[manc]

the lady you saw with the Belgian Tervurens is the lady who has shown our dog in the past and we got our present dog off her. Darlene Lauren is her name and in the Belgian dog world the Lauren family is probably the most widely known. Shame they did not get through but for some reason German Shepherds usually get through and all the Belgian family, shepherd, sheepdog etc never get through to the final. Having been in that world for a bit I can honestly say much of it is who you know and who the judge knows. Again thank you for reminding us all this was on and I'll be looking forward to seeing the working dogs tonight.

[the OlLine Rebel]

“for some reason German Shepherds usually get through and all the Belgian family, shepherd, sheepdog etc never get through”

Actually, GS have a harder time than they should, being the most popular dog world-wide for decades. They don’t win Group that much, and finally Manhattan won the whole BIS - years ago.

The problem consistently is popularity. These judges don’t actually deal with most of these breeds personally, so that itself is trouble. Then couple that with the fact there are few of rarer breed to judge. Judges don’t really get much practice with rarer breeds, and frankly I think they discount them simply because they don’t know much.

It was a shock for the Sussex Spaniel to win BIS the other year.