Although the promoters took some changes in the rules of the competition to bring it closer to the international rules, this was not all over positively valued equally by visitors and competitors. The Sportingsection was judged on Friday morning and the hand-trimmed/-stripped races were judged in the afternoon of the same day. The Mixes as well as the Freestyle-Dogs were handled on Saturday morning and the Poodles on the afternoon of the same day. Like anything else in the world, this scheme had it’s advantages and it’s disadvantages. For example, the Groomers were able to attend the competition with different breeds on several days. This opportunity was used quite commonly. As there were less participants compared to the years before, the Groomers had clearly more space about for their work. The disadvantage was felt in the fact that the beginners of Level 1, whom should/could have learned from their more experienced colleagues of Level 2 + 3, had no chance to do so as all Levels of one class had to work simultaneously.

The numbers of visitors kept within limits due to the new division of classes. Most of the visitors came only those class-competitions which were in their own interest. Sadly, I found out, there weren’t many visitors at the Poodle section. Manly there have been Groomers, their relatives and a few known faces of the Berlin-Poodle-Scene. A further disadvantage was – so I felt – that there was no hint of who and how many competitors attended a certain Level. There have been 13 Poodles in 3 different Levels. But how many Poodles in each single Level and who was in competition with each other ….you could only guess. If you were lucky enough to recognise one of the Groomers you would probably have an idea in which Level the Groomer competed. But for the ‘inexperienced’ among us there were a lot of open questions. Even when the winners of one Level were announced you could hear the question: ”How many other Groomers were in competition with the winner?” Well, there was no answer to that, it remained a secret.

Let us have a look at the Poodle-Section now: The classes were:

Level 1 - Beginners

Level 2 - Best in Champion, Intermediate

Level 3 - World Class Champion Level

The set team of judged was quite international. There have been judges from the US, the Netherlands, Japan and Germany.

As I mentioned before, 13 Poodles were shown. Five of them were Standard Poodles ( 1 black, 2 apricot, 2 white). The Rest was a mixture of Toy-, Dwarf- and Miniaturte poodles equally added up. Disappointing was the set of Groomers. But sure enough there were lots of experienced German Groomers and contestants. I was very happy indeed to see old fellows starting like: Carola Hosse, Angela Unger, Baerbel Berendt. Compared to last year, when the Millennium Grooming Show and the Oster Championship was held, the competitors came from 13 different countries of the world! But this year there weren’t hardly any international participants at the event. I was glad to meet Ilse Kletton of the Netherlands, who made Best in Show at Level 2 last year. I assume the minor number of participants might be due to the MKS-Problem. May be some of the Groomers were to afraid to leave their country with their dogs and being not able to return to it after the show. You wouldn’t believe it but Belgium was the only foreign Nation at the competition.

The rules were the same like last year. Two hours time for Dogs over 41 cm, one and a half hour for all other dogs. Contrary to the earlier announcement that faces and paws of the dogs were to shave only during the contest, the participants were allowed to do so before the start.

When the contest started all you could hear was clipping away those scissors. After a while you could tell who attended which Level. But still, this was not easy at all to tell so between Level 2 and 3. After one hour there was a 15 minute break for the Groomers as well as their dogs so that they could walk about for a while. Already there were hints about a first favourite and a discussion began about who probably would win that fantastic hydrodynamic grooming table (complete with lightning fixture !) which was sponsored by the company Oster.

The ‘hottest’ tip and a real head-turner was the one white Standard Poodle bitch. She became a complete new ‘outfit’ as a Bichon Frisé !! The opinions about this divided strongly – some found it lovely and some found it rather strange. I thought it was lovely and strange at the same time. But one thing you couldn’t deny: this white ‘Girl’ looked absolutely adorable and sweet. She had charisma and esprit but apart from that there remained the fact that she didn’t look like a poodle! She just was one big Bichon Frisé. I mean, it was a very interesting petgrooming-variation, which could be used for household dogs – why not?! But why take a Poodle for that, you could have taken a Bichon Frisé at the first time instead.

However, the Organizer mentioned that this could be an alternative for the Poodle grooming seminar (Poodleclip in Petgrooming and Freestyle full face Poodle) on Sunday. Further they announced that this seminar was completely under the sign of the ‘new understanding in protection of animals’ according to the Sinus-Hair of the Dogs. Let’s hope this will remain only with the Petgrooming.

