The four BOB winners in Miniature Schnauzers from the group ring.
By Hilde Haakensen,
Axcium Miniature Schnauzers
A big Thank You to everyone who allowed me to use their pictures in this article!
The four BOB winners in
Miniature Schnauzers from the group ring.
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My travelcompanion Kent and I flew down to Berlin from Oslo Norway, leased a car and headed towards the Polish border.
The famous German Autobahn was great, with
strict restrictions for all 18 wheelers to stay in the rigthmost lane. As we
approached the border the 18-wheeler lane got more and more clogged up and for
miles after miles their lane was at a stand-still.
Once across the Polish border the
crazy driving started. 1 lane in each direction, 4 cars passing simultaneously,
don't ask me how they did it.
View from the road - Polish landscape.
We made it
to the showsite, even though there was absolutely no directions in the paperwork
you received. Parking was total anarchy, you had to pay for the car, but noone
knew where and if there was room for it.
Numbers
The total entry of dogs is 20 839 evenly divided between the sexes (10101
dogs and 10738 bitches). 354 breeds are participating, and they come from 54
different countries. 5993 are actually from Poland, the second largest entry
comes from Russia with 2238 dogs. There are 57 dogs entered from the US and 97
from the UK this year. The longest drive prize goes to: 1 dog from Indonesia, 4
from Thailand, and 11 from Japan! The Labrador Retriever had the highest entry
with 432 dogs, closely followed by the American Staffordshire Bull terrier who
had an entry of 414. I also found it surprising to find 301 Yorkshire terriers
entered. In the other end of the statistics you find 20 breeds, most of whom
I've never even heard of, each with an entry of 1 (for instance "Gończy
Francuski Biało-Pomarańczowy", "Porcelaine" or "South African Boerboel"?)
- and if you didn't win
anything, you could always purchase a prize or two at the show...
Odds and
Ends:
The
entry for this show closed TWO MONTHS before the show date, and it's not cheap:
about $120 to enter one dog one day! If you entered 3 months before the show,
you would get away with "only" $80!
To enter the show site all dogs have to be briefly examined by vets standing in the entryway, and bitches in heat are not allowed! Every entered dog has to be rabies vaccinated, and the exhibitor has to show proof of it to get in. Exhibited dogs cannot leave the show site until the official end of the show.
To be able to register puppies in the Polish Kennel Club, both parents have to have been exhibited. So you have to show any dog you intend to breed. A bitch has to receive a minimum of "very good" at 3 different shows; one of them must be from an international show. A dog has to receive minimum "Excellent" from 3 different shows where one is from an international show. Once this has been achieved, the owner contacts a local kennel club and receives an annotation in the pedigree that the dog is allowed to be bred. Obviously there is a big production of puppies in Poland that never are registered.
We have been warned upfront to never leave any dogs or possessions unattended at the show site, otherwise something (or someone) might get "lost"...
Wolfdog,
quite popular
Overview over one of the show halls
Poland is part of the FCI like most European countries. FCI (Fédération Cynologique Internationale) is the World Canine Organisation. It includes 82 members and contract partners (one member per country) that each issues their own pedigrees and train their own judges. The FCI makes sure that the pedigrees and judges are mutually recognized by all the FCI members.
The miniature schnauzer is in the largest group: number 2 according to the FCI system, together with all other sizes and varieties of schnauzers and pinschers and a bunch of other breeds (mainly molosses and sennendogs). Each colour variety is judged as a separate breed, and the miniature schnauzer entry is humongous this year - close to 600 miniature schnauzers:
Miniature
Schnauzer Pepper and Salt (187 entered)
________________
Judge: Dorothy
Hutchinson (US)
Bitches (90)
________________
Judge: Britta
Ross-Börjeson* (Sweden)
Males (97)
Miniature Schnauzer Black and Silver (181 entered)
________________
Judge: Joanna
Szczepańska-Korpetta* (Poland)
Bitches (86)
________________
Judge: Patricia
Nemirovsky-Alsina (Argentina)
Males (95)
Miniature Schnauzer Black (159 entered)
________________
Judge: Marek
Lewandowski (Poland)
Bitches (77)
________________
Judge: Zvi
Kupferberg* (Israel)
Males (82)
Miniature
Schnauzer White (72 entered)
________________
Judge: Dan
Ericsson (Sweden) (35 dogs/ 37 bitches)
*This judge will do BOB for the breed
At this
particular show you compete for the World Winner title in addition to points
towards your championship. The best dog and the best bitch in each breed will
receive the title World Winner 2006 (WW-06). The winner of the Junior Class will
also get the Junior Winner title (JW-06).
The classes are:
Puppy Class 6-9 months (the puppies are not participating in the BOB
competition, they compete amongst themselves for Best Puppy)
Junior Class 9-18 months
Intermediate Class 15-24 months
Open Class over 15 months
Working Class over 15 months of age, holders of working certificate only
(not for Miniature Schnauzers)
Champion Class (only adult Champion Title or International Champion)
Veteran Class over 8 years of age
A dog can only be entered in one class.
Titles:
CACIB (Certificate of Aptitude for International Champion of Beauty) awarded
to the best dog and bitch in each breed. CACIB can only be awarded at FCI
International dog shows to dog older than 15 months. You need 4 CACIB's to
become an International champion, and they have to be won under minimum 3
different judges, in 3 different countries, and there needs to be a minimum time
span between the first and the last CACIB of 1 year and 1 day.
CWC/CAC - Certificate for Polish Championship - the judge can award one
Certificate to the best dog and the best bitch in each breed that are not
already champions. If the judge does not think the best dog of the day is of
high enough quality, it is not unusual to withhold the Certificate.
Ring steward walking around with a note showing what numbers he wants in the
ring. One way to overcome most language barriers...
The armbands where nice looking, but the numbers on them where way to small and impossiblel to see ringside. Every entered dog gets a written critique dictated by the judge, but in some rings the secretary would take the liberty to translate it into Polish even if it was dictated in English! All the rings had the secretary in the center of the ring, which to me made absolutely no sense as it made it hard for people to get in touch with the rinsteward, and difficult for spectators to see the dogs properly, because of all the tables, people and chairs in the way. The ring stewards caused quite a lot of confusion at times, there is still to this day no reserve World Winner in Salt and Pepper males because of ringsteward blunders.
Finals:
In addition to the regular group finals and BIS there are a bunch of other
competitions, like Best Brace, Best Breeder’s Group (3-5 dogs of same breed from
same breeder), Best Progeny Group (dog or bitch with 3- 5 sons and/or daughters),
Best Junior Handling, Best Puppy, Best Junior, Best Veteran, and Best Polish
Breed.
Breeders group competition, 5 different breeders of miniature schnauzers
Some of the veteran group contestants
 2nd place in Group 2 - The black miniature schnauzer Ch Made in Spain Vegasicilia |
 Best Puppy Group 2 - Miniature Schnauzer black and silver: KRÓL Sasquehanna |
 Best Progeny Group - Dog - 2nd place: Miniature Schnauzer PIP'N THAT'S MY STORY |
 Best Breeder's Group - 3rd place - Sasquehanna Miniature Schnauzers, Małgorzata Supronowicz, Poland |
The Pedigree-babes are drawing the line :) for the photographers
Here, but no further...
On a signal all the photographers came running to the line... and this repeated
itself in each final.
Results Pepper and Salt l Results Black and Silver l Results Black l Results White
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