Saturday was a terrific day.  After Christmas, I wanted to do something that would help people with the January blahs.  It's often a time of year when people are broke, the festivities are over, the weather is terrible and generally things are a bit miserable.  So, I took and adapted an idea I have seen on Facebook, the online dog show, and adapted it for our customers.  In particular, we wanted to set up a Gallery page on the website to showcase our customers wearing our coats and I felt this would be a great way of getting enough pics to get the gallery off to a flying start.  We invited our customers to send in their pics of hounds wearing their coats and bandanas, and organised these into three broad classes.  

As an incentive, we offered lovely rosettes, and for the overall winner a £25 donation to a sighthound charity of their choice.  As the closing date approached, I had to decide who to invite to co-judge.  I asked Sian: Sian also volunteers for Greyhound Welfare, which is how I know her, and she is also a qualified show judge in her own right, so perfect.  She came over for lunch first and Andrew cooked a lovely beef casserole with dumplings, just the thing for a cold winter's day.  To get us off to a flying start, we then had cupcakes (pictured) which I made, for fuel.  

The rosettes were originally due to be delivered earlier in the week, but the terrible snow we've been having changed that plan.  Andrew nipped out to meet Anna, (who made them) at a local service station while Sian and I were gathering our papers and settling in to start judging.  Andrew set up his laptop on the coffee table and then we were ready! Sian and I marked individually in each class, then added up our marks to get the highest scores.  In the case of a tie, Andrew was collared for a deciding vote.  It was lovely looking at all the gorgeous pictures and we really enjoyed ourselves.  Eventually, we got to the Best in Show and Reserve Best in Show (these were stonkingly gorgeous rosettes) and then we were done.  Then it was time to post the results on Facebook, and on Sunday I went through carefully allocating and packing the rosettes to post them out on Monday.  Today I've had several posts from people showing pics of their dogs wearing their rosettes which was lovely.  The whole thing has been so successful we are definitely going to do it again next year. You can see the Gallery page on the website here.  

Online dog shows have really taken off on Facebook.  They are easy to set up and manage, and Paypal makes collecting the entry fees very simple and straightforward.  For many dog charities they are an excellent fund raiser.  I entered one just before Christmas, run by Evesham Greyhound and Lurcher Rescue, and ended up with a couple of gorgeous rosettes, including one for our darling Boola - it was very poignant adding this rosette to his rosette hanger in the study, knowing it would be the last ever.  Callie and Mick now have their own shared hanger in the bunk bedroom - though we can split it down further in the future if we need to, and Sara's rosettes are on the bookcase downstairs.  At the moment, she doesn't have that many, but we'll move to a proper hanger if she gets a few more.  I smile when I look at Boola's - there are so many happy memories in those shiny ribbons.