Written by Paul Britza, some of our travels around the world when Paul judged Afghans in the USA and Sweden, including a critique of dogs judged at these shows.

. . . . the travel was quite uneventful except for the fear experienced boarding a DC10, never having
previously travelled on one and having read every story written about their unfortunate safety record.

We arrived at our hotel in St. Louis, Missouri in the USA very tired and weary some 20 or more hours after leaving home in Sydney. With all our flights leaving and arriving on time the trip was quite uneventful except for the fear experienced boarding a DC10 on one leg of our US internal flights (I had never previously travelled on a DC10 and had read every story ever written about their unfortunate safety record).

We enjoyed the next two days of sightseeing in St. Louis with plenty of shopping, a cruise on the Mississippi and the Budweiser Brewery tour and product sampling (my kind of tourist activity). As we had been having much trouble adjusting to the time-zone change and getting very little sleep at night I thought that I may fall asleep in the middle of my judging assignment. Fortunately things improved and I had a good sleep on the Friday night.

The weather on the St. Louis Specialty day was glorious and apart from the show chairman getting a little lost on the way to the Showground I arrived safely, awake and rearing to go. The St. Louis Specialty is held at an incredibly beautiful reserve called Sioux Passage Park. I almost expected to see a group of Sioux Indians riding across the rolling hills as we headed for the area where the show was being held.

After a very nervous couple of hours waiting for Carl Sanders to complete Sweep-stakes judging while I was being kept a suitable distance from the show-ring it was now time. As I stepped into the ring to commence my judging and the first class entered the ring all trace of nervousness disappeared.

It was a great honour for me to judge this Specialty and I enjoyed the experience very much. With it being so close to the National many of the club officials had been worried that their entries might be down. However with an entry of 113 afghans which was the most they have ever had in recent times the financial success of the show was ensured.

Overall I was impressed with the quality of the afghans that I had. In comparing them to Australian Afghans I found them to be generally a little smaller (in keeping with their standard) and more refined. While we have bigger coats and bodies they have more refined and typical heads, long necks and incredible show attitudes. Their fronts in general seemed like ours perhaps needing more depth of fore-chest and better angles, however I did not find them as poor as I have been led, over the years, to believe. Hind-quarter angles are very good with short hocks and very sound moving.

My best in show winner was the stunning black masked red bitch CH. CASBAR SUGAR'N SPICE (a Ch. Pahlavi Puttin' on the Ritz daughter) - very feminine, "total afghan" and on the day owned the ground she moved over. My opposite sex in show winner was the blue brindle dog CH. QAMARI FLYING COLORS (a Ch. Journey Judgement Day son and half-brother to Ch. Qamari Rainbow Rider) - incredibly long refined head and beautiful shoulders and front assembly and very much my type of afghan. Winners bitch and best of winners went to a very nice black and tan bitch KASSAN'S THE SHOW OFF (a Ch. Fox Run Revolution daughter) - this award finished her American Championship title. Winners dog went to a nice moving black and tan dog Shakira Nashara Casa Blanca (a Ch. Shylo Sebastian of Patmar son).

Other notable winners throughout the classes on the day were the reserve winners bitch, a black masked red CHANDIGARH'S THE MUST a Swiss and International Champion recently imported from Switzerland. Reserve winners dog went to a pale blue KIWI ELTON OF TARRAH a Canadian Champion of all Shangrila breeding. Best Puppy was a pretty cream bitch of beautiful type SEISTAN'S Driftin HEART. The junior dog was a very stylish moving brindle LUGGINS SOUND INVESTMENT. The best bred by exhibitor bitch was an elegant strong moving white bitch VISIONS WHO'S THE BOSS (a Ch. Genesis Red Cloud daughter).

The after show dinner was held that night at the hotel where we were staying. Somewhere around 60 or more exhibitors attended this function to receive their various awards. It was an extremely enjoyable night where all exhibitors (win or lose) made an effort to talk to me and were very friendly (maybe we could take a lesson from this). I was asked to speak to everyone giving my impressions of their afghans making comparisons to ours. After talking for 15-20 minutes I decided I had bored them enough (I wasn't sure if the audience silence meant I had them mesmerised or I had put them to sleep) but they just wanted me to continue saying "we just luuuuv your accent" (I guess it was just the Aussie accent they wanted to hear). After the dinner we "kicked-on" with a group of exhibitors into the small hours of the morning.

