Second Place in Limit - Bitch, 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 superb class full of quality exhibits that again meant that I had some really difficult decisions to make.
Another lovely and typey Border bitch, a little more up on the leg than 1 but still lovely to go over on the table. Nice feminine otter head with a typical expression, good bite and ear placement. She has the best of fronts, good reach of neck and clean shoulder. Narrow throughout and easily spanned. Shown in excellent condition and put down well with tidy tight feet. Moved out well fore and aft, perhaps not quite with confidence of the 1st place. However, it was a really close decision here and in the final line up she pushed hard for RCC.