Dog show handler Stephen Cabral got more than he bargained for when he came up to the Ventura County Fairgrounds to take part in the Summerfest Dog Show.

His wife, Linn, went into labor early with their first child while he was taking part in Friday's show with Zoom, a 3-year-old champion bloodhound raked as one of the top 20 bloodhounds in the country.

"She broke her water last night, and they did an emergency C-section," said Cabral, 46, from Duarte. "So after the groups, I ran over and made it in time for the surgery."

Their daughter Emily Elizabeth weighed in at 5 pounds, 6 ounces at Ventura's Community Memorial Hospital in Ventura, but the new dad was back ringside with Zoom on Saturday morning with his wife's blessing.

"She said go back to the show and go back to work. She insisted," he said.

More than 2,000 dogs strutted their stuff at the Summerfest Dog Show, which features three days of competition hosted by three clubs over the July Fourth holiday weekend — the Channel City Kennel Club from Santa Barbara on Friday, the Santa Maria Kennel Club on Saturday and the Ventura County Dog Fanciers Association today.

Each day, participants show their dogs to win points either to qualify a new dog as a champion, allowing it to continue on into best of breed competition, or to earn points in best of breed competition to qualify for the larger shows such as the AKC/Eukanuba National Championship.

Moira Cornell from Woodland Hills is showing a 2-year-old Australian shepherd called Hemi, who won best of breed on Friday.

Cornell, who's been training and showing dogs for 20 years, was hoping to repeat the success on Saturday.

"There are different judges every day," she said. "You need a lot of motivation, a lot of hard work, a lot of drive, passion and desire, and a lot of practice."

Inside one of the halls, stay-at-home mom Terri Asher from Simi Valley was waiting to show Finn, a 3-year-old basset hound she bred herself.

"This show, particularly to me, is a very nice location. The weather is always beautiful, and it's just a wonderful, friendly, nice show," she said.

Charlene Smutny got up at 3 a.m. Saturday to start preparing her blue miniature poodle for the show.

"She just turned 2, and she is a champion," she said as she sprayed hairspray over the dog to keep her coat in place.

It took more than eight hours to get Dulcet Moody Blue and her sister, a black miniature poodle called Amazing Grace, perfectly coiffed, with a full bath, scissor trimming and fluffing and brushing.

Smutny, who lives in Simi Valley, runs a dog grooming business with Robin Green from Thousand Oaks, who owns a 4-year-old champion toy poodle. They said they spend almost every weekend on the road traveling to dog shows.

Janet Souva, 81, has been breeding Irish wolfhounds for 20 years in Northern California and was at the show with her daughter-in-law and granddaughter, who have also embraced the business.

"We've been traveling with Irish wolfhounds since 1972 and Cash is part of our 12th generation," she said, referring to the 2-year-old dog standing placidly beside her, nearly dwarfing her in size.

Souva said the rising cost of gas is affecting those on the dog show circuit.

"So the shows where there's what we call a cluster, where there's at least two or three or even four shows, dog show people tend to go to them more now," she said.