Sweden
Report
Day 4 All Breed Show,
Sunday, July 3, 2006
After the breed judging was over to
the 'big ring' for the finals judging. As well as
Best Veteran in show, there were finals for Best
Puppy, Best Progeny and Best Breeder Group in the
groups judged today. The Breeder Groups were very
interesting to watch and highlighted the depth and
consistency of the many Swedish bred breeds.
Richard judged the finals for Group
9- Companion & Toy Dogs. This was one of the
strongest entries of all the Groups and the show
had every eligible breed with entries. Timing is
critical and the Group is actually prejudged by
the judge in the ready ring before they enter the
'big ring' to speed things up. All the breeds are
then paraded in and the judge goes down the line
once and then makes several quick cuts, eventually
getting it down to 5 dogs. The winners are announced
in reverse order for added drama and Richard's selection
was a beautiful Standard Poodle first, the Long
Coat Chihuahua second, the Pug (better known as
the Mop in Sweden) third, the Phalene 4th and Cavalier
King Charles Spaniel was Reserve.
The weather in Sweden had been unseasonably
hot and sunny for our trip so far, but unfortunately
the rain came down on Richard's judging. Sweden
is so far north (on latitude with Alaska) that the
daylight was from 3:00 am till almost midnight.
Three more Groups were judged including
Group 2- Pinchers, Schnauzers,Working won by the
Akita, Group 4- Dachshunds won by a Standard Smooth
and Group 8- Retrievers & Spaniels won by the
English Cocker.
Dr. David Doane from the USA had
the honour of judging BIS and again the rain was
coming down. The ten dogs were judged in the ring
in the traditional fashion and a cut was made to
5 dogs.
Best In Show at this 2800 + entry
All Breed Show was the Pomeranian, 2nd Place to
the Standard Poodle, 3rd Place to the Bedlington,
4th to the Saluki and Reserve to the English Cocker.
Our final night in Boras was yet another
enjoyable evening of cocktails and Swedish culinary
delights from the hotel dining room with hosts Anita
Tunestrom and Bob Paust. There were fond farewells
to the many international and local judges who had
enjoyed new and old friendships and we all looked
forward to joining each other on another judging
panel some time in the future.
Our journey was to continue as we
would be spending the next 4 days in the nearby
city of Gotenberg as the guests of the Shih Tzu
club sightseeing and putting on a Shih Tzu Breed
study for breeders and judges before taking a train
to Stockholm for another weekend of judging.
