So the Vaseline worked! Canyon no longer did his little cantering walk, and moved perfectly around the ring.
The judge checked over both boys very thoroughly and in the end it came down to the difference in size between Canyon and the other boy. As I’ve mentioned before, Canyon is slightly smaller than most male golden retrievers, so if a judge has to look to the breed standard for their decision, then canyon always loses.
when Huib came back to where I was sitting, the woman in front of us turned and said she would have totally picked Canyon over the other male. It turns out that this woman is a golden retriever breeder, so we’ll assume she knows what she’s talking about 😉
We’re not sure what show we’ll attend next, but it’ll probably be in February or march since the weather tends to be pretty bad in January.