Friday 21st, I set off early in the morning to attend the Swedish Terrier Club's judge's conference and Derby show in Borås, an hour drive north east of Gothenburg. It turned out to be a very exciting and pleasant week-end and the Terrier Club certainly deserves credit for a work very well done. It is so easily done to forget a detail or two but here everything was thought of to perfection and I am convinced everyone enjoyed themselves to the full.

There were of course some very interesting lectures. Mr Peter Eva from the UK started off with his breed, the Manchester Terrier and was followed by Mr Terry Burgess who held the lecture on the English Toy Terrier. After the presentation of those two breeds some very interesting discussions followed and the vital points that seperates these breeds were pointed out very clearly.

Siv Jernhake then took over to present the Nihon Teria and the Terrier Brasiliero - again a very interesting lecture and some interesting photos on overhead on view.

Following the last presentation we retired to our rooms for a while before  dinner was served. The meals  were all very good and is a natural meeting point for further discussions on the day's topics.

After having a good night's sleep, it was time for Saturdays presentations which was started by Dr Brian Hill who spoke on the Bull & Minatyre Bull Terrier. Dan Ericsson then took over to lecture on the Irish Softcoated Wheaten Terrier before we had lunch  and then went on to Mr Michael Camac lecture on the Silky Terrier. Next breed on line was the Deutscher Jagdterrier (Tysk jaktterrier) and Ann-Christin Molin did that presentation before the whole conference was rounded off by Dan Ericsson, Nina Karlsdotter and Eva Lejdbrandt.

Obviously I can only speak for myself, but at least my brain was pretty 'loaded' after all those interesting lectures and there wouldn't have been any room for more! Again it was a very pleasant dinner and I was looking forward to doing Skye Terriers the following day at the Derby Show.

The venue was excellent and it is, as it was in this case, a definate advantage for long coated breeds to have a reasonable clean ground for the coat to fall on to. In Sweden stable houses are frequently used for shows and they are of course allright for Labradors and other short coated varietys but for a breed like the Skye Terrier those kind of venues are not ideal. I also had the great advantage to do something that in Sweden is known as passiv student judging on the Scottish Terrier. That basically means you go beside the judge when he/she handles the dogs, watch carefully how they do it and sometimes we are even allowed, depending on the judge and the exhibitors, to go over one or two dogs overselves. In this case Ann-Christin Molin was the judge, the entry was a good one and well worth studying.  I then met up with my sister Ann-Marie and brother in-law Thomas and their border terrier Budda to chat over a cup of coffee before it was time to take on the task of judging the Skye Terrier entry. The photo is of Ann-Marie and me.

I had been looking forward to this assignment for a long time and felt very honoured to having been asked to do it. The quality was very good and the well presented Skyeomania's Hugh from intermediate was awarded the DCAC, best dog and BOS. Ch Finnsky Acasia, a top quality bitch from veteran on very good form won best bitch and BOB followed by Ch Skyeotts Chantelle, another very nice bitch, from the champion class. In the final later in the afternoon, Ch Finnsky Acasia was placed 4th in best veteran in show, judged by Dan Ericsson. Unfortuantely I don't have any photo of the best of breed competition as the hall was too dark to get any descent photos, at least with my camera.