The next day we attended an all breeds show across the border in Iowa where Peter Belmont was judging afghans. Having got to know Peter when he judged a Specialty in Adelaide many years ago we were able to catch up with him before judging. It was a good opportunity to mix further with some of the exhibitors.

Later that afternoon we flew to San Francisco (yes another DC10) and rented a car for the 100 or so mile drive North to Sata Rosa where the Afghan Hound Club of America National Specialty was being held. My first experience of driving on the right side of the road produced many memorable incidents but we did arrive without any mishap. Sufficient to say that it was a three person job - me to drive, Lyn to watch the left and Julieanne to watch the right (it is strange sitting on the other side).

At the National we saw many many more beatuiful afghans and re-aquainted ourselves with many more old friends. The US afghan people are unbelievably friendly and hospitable. From our very warm welcome over the public address system by the announcer for the day, Archie Clott, to the efforts of firstly Dave Frei and later Betsy Hufnagel in seeing that we had been introduced to every person on the showground, it was just a mind-blowing experience.

After witnessing the 50 strong veteran class, then the playing of "Memories" and the associated tears and open sobbing of every exhibitor on the grounds we were ready for the specials class. There were just so many beautiful afghans in this class and I witnessed nothing to change my opinion (only re-inforce it) about the overall good quality of USA afghans - in particular heads, necks and show attitudes are outstanding.

The National Show dinner was absolutely outstanding with too many highlights to numerate. Dave Frei was the Master of Ceromonies for the night with all of the National Board members also doing their bit. The dinner was a great success with somewhere around 200 people attending. A highlight of the evening was the "afghan art" exhibition and auction.

Following the National we attended the Northern California Afghan Specialty. After seeing the commencement of this show we returned to San Francisco staying in the Fisherman's Wharf district for a few days. We then travelled on to New York for non-afghan activities and to begin our holiday. New York was memorable for many reasons with our Saturday night dinner at one of the big apple's finest restaurants and later visit into the early hours of the morning to the Greenwich Village and Soho districts was something to remember.

The next day we flew out of New York and arrived in Amsterdam, Holland. A further time-zone change ensured that our sight-seeing activities in Amsterdam was through very bleary eyes. We however did manage to see a pet afghan being led around the streets of Amsterdam (you guessed it - a black masked gold). The next morning we left Amsterdam for Berlin commencing a two week coach tour of parts of Eastern and Northern Europe. This tour covered many exotic places through Berlin & Dresden (Eastern Germany), Prague, Brno & Bratislava (Czechoslovakia), Budapest (Hungary), Vienna & Salzburg (Austria), Munich, Nuremberg, Frankfurt and the Rhine Valley (Western Germany), Luxemborg and finally ending up in the Ardennes (Belgium).

From Belgium we travelled by train to Paris (France) spending four days there discovering the splendours of this incredible city. From Paris we travelled on the French TGV (very fast train) at speeds up to 250 kph to Nice and Monaco on the French Rivierra.

After seeing the lifestyles of the extremely wealthy in these places further train travel through the Northern Italian mountains saw us reach Turin where we were met by and stayed with Roberto Bongiovanni of Xenos Afghan Kennels in the small village of Cavangolo some 40 kilometres away. In between sight seeing and eating his mother's incredible meals Roberto took us to visit Cinzia and Sergio Amaratti of Gran Pamir Kennels in Turin which was the first afghan kennel to be established in Italy. Paolo Simeoni of Settebello Kennels in Verona (the home of Romeo & Juliet) also came to visit with some of his afghans.

From here we travelled to Florence and were met by and stayed with Sara Melani and friend Domenico on their Mediterranean country property near Castelfiorentino with their many afghans. We were able to visit the many tourist attractions in Florence and Pisa while staying with Sara. It seems that much of the Italian afghans (and probably those from other central European regions) have been influenced by the Kefalari's afghans of Jacki Vogel in Switzerland. She has a number of American imports (mainly from Sanallah's lines I think) and has some very beautiful dogs.

Having spent quite an amount of time travelling by car in Italy in both the Turin and Florence areas I cannot understand how they survive on the roads - their travelling speed is flat out. After Florence our next stop was Venice for four days - an incredible magical city where walking or boat travel is the only form of transport.

