Today we got some very welcome mail – Casper’s Certificate of Merit arrived from AKC! A CM is the rare breeds’ (breeds in FSS and Miscellaneous classes) equivalent of a Championship, and is a suffix title instead of a prefix. Since Kooikers will be fully recognized in January 2018, before Casper even turns 2 (and thus, all previously-earned CM points no longer count) I was not going to pursue this for him. However, in April he earned a 5 point Best In Open Show, and I thought after that it might have been doable to complete it before the end of 2017. We worked hard and entered a lot of shows in a short period of time, and despite having the handicap of having me as his handler, Casper did wonderfully – and finished!