Judging Labrador Dogs
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blen Arvin in southern Wales lies in the
shadow of the Black Mountains and it was
here that I went to meet Linda Harvey
major a lady who’s been involved with
Labradors all her life we started with a
look around her office and trophy room
where she had many mementos of her life
in the show ring but it was because of
her international reputation as a
Labrador judge that I wanted to visit
her America Canada Australia India South
Africa South America all of Europe there
are few countries that Linda has not
visited
in her judging career this board shows a
map of the world and all of the places
that I’ve been to and I’ve judged over
my 40 years in Labradors so the first
thing you’re looking at is the head and
with the Labrador they should have a
nice square muzzle a good stop here and
a nice broad head here a nice kind eye
and I start brown eye if possible you’re
also looking at the teeth to make sure
they have the correct bite which would
be a scissor bite then you would go down
and you would look at the reach of neck
from here to here
how much reach of neck I’ve got do they
have a good for chest not too wide you
can just get your hand in there and the
breastbone is very prominent good bone
on the feet with nice tight round toes
here we would then look at the shoulder
placement and you should be able to put
two fingers in between the shoulders and
feel that that is correct and then you
look at the angulation here and the
angulation here to make sure that it’s
the correct triangulation so this dog
can work because this is a gun dog and
he needs to be able to retrieve the game
a top line
top line that is straight across the
back with the tail coming off level with
the top line for the chest and here
we’re looking for a nice depth of chest
here and a good spring of rep the dog
needs to have this because he is a
working dog he needs to have good heart
room and he needs to have good lung room
for when he’s breathing when he’s
picking up his his pheasants and his
birds in the rear then we are looking
here at this hind leg we should have
good width here a nice well muscled
thigh this dogs working dog he needs to
have good muscle a good angulation here
not over angulated but not straight the
feet should come down level with the
table and again nice neat feet the tail
is very distinctive in the breed it’s
called an otter tail it should be thick
at the base tapering down to a point
with the fur roughing around the tail
this is because they were used for
fishing in Newfoundland and there are
swimming dogs and this is used as a
rudder the coach should be a double coat
it should have a hard top coat and
underneath it’s got a soft downy coat so
that when it’s in the water it’s
waterproof and that the down keeps the
warmth into the dog Linda obviously has
a vast knowledge of what to look for as
a judge of the breed and she takes her
year round
international career as a show judge
very seriously but she also knows the
show ring from the other side the side
of the competitor later that afternoon
she took us through her photo gallery of
the many champions she’s had success
with in the show ring then into her
basement where she showed us the
rosettes to prove it the walls were a
sea of gorgeous color here I got a real
sense of the immense pride Linda feels
for what she’s contributed to the
Labrador breed these are rosettes are
some of the specials that we’ve won best
puppy best in show best opposite-sex
best veteran so this represents 40 years
of some of my life and this is my life
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