First Place in Limit - Dog, Judge: Mr Graham Pickering (Picer)
Thank you to Driffield Agricultural Society for inviting me to judge Border Terriers at their Championship Show. I had a good entry of 169 from 162 dogs and had a large number of quality exhibits to go over. It was a shame that the weather, being extremely windy, meant that because of health and safety reasons I had to judge indoors. This meant that at first the ring was not as spacious as I would have liked and the noise from the wind in the marquee at times disturbed some of the younger exhibits. In addition, the length of the grass and the unevenness of the surface were problematic for some of the exhibitors.
I was extremely pleased with my final line ups and there were many classes where deserving dogs went unplaced due to the quality of the entry. Overall coats, were very good and temperament was excellent. However, I did find two examples of the odd tooth out of place and a number of dogs which could have been tidier particularly around feet and tail.
In my winners I was looking for a correct size Border with a harsh double coat, well muscled, correct bone and looking like it could do a good days work. I found those qualities in my winners.
A very hard class to judge and several dogs went cardless today as a consequence of the high quality of the exhibits. My winner was a honest and sound dog with excellent make up and shape and in peak condition, which made him stand out in the class. Lovely, masculine head with strong jaw well filled under the eyes that gives him a very typical border expression. Excellent front and a lovely reach of neck which flows into well laid shoulders and rib. Easy to span and narrow throughout. Good harsh tweedy coat with loose pelt, thick pads on the best of cat like feet. Excellent top line, which remained level on the move, covered the ground without effort. RDCC ? seemed to lose interest in the final line up.