"It was a great honour to be asked to judge the Northern Newfoundland Club's
2014 Open Show, so my thanks must go to the committee first, and then to the exhibitors for entering their dogs under me. Thanks must also go to the trusty stewards who kept the ring moving and the paperwork correct.
Presentation of the exhibits was exemplary and temperaments excellent, with many a wagging tail on my approach.
There were quite a lot of level bites rather than scissor, this doesn't worry me unduly as all of these dogs are more than capable of holding a rope or life jacket between their teeth, just something we need to monitor, more worrying, are the occurrence of incorrectly shaped eyes and the 'loose eye' (eyelids not sitting snugly against the eyeball). These eyes are wrong and leave the mucous membrane open to the elements allowing foreign objects, such as grass seeds to enter the orifice and become a nuisance at best and an expensive, painful infection at worst. I'm glad to say that there were only a few loose eyes in evidence on the day.
I'm not a fan of round eyes, although not strictly wrong according to the Kennel Club's Breed Standard, they do not give the typical melting expression we come to expect from this lovely breed, but a hard, staring and much less attractive expression.
Muscle tone was mixed, some dogs had vey little and this, of course, affects movement and how a dog holds itself, either in the ring or out and even a poorly constructed dog can benefit from good muscle tone giving it a stronger, tighter frame, reducing the risk of injury and ultimately protecting the joints.
Daily exercise, for a grown dog, should consist of a mixture of road work and free running and, where possible, swimming. Obviously puppies cannot do as much road work or free running, but they can swim from a very early age to strengthen ligaments, tendons and muscle.
All of my top winners on the day had excellent muscle tone all over but particularly across the shoulders, allowing free movement of the shoulder, elbow and carpus, and again in the quadriceps mechanisms, giving stability to the stifles and hocks and allowing strong, positive, economy of movement that looks effortless, and that can be maintained for long periods of time."