Hobbs Kennel club

We got home from Hobbs last night about 8:00pm.

My report will be a bit of a rant.  First of all we picked up Frost which was great.  She has been a super good puppy and the Cardi kids have been great with her.  PJ and I also got our 2nd RN leg, I had a great time with my friends andmy friend Barb brought me 1/2 a lamb for my freezer.

In the breed ring we did not have any success.  A lovely class bitch shown owned and shown by my friend Cathy took the breed from the classes both days.

Now about my rant, on Saturday the judge was mean and nasty.  If you want to know who the judge is you can look at the Hobbs KC info on the Onofrio website.  Ring 4 at 2:40pm.   I wasn’t thrilled when she withheld the blue ribbon in Henry but he does have a poor coat and it was her opinion after all.  Now Henry is major pointed and over 1/2 way to his championship.  He has his faults and his virtues.  This judge gave me a nasty look and told me this dog has a damn curley coat and I’m not sending him forward.  Now he was the only open dog and there were other dogs to judge in winners.  Then in bitches she gave all of us a lecture on tail carriage and set.  She said Lindy’s set was fine (not the best tail set in my house) but we needed to tail train our dogs.  Even going so far as telling one exhibitor to beat her PUPPIES tails with a riding crop to train the tails.  Then in breed after awarding BOB to the class bitch the judge told me to stay and then gave me the what for about my special PJ, his coat was horrible and he flagged with is tail andthat I should never show him to Cardigan people because they wouldn’t put up with that kind of stuff.  Now this is PJ, WD at the Bluebonnet speciality under breeder judge Steve Gladstone and Runner up Brindle dog in the Megan at the nationals under 3 breeders and made several cuts in the BOB ring at the nationals and a multi BOB dog.  

Here is what the standard says about tails and coats:

“Croup-Slight downward slope to the tail set. Tail- set fairly low on body line and reaching well below hock. Carried low when standing or moving slowly, streaming out parallel to ground when at a dead run, lifted when excited, but never curled over the back. High tail set is a serious fault.”

“The coat should not be so exaggerated as to appear fluffy. This breed has a shedding coat, and seasonal lack of undercoat should not be too severely penalized, providing the hair is healthy. Trimming is not allowed except to tidy feet and, if desired, remove whiskers. Soft guard hairs, uniform length, wiry, curly, silky, overly short and/or flat coats are not desired. ”

Now this judge will never get an entry for any dog I own and being involved  in several all breed clubs she would ever be on our hire list either.

The results on Sunday were the same  except the judge didn’t withhold on Henry but did make a comment on his coat and of course did not award him points and put Twinkle up for BOB again but the attitude was so much different.

At $25 an entry people deserve at least pleasant manners in the ring, you don’t have to like my dogs but a judge does not have the right to be nasty to people in their ring.    If the want to use their time to educate or make a comment to an exhibitor that is fine, the difference between “a damn curley coat” and “look at all these waves” is different but the point was the same from each judge “I don’t like this coat”

I may edit this as I think more about  it.