I have never bench showed dogs before this year.
Conformation of the dog is important to me, but never spent time "stacking them" to practice for a bench show.
Last December a woman at a hunt in Ironton, OH said "Wow, you have a nice female. You should put her on the bench."
I put her in the bench show at 4 hunts. She got best female in 2 of them.
At the world I wasn't going to bench her, but my friend was benching two of his dogs. I thought, "Well, I have to stay here for the bench show with him I might as well put her on".
The judges were the most thorough I have seen. They made you walk the dog the length of the building as one judge watched it coming and the other watched it going. The inspected each dog once on the bench.
He walked over and grabbed the trophies, took a hard look at me and walked over and placed 2nd place in front of another dog. He then walked over and put first in front of me. I am sure my jaw dropped, because I was probably the guy there who had the least amount of confidence that his dog would win.
The pictures aren't great. A better one should be in the magazine this month.
