Redfox Rhea Of Enterlaw

I would like to thank all exhibitors, spectators and my stewards for a most enjoyable day. A big thank you to Pat for the excellent lunch. What a delight to see and feel so many correct double coats. Size was also very good apart from a few being overweight and some lost out on places due to lack of coat.

I would like to thank the Northern Border Terrier Club for inviting me to judge, it was a great honour to be asked. A big thank you also to the exhibitors who gave me the opportunity to go over your dogs. Many thanks to my able stewards Doreen Rushby and John Todd, they were a great help to me and kept everything running smoothly throughout the day. I found the general quality very good and I had some hard decisions. Temperaments were very good. Movements are difficult to judge in a small indoor area, but I noticed some exhibits that really stood out in hind action. Coats and pelts were certainly better than I have seen in Sweden lately, as well as toplines. I liked my winner very much and wish her good luck for the future! The entry was good for this time of the year I was told, 120 dogs making 129 entries, with some absent.

My thanks go to the Officers and Committee of the Northern Border Terrier Club for inviting me to judge this show and for their kind hospitality during the event. I notice that the last time I judged this show was as long ago as twenty five years ago in 1986! The entry of 226 from 207 exhibits was satisfactory but of course there were several absentees which brought the actual number of dogs present down to just over 140. That enabled us to finish judging in good time. Thanks to my very efficient Steward Mrs Rushby. My general comments on the breed continue in similar terms to my previous remarks on the subject. But in the main I thought that heads and expressions were, by and large, pretty good. Coats were of course variable in the stage at which they presented but again, by and large they were of quite good texture. I had no bad mouths and only a couple of kinky tails. And tails were, overall, not too bad for shape and length Size is of course variable but again the majority were spannable but some dogs (and bitches) were far too big and too heavy in bone. My biggest problem was with fronts and exhibit after exhibit appeared with fronts which were far from correct. We have a multitude of different front problems and somehow we must tackle this issue and breeders and judges have to pay more attention to this problem. I believe that we are beginning to find the breed accepting bad fronts as the norm. Horseshoe fronts, wide fronts, swinging front legs, flicking front feet and dogs which single track in an excessive way in front ? all of these things need to be penalised to a greater or lesser extent. Best in Show and the Dog CC went to Orangebox Firecracker (Mr M & Mrs T Anscombe). He has a very typical head, skull and expression with a good muzzle and not over exaggerated. Good neck and shoulder and correct topline and tailset. Correct compact feet. He is balanced and well proportioned being neither too short nor too long and he moved soundly both in front and behind. In the final challenge for the CC he scored for showmanship and went on to be Best of Breed. The Bitch CC and Res Best in Show went to Ch Southash Blue Betty Boo Gameway JW (Mrs P Clark), another with a most typical head and expression. She has a very good coat of the right texture and pelt of the right thickness and she moved very well behind. Enough bone, she presents a good outline going around the ring and exudes quality. Best Puppy was Olderhill Afortunado (Mrs S Wilson). He has a good head and skull, again without being in any way overdone, good neck and topline, good front and moved better there than behind, correct pelt, good tailset and tail and well balanced throughout.

The Scottish Border Terrier Club held an open show where BIS was Lairehope Lord Of The Glen at Tweedburn; RBIS, Picer Gilliflower; & BP, Keycharm Phantom by Ridgebow.

My thanks to the Northern Club for the opportunity to judge their 40th Championship show and for their wonderful hospitality; to the exhibitors for giving me such a lovely entry and to my stewards Doreen Rushby & Tracy Peacock for their assistance through the day. I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed my day, as we expect from this club there was a wonderful atmosphere all day with good support for the winners and, of course, very impressive rosettes! I was pleased with the entry and thought the Veteran class outstanding. In general exhibits were good types of Border, presented clean and reasonably well muscled. I dislike over handling and excessive stacking of exhibits, these are working terriers and if made right they will – eventually – stand right. In general heads were typical, some with excellent expressions. Coats, of course, were all over the place but where present were of good quality and in the main pelts were OK with some very good examples. Feet generally were OK but good tight well padded feet were definitely in the minority. Similarly ears were generally OK but small, well set, well shaped thick ears were scarce. Tails and tailset were very much a plus with some very good examples, just a few rather long or thin ones. I was pleased to find enough well made dogs who covered their ground cleanly without fuss and flicking but good movement was definitely one of the major problems, particularly in the bitches. Shoulder placement was a problem in a significant number of exhibits, mostly these were upright shoulders out at the withers giving big problems with front movement. These may look good standing but these dogs are not sound on the move, a vital requirement for a Border. I accept that an older dog can lose teeth or have a bite move but I was disappointed to find a number of young dogs with incorrect bites, missing and broken teeth. I thought a number of heads were weak, particularly across the jaw and these seem to go with rather small teeth, I wonder if these are related problems?

First of all I would like to thank the committee and membership of the border terrier club for inviting me to judge this show. I would also like to thank all those who entered their dogs under me, and for the sporting manner in which my decisions were accepted. I only found a couple of teeth out of position and one level mouth. There were no kinked tails, although there were a lot of long tails. I thought that on the whole movement was somewhat better than I have judged in recent years. There were some tremendous coats but not many thick pelts. The one shock I had was the poor physical condition of some exhibits, although all exhibits were clean, some had no muscular condition at all, and I found two that were severely under conditioned. There were very few exhibits who were in good hard condition, the ones that were, mainly took the top places. A working terrier has to be in good physical condition with plenty of hard muscle in the right places. Some exhibits today would be hard presses to get to ground, never mind stay there and work for a few hours. Please be reminded that this wonderful breed is a WORKING terrier, and therefore, should be shown in a condition that reflects this.

My thanks to the Scottish Committee for the invitation to judge our prestigious annual Championship Show; to my excellent steward Joyce Orr, and to the exhibitors for such a good entry. I was happy with my class winners which were super examples of the breed. On the down side a number of exhibits were short in the leg and in the body, giving an unbalanced appearance and it’s very unlikely that they would be capable of following a horse, as the breed standard requires. Some pelts were too thin and too many dogs were single coated.