternoon, but we needed to head out to Venelles, so maybe next year, as this was the 42d annual show in this location and by this club.