BirdbyBird wrote:PS: Josef took another Best of Breed on Saturday and picked up a Group 4 in a large Owner Handler Sporting Group. He is currently sitting in about 5th place in the English Cocker Owner Handler rankings and if he can hold on for another month he will get invited to the "Top Ten" competition in Orlando in December.
Congratulations! What a THRILL!!!
Oh! How I so loved going to the shows!
Many, many years ago I had a wonderful Staffordshire Bull Terrier bitch (sorry, ladies - the proper term for a female dog, particularly in the dog world, is "bitch". The proper term for a male dog is "dog"). This about 25 years ago, when the breed was not so common then as it is now - so majors, or even points, were often difficult to find.
As a complete novice, I owner-handled my girl to #5 Stafford bitch in the U.S., (with one or two Group 4's along the way!) showing mostly in California and a couple of times in Oregon.
It really
was a thrill, and I sill remember my sweet, long-ago dogs, and those wonderful days, with great joy.
When I was first starting out showing as an owner-handler, at one show there were maybe seven or eight Staffords (quite a large entry for those days) and two or three Specials (a dog - or bitch - that is already a champion). The entries went around the ring as they do, the judge judged, and then the judge pointed to another bitch as her best of breed. As one does when not chosen when competing as a Special, my bitch and I turned to leave the ring. The judge glanced up at me, and pointed me out to the ring steward.
The ring steward hustled over to me, looking a bit angry, and asked very firmly: "Where do you think
you are going?!?" (People of poor sportsmanship sometimes leave the ring without receiving their ribbon, if they think the placement is beneath what they should have received).
I was pretty confused, and really nervous. I was still very new to the owner-handler showing game, and really didn't understand what was up. Finally I got myself together enough to say: "Well. . .the bitch won". I thought I understood the rules, but maybe not? Had I missed something?
At my comment, the ring steward got a
very alarmed and embarrassed look on her face, bent WAY over to look underneath my bitch for the. . .um. . . "equipment".
Yep, the "equipment" was missing. She then rushed over to the judge, and after a lot of whispering and pointing I heard the judge mutter: "Are you sure? Well. I wanted to put him up for Best of Opposite Sex."
The ring steward waved me off, and I then walked out of the ring, still very confused, and still nervous, heart still pounding.
It wasn't until later that I finally realized that the judge had made a **MAJOR** faux pas error in judging (dog showing ain't cheap, entry fees even back then were about $35.00 a pop (ouch!) for the privilege of spending about 35 seconds in a dog show ring with a judge, competing for points).
She had selected her winner that day based on her assessment that "on the day" the bitch she had chosen was a better representation of a Stafford
bitch than my entry was of a Stafford
dog (dog, in this case, meaning a male dog). (A bitch cannot be "Best of Opposite Sex" when the "Best of Breed" is already a bitch).
In other words, she had not judged equitably, as a judge is sworn to do. She had judged her BOB winner as a bitch, and judged my bitch as a dog. When I finally realized this, quite a while later, I realized that (maybe) could have made a very big stink, but instead just thought "What the hey. That's dog showing!".
Later on, I heard around that this judge was known to be quite nearsighted. Well, I guess
so!
I laugh about it today (actually, as I laughed then, once it all blew over) because, it really was pretty funny!
Anne
Dad, God bless him, is a healthy 87 years old, but his quirky habits are quite a trip 
Not much I can do about anything with her, but all legal stuff is done and cousin is my back-up medical POA, etc in the event anything occurs with her. I also paid an additional 6 months at the storage place. I have a nagging feeling I'll be back sooner rather than later, but fingers crossed on that too.
