Page 20 - ShowSight Presents The Bichon Frise

!"#$%&$'()*'+%,)-&'./%0*
!s you stand in the ring with your judge’s book and pen in hand and check off each armband, youfinditisabitdiffi- cult to keep your mind on the paperwork requirements without moving your eyes downward to catch a glimpse of the stunning, joyous parade propelling themselves into the ring with an exhibitor attempting to get some bit of control from their entry. It’s an instant feel-good moment. ‘Well’, you smile to yourself, ‘this ought to be fun!’ And, I promise you, it will be.
You may be fairly new to this breed, as well as new to dogs with an abundance of coat, but your eyes have long been trained to see and evaluate leg movement. As you take them around the ring to the exam- ining table, you watch to see which ones display equal distance of reach in the front and matching rear. Your experience also tells you that you can have equal front and rear leg extension—and still not get anywhere. This style dog has reach in front that never gets out from under his chin, but—Glory-B—the rear has the same stretch! That means the dog is balanced, doesn’t it? There’s good balance, under balanced and over balanced. A Bichon was once the circus trick dog and as such must have a healthy reach and drive that will propel him agilely toward his goal. They want and should move right along, but not as if the Devil himself is chasing them with evil intent. It is NOT a race of speed, but a pace to get where they need to be efficiently—and then be ready for the next cool thing asked of them.
You probably didn’t get to see the hall- mark of the breed, the face and head as they were coming in and going around, but on the examining table, you can quickly and breathlessly have your heart stolen right out of your body as you look in those sweet faces. At this point you’re probably saying, 206 • SHOWSIGHT MAGAZINE, JUNE 2014
“I have GOT to have one of these at home so I can look at that face all day long!” If the correct head and face is not main- tained, the breed will totally lose its indi- viduality, appeal and a good bit of its pur- pose as a companion dog. So, let’s begin a thorough study of what we should see in this cloud of white and prominent black portions arranged so pleasingly.
The Bichon is not a narrow, elongated dog with refined bone. It is a sturdy dog, with sound bone