Both Great Western Terrier Association and the two All-Breeds, Long Beach and Beverly Hills, were blessed with some of the most beautiful weather imaginable. Combined with the incredibly useful and glorious venue of the George Allen Field in Long Beach, you have to go far to beat, much less even equal, these events. The weekend began on Wednesday afternoon with the GWTA Futurity stakes. A much under-publicized but worthwhile event where the breeds were judged by Jerry Roszman and Jean Heath on an individual basis, and then the Group, judged by Bill McFadden, Mareth Kipp and myself, with all three of us discussing all the dogs and being told in advance there had to be unanimity in agreement. This turned out to be a most useful exercise among the three of us, and I guess we did not do the worst job selecting a SCWT, which over the following days received at least two majors I am aware of. Of course, that only goes to prove it is easiest picking out the outstanding exhibits. Years ago, the practice of having three judges choose Best in Show was abandoned at AKC, but when you come right down to it, this is a good idea. With all the shows we now have, practically, this might be questionable but with the two Invitationals—Westminster and the AKC/Eukanuba shows—it could prove an interesting and novel concept. Of course, in the case of the Big W in the '20s, this was the procedure.
Thursday's Great Western was awarded to a class Airedale dog shown by Jennie Wornall. She does an absolutely superb job handling the dog, which first caught my eye at Montgomery last October. He is, I believe, three-quarters Terrydale bred, which, of course, makes me happy. Owned by breeders Samantha Curran and Richard Berg as a move-up at Monday's all-breed, he was BIS. His name is Everyway’s High Performance. Quite an impressive weekend for this young dog, don't you think? This despite the very questionable crowd reactions to the judge's ring procedure at the first day of the Terrier show. The next day at GWTA 2, the Sealy was the winner—he, of course, being owned by Mickey and Linda Low, shown by Gabriel Rangel and bred by Howard Stone. Ben is the number one Terrier and number three all-breed so far in '05. Long Beach was awarded to the Silky Terrier breeder-ownerd by Margaret Gagliardi and Sandra Shardlow and handled Pam Laperruque.
The entries at the all-breeds were in the 2,000 area the first day, and for the Monday show, a most respectable 1,500-plus. Sort of proves that at least in California, Monday shows can pull the entries in—just look at the Monday show run by the Stenmarks, which year after year has extremely large entries. I'm not too sure I like the way GWTA stops for an hour break for lunch just to make the breed clubs happy but that's a personal factor. If it were me, I would not have back-to-backs either for any Group show. One thing, however, we can all agree upon is the need for better marking of the rings. Not that there were no markers, you just had one hell of a time finding them, and that was true all four days.
 Good God, I almost forgot, and John Shoemaker would have shot me and never let me hear Connie Stevens sing again had I not mentioned his most successful Toy Breeder's Association of Southern California group show. This was its 14th show, which had entries of over 317 on Saturday! This is a gem that should not be missed.
There were two incidents that were troubling at best—one on the showgrounds; another at a club dinner. One I witnessed, the other I heard about. Both concerned judges priorities. I am a firm believer that a spectator who happens to be a judge should be held to the same level of deportment as a spectator as when he or she is judging. Running up and down the aisles promoting an exhibit, no matter the relationship, violates a judge's ethical behavior as outlined in the Judges Guidelines to Judging. Then came remarks attributed to a speaker at a judges dinner concerning pressure allegedly put on them prior to judging an exhibit and then so-called ringside pressure.  I always thought it was the obligation on the part of the judge to report to AKC ANY kind of pre-show pressure for or against any exhibit. As for ringside pressure, I am not too sure what that constitutes but my feeling in that matter is that if it's too hot for you, don't judge at all! And on the overall subject of judges interacting with exhibits they do not own, shouldn't AKC revisit this matter? It seems to be going on at most levels with too many breeds. The field reps choose to ignore it and whether they report it or not is unknown, but certainly something should be done about it, if not in North Carolina then in New York, for sure. •
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