Page 24 - Autumn 2024 Newsletter Online_Neat

their dogs entering the ring, a little boy aged about 6 with cerebral palsy was
helped out of his wheelchair and walked into the ring with his mum and a little
brown Cockapoo puppy.

I looked around
the ring at all the
hopeful, proud,
smiling faces of
the dog owners,
willing me to love
their dog enough
for me to place it
and give it a
rosette. It hit me,
and for a moment
I wastakenaback.
This is exactly
what every judge
must see and feel
in the professional dog showing world. All exhibitors at professional dog shows
would be thinking exactly the same thing; we all want the judge to love our
dog and to win. Trying not to show it, I had an internal panic as I didn’t want
to disappoint any of these hopeful people. I questioned myself for ever
agreeing to do this.

Relax, Ann, you can do this, I thought.

I started by thanking everyone for entering and added it was going to be a
tough decision for me as I could already see all the dogs were beautiful and
well behaved, and I would give them all a prize if I could.

Remembering my rules (which I didn’t write down, by the way) the judging
started. I went around the ring one by one (it was easier that way), getting
all the dog’s names, how old they were and giving a tickle under the chin to
those that wanted it (dogs, not people).

Remember rule number 8? Be unbiased, well…

Then I got to 6 year old Oliver, the boy I mentioned earlier; he had limited
words, so his mum introduced him and their puppy (who was going to be
trained as an assistance dog). Oliver held his mum’s hand with his little brown
Cockapoo puppy Bertie bouncing beside him. You could see Oliver was
struggling to walk but he was determined to do it. With a big lump in my
throat, I broke rule number 2 and let my eyes wander to the other exhibitors
and onlookers. Some people wiping tears away, all with tight mouths and
swallowing hard. So I broke my unbiased rule and awarded Oliver first, to be
honest I think the crowd would have been very disappointed in me if I’d chosen
anyone else for the top spot. His mum said, as we lined up for a photo at the
end, that was the furthest he had ever walked.
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