Ripley's trip to the World Dog Show in Paris 2011

July 2011 it was time for another world show for Ripley (now aged 11 years), in Paris, France.

We drove down to Kent, took the channel tunnel and then drove to Paris.

We stayed at a hotel which allowed dogs (pretty much every guest had dogs!) in a place called Roissy about half an hour's drive from Paris.

Melanie came too this time

Ripley in the hotel -we had a flat with bedroom, living room, bathroom and kitchen

Melanie spotted Ripley out on the balcony and took this picture.

Turned out she was watching another dog on another balcony, below us!

I brought my own bed

Where's my dinner?

A lot could be said about the show. That it was clean and well organised are NOT two points you ever could make!

This photo shows the Malinois open bitch class being judged. 10 entries, 8 of which were present.

Ripley in the veteran bitch class (left) where she was graded Excellent but placed second.

Ripley in the ring. Doesn't look 11, does she!

and in the empty ring after judging

Look, this eating place in the show hall is named after one of our cats!

John, Ripley, Melanie.

This photo didn't really work, the banner was so high up I had to walk too far away to get it in the picture.

The day after the show we went sightseeing a bit -ony had a few hours to spare before we had to leave for home. We wanted to see the Eiffel tower of course! There was a race on so it took us forever to reach it as lots of roads were closed off, but finally we got there. t was very impressive! Ripley did lots of sit stays posing for the camera -all the people milling about not bothering her at all.

We met our online friend Pierre from the cat mailing list Feline-l for the first time -after 13 years!

Pierre, Ripley, Melanie, John

We kept moving further and further away from the tower to try to get more of it in the pictures!

It was a very hot day!

Oh look at that dog sitting there all on its own!

Finally got it all in!

and without a dog

It wasn't sunny as you can see but it really was hot anyway

John and Ripley

impressive fountains

Look in the background -there was a golden statue of Ripley!

The river Seine

The Arc de Triomphe -we only had time to see it as we drove past in the car

After a nice drive from Paris we arrived back in Calais again, where we had to go to the animal centre to get Ripley's passport checked before we could take the channel tunnel train back home again.