It was an honour & pleasure to judge Rough Collie Males at the Finish Collie Club.
It was unfortunate that the weather was not kind to us, but the officials and committee of the club, made us all feel so welcome, at this excellent venue, and can only imagine how this lovely setting for a show would look in the sunshine, however, the rain held off long enough to avoid being wet through.

In general I found most of the Collies moved well, this is obviously a reflection of walking the dogs, much more than we do in the U.K.
I was impressed by the colours of the Blue Merle's of good blue with well-broken merleing, and rich tan markings, with only one exception.
It was also surprising, in my opinion that these were of the better quality exhibits, together with a few tricolours.
I found most of the sables were well constructed with good bone, & correct ear carriage, but many were far too big and coarse in head, deep through, & lacking stop, with full light eyes, and in general lacking quality.
Many were well above the standard in height leaning more to the American type than the English

A lot of the exhibitors had exhibits that were constantly concentrating on the titbit to the extreme, making it hard for me to assess the head and bite, having to pull the head away from the food, one or two examples of good handling, were when the exhibitor was standing AWAY from the dog on a loose lead, then I was able to assess the head and overall profile of the dog, thus presenting a good overall picture.
I feel the breeders need to concentrate more on refinement in head, and darker more almond shaped eyes and sweeter expression.
I would like to thank the Club, and the exhibitors, for the sporting way in which they accepted my decisions, and for travelling to show their dogs to me, it was indeed a lovely engagement.

May I Thank my competent Stewards Emma and Maria, for all their hard work, and wish the Finnish Collie club, plus all the breeders and exhibitors, every success in the future.