Congratulations Champion Karazan Axl

Wow, what a weekend. I was off at a show and 'Drew was Home Alone, Part IV.
Most significantly, cousin Karazan Axl finished this weekend and is now the chamption we all knew he should have been long ago.

Here's the story as only a Mom can tell it:

"Hi everyone and thanks so much for your notes of congratulations. For those of you who weren’t there on Sunday, Axl finally finished his championship in rather dramatic form. He only needed two points to finish and we were in danger of not having any other class dogs show up either day, so Steve graciously allowed me to borrow Satchel for the weekend so we could have a least 2 dogs show up and make 1 point each day. It’s a good thing we did, because the other dogs didn’t show! Steve was in trial so he couldn’t make it all weekend so Satchie had a sleep over at my house. He reminds me so much of my sweet Peabo with his “screw you” attitude that I fell instantly in love with him. He and Ax got along great and he immediately let Axl know who was in charge.

"On Saturday, Axl was WD and got 1 point. Little Bella was WB but also took BOW so she got her first point!!! Yea for Bella, Teri, Dave and Mama Sophie. Only 14 more to go for that little Liger. Jolie was BOS.

"On Sunday, Axl didn’t come wake me up at 6 as usual so I went looking for him. I found him sleeping in the lawn sprinklers and he wouldn’t get up. This was my first clue that something was wrong. I touched his head and felt his left ear was swollen to 5 times its normal size and extremely painful. I threw Axl and Satch in the van without grooming either one of them and raced off to the emergency vet where he diagnosed a probable hematoma. He prescribed painkillers, prednisone and antibiotics and sent us on our way. Ax was very subdued and sad looking. I gave him some pain meds and off we went to Dixon. Satchie thought it was a great adventure. When we got to the show grounds, Axl was clearly not himself as he didn’t squeak or lunge to play with the other dogs and quietly climbed in the crate that Claire so generously provided. When Jolie came over to say hi, Axl thought he might like to jump on her so I figured he might be well enough to trot around the ring once or twice so Claire groomed him up and I sent him off with his handler, Larry, to the ring with instructions to tell the judge about his ear and that the vet had said it wasn’t too serious, just very sore. Well, Larry got in the ring with Axl and then got called away to another ring so he handed him off to Lizzie but forgot to warn her about the ear so when the judge came up to him, she was immediately alarmed by the huge ear that made his whole head look lopsided. She asked Lizzie about it and of course she didn’t know what to tell her. Despite the rather unusual looking head, Axl moved well, though a bit slower than usual, and was given WD. I then explained to the judge what was going on and she was very gracious. When we went back in for BOB, I handled Ax because Lizzie had to take her Special in and he went BOW. I have to say that he has never been so well behaved and easy to handle. Drugging this dog may be the solution at every show from now on.

"Jolie was beautiful and went BOB for the 8th time out of the last 9 shows. If we had had a decent group judge, I think she would have won the group.

"Axl slept very hard last night which was expected, but I went to check on him at 4:30 this morning and he didn’t even move. I picked up his head and shouted at him while shaking him and he finally opened his eyes and looked at me as if I had interrupted a really good dream. Payback is a bitch, Ax. Anyway, the ear was as bad as ever and he clearly wasn’t himself, so back to the vet we went this morning (his regular vet this time) and she did a workup on him, shaved the ear and found that he had been bitten by a very large spider, probably a black widow, and that he will be recovering for the next month or so. So you see, Axl got his championship in the style that only Axl could have dreamt up.

"Now I just want to go home and hug my poor baby and try to get him to eat something so he can keep the meds down until he feels better. The vet says that we should be past the worst of it by Wednesday. I guess we won’t be showing in BOB at Santa Rosa in a couple of weeks, but I’ll sure be there to cheer on the other Newfs!"

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As for me, well, as Aunt Jill says, "payback is a bitch". No sooner did I get home than 'Drew wrestled me to the ground and beat the living daylights out of me. He was really pissed for me leaving him. But by late evening, we were cuddled up in brotherly love. I had a great time with Axl and Slugger (and bunking with Hummer) and plan to vacation at Aunt Jill's more often. Big Congratulatios to the Axl Monster -- he can now spent some nice time recovering, both from shows and black widows!

Satchie