We woke up early Sunday morning to the worst blizzard in history snowing down on us in New York City with well over a foot of snow on the ground since going to bed the night before. Looking out the hotel window twenty stories up, we could see some movement of vehicles on the street below, but was what out there was very slow and looked like there were a lot of stuck vehicles in the snow that was piling up by the minute.

Holly and Jessica packed Mac and April up to go down and try and hale a cab but no luck there so they ended up walking the five city blocks to the Pennsylvania Hotel for the Knickerbocker Dachshund Club Specialty show. The Penn is located directly across from Madison Square Garden and has been the Host Hotel for this dog show weekend for well over a hundred years. Less then an hour later the girls called from the Penn letting us know that they and the dogs made it and they weren¹t sure it was worth it for us to make the trip..... Shortly after that Carrie and I followed. More then a foot of snow has fallen and though we were bundled up it was hard to see ahead of us as we walked between snow drifts with the wind and snow blowing in our faces. After about 4 blocks of walking toward the Penn we ran into a big GAP store that was open to look for hats...which there were none, but we did find some cute kids GAP shirts that would fit the dogs perfectly for when they went out to exercise in this weather. One more block and we made it to the hotel and warmth, comfort and a gazillion dogs! The specialty shows were being held on the 3rd floor of the hotel but if you didn’t get on the right elevator it wouldn’t open up to that floor. We asked the elevator guy which elevator to get on..he said #12.....we walked right by and got on #11...and after going down, then up, got off and got on #12! All that snow you know, made us a bit fuzzy. The show room was full and crowded. Rings were small and it looked like there were about a half dozen specialties going on at the same time. We made our way over to a wall by the doxie ring to check in the girls. Michael was there and the dogs were being taking care of so I went over to ring side and watched the classes proceed with smooth and longs in one ring and wire classes in a small ring next to each other. The classes went rather quickly and after talking with Show Chair Charles Baris I found out that because of the blizzard half the class entries had not shown up. At 1pm the Smooth Variety judging proceeded and the Niebur dogs showed beautifully. There were about two dozen specials in the ring including April and Mac. The judge made her cut and kept both of the dogs for a final look. She chose CH Laddland Miss Smooch for BOV and CH Joy-Dens Mirror Image SS for Best Opposite. There were two Award of Merits given out, can¹t remember which dogs (one was a miniature). All in all it I am very happy with how the Niebur dogs were appreciated by the judge and as I got up to go congratulate the young people for a job well done...I was approached by a few people (Dachshund breeder judges) who congratulated me on Mac and April and expressed the notion that they would have put Macintosh up for BOV on this day if they were judging.For me, it can¹t get too much more satisfying then this to get those sort of comments from my peers.~Lynn