Going back to the championship. Monique Jannsens from Belgium has earned a big compliment for the “Standard-Bichon-Frisé”. Monique Jannsens owns a Groomingshop in Belgium since 30 years, she’s really done a very good piece of work on that white Standard Poodle bitch. Another Standard Poodle bitch was clipped into the Continental Clip by Corinna Verschuren who comes from Belgium as well. Armin John showed his Toypoodle in Puppy-Clip. Baerbel Berendt an a few others decided to clip their Poodles in Puppy-Clip as well. The other Clips were the usual Groomingshow-Mixture of Pettrim and Puppy-Clip.

The winners of the Poodle-Section are:

LEVEL 1 Poodle-Section Best in Show Level 1 - Ines Kalpen (D LEVEL 2 Poodle-Section Technical Award (Machines and Clipping-Techinque) - Armin John (D) Toypoodle - white - Puppy Clip LEVEL 2 Poodle-Section (Race-Profile, Balance and Symmetry) Carola Hosse (D) Dwarfpoodle - white - "Pettrim". LEVEL 2 Poodle-Section Difficulty Award (Level of difficulty, Lengths and Structure of Hair, Correction of Faults) Kitty Ponnet (B) Standardpoodle - apricot - "Pettrim" Best in Show Poodle-Section Level 2 - Carola Hosse (D) LEVEL 3 Poodle-Section Technical Award - Corina Verschuren (B) Standardpoodle - white - Continental Clip LEVEL 3 Poodle-Section Profile Award - Monique Janssens (B) Standardpoodle - white - "Bichon Frisé" LEVEL 3 Poodle-Section Difficulty Award - Angela Unger (D) Standardpoodle - black - "Pettrim" Best in Show Poodle-Section, Level 3 - Monique Janssens (B)

And then it got serious: the winners of the other sections were added to:

-Handstripped-Terriers and other handstripped races-Class

-Sportingdog-Class

-Mongrels and all other Breeds, Clipping-Terriers, Freestyle-Class

Following are the Nominations:

Best Image Award (Professional appearance) - Armin John, Germany, Poodle-Section

Best Rapport (outstanding patience, pleasance and harmony between groomer and dog) - Christin Klanetzki, Germany, Handstripp-Terrier

Special Award (Best All Around) - Gudrun Schneider, Germany, Dwarfpoodle, apricot, Puppy-Clip

Out of the singles classes of the BIS-Winners the following contestants were nominated:

Level 1:
Ines Kalpen (D) - Poodle-Section
Christin Klanetzki (D) - Handstripp Terrier
Andrea Fischer (D) - Sportingdog-Section

Ines Kalpen made Best in Show for Level 1 CONGRATULATIONS !

Level 2: Kitty Ponnet (B) - Standardpoodle – Freestyle-Section Carola Hosse (D) - Dwarfpoodle – Poodle-Section Kitty Ponnet made Best in Show for Level 2 for an interesting Freestyle-Clip decorated with Diamanté-stones. CONGRATULATIONS !

It got really exciting by then as in Level 3 not only there were the biggest prices but the ‘Darling’ of the audience was the ‘Standard-Bichon-Frisé. About 90 % of the audience opted for Monique Janssens’ grooming.
The nominations were:

Level 3

Let me tell you a small story about Angela and her Dutch Wirehair Shepherd before I tell you who finally won Level 3: “While the judges remained separate to decide of who would win this Level, we had time enough to study the (already-) winners and their work. Angela just stood there very undemanding and modest with her dog. Well, this dog look rather dull between the sparkling white Bichons and I just though what sort of breed Angela had on her lead. To tell the truth, I couldn’t guess it. But I was relieved that some of my old fellows were at a loss just like me. Nobody had an idea about the breed of that dog. To put curiosity to an end I went up to Angela and asked her. Out came this very rare Breed: Dutch Wirehair Shepherd. After a long time, so it seemed, the judges came back and the all took place behind Angela Unger. That was their ‘announcement’ to show the audience their decision. Angela couldn’t believe it. It was a beautiful Moment for all of us. All the people were spending applause for this piece of work. This Moment was also special, because absolutely nobody thought that this Dog would win. You could even see tears because of that Surprise-Winning of Angela with her dog in some Eyes.

Best In Show Level 3 - Angela Unger (D)

CONGRATULATIONS !!!

Finally I’d like to mention that apart from those long hours and sometimes as well boring hours of grooming the final minutes of this Championship made all this waiting for the results worthwhile

There was another contest on Sunday but sadly I cannot refer about this one as I visited Berlin for various reasons and only had time for the Saturday-Grooming-Show.

MORE PICTURES