A full day's train and plane travel saw us arrive in Copenhagen, Denmark for what was to become one of the most enjoyable parts of our holiday. We were met at the airport by Ulf Jorgensen who took us sight-seeing and beer drinking (something frequently enjoyed by all Danes) in Copenhagen prior to joining Lotte at their house where we stayed for the next four days. Denmark and Copenhagen is one of the most picturesque places we visited - from the beautiful stone and thatched straw roofed home of Ulf and Lotte to the lovely countryside and surrounding fishing villages where the local delicacy is fiskafrikadella and beer. The Danish people like to have fun and drink - Gamel Dansk (Old Danish Spirit) at breakfast time was a bit hard to get used to but my shopping expedition with Ulf where we bought a shopping trolley full of different Danish beers to drink was an experience to remember (especially drinking them later).

We travelled by ferry with Lotte and Ulf to Bornholm (a small Danish owned island off the coast of Poland) for the annual Bornholm all breeds dog show. The trip and the show was quite an experience. From here we caght a Ferry to Southern Sweden and travelled up to Northern Sweden in the arctic circle district where we stayed with Ingrid Moholm of New Fashion Afghan Kennels in a small village called Benvikken (about eight houses). As it was just after the middle of summer we were able to experience almost 24 hour daylight - not easy for sleeping but that did not seem to matter.

After Northern Sweden we travelled to Kolswa - a town about one hour from Stockholm - where I was to judge afghans at the Wastmaland Kennel Club annual Championship Show. Arrival at the showground on the Friday evening was an experience with judges being accomodated in the 300 year old mansion on the show grounds (rumor has it that the mansion is haunted by the ghost of a Viking gladiator who was thrown into the nearby river in full armour and drowned). The kennel club entertained all of the judges and partners in incredible style for the whole week-end.

Judging in Sweden is quite different from judging in Australia or America. There are some very noticeable differences:

Grading & Critiquing: Before placing any exhibits in a class the judge has to grade the dogs according to quality and then dictate a critique to a steward which is then written or typed up and handed to the exhibitor before leaving the ring. This critique should reflect the judges opinion of the exhibit and its graded quality - placing of the class follows critiquing.

Professionalism: The professionalism of most of the exhibitors in Sweden is quite different to the USA or Australia where there seems to be a large proportion of excellent handlers. Here they do not provide ring entrances or exits and the exhibitors must make their entrance under the ropes usually from all sides of the ring. Once the dogs are looked at as a group they usually disappear while individual judging takes place only re-appearing after numerous calls when it is their turn.

My entry of 45 afghans, considering that no baby puppies or puppies could be shown at this show, gave me the opportunity to make a reasonable overall assessment of the quality of the Swedish afghans. Their general quality is quite good with most of them being well constructed and sound but lacking the showmanship of their American and Australian counterparts. As with the American afghans I found them on average to be smaller than ours.

My best of breed winner was the extremely feminine black and silver bitch CH. SARINGA'S SET ME FREE who really showed her head off on the day. I learnt afterwards that this bitch was the number 2 afghan and number 1 afghan bitch in Sweden last year and is the current number 1 afghan in Sweden this year. Opposite sex went to a lightly masked red dog CH. ORIENTAL'S CREME DE LA CREME a very sound moving and well constructed dog. Dog CC went to a black and brindle ORIENTAL'S HANGOVER a nicely shaped dog who showed glimpses of style when moving. Bitch CC went to a brindle daughter of an Australian import (Ch. Khandhu Smoke Screen) KINGSLEAH SMOKE GETS IN YOUR EYES a very pretty bitch who moved with nice style. Special mention must also go to the R/U male the black masked red CH. KHAOS JOYSON and and the R/U bitch the black and silver CH. KHAOS A HELL OF A LADY who were both very nice specimens of the breed and pushed closely for higher awards.

After the show we stayed with Christina and Roger Aldrin of Khaos Kennels in Stockholm for a few day of sightseeing. At the invitation of Madeleine Van Rosen and her husband Janne who own my best of breed winner, we spent a day touring around the canals of Stockholm city and surrounding areas in their speed boat with a small group of Swedish afghan people - what an incredible day. We also visited one of the 11 fashion boutiques called "Champagne" in Stockholm all of which are owned by Janne, Madeleine and her brother George - more shopping temptation for Lyn.

Our trip was now virtually over and we commenced our long trek home from Stockholm via Amsterdam and Bankok direct to Sydney. Arrival home once again provided us with further time zone changes to get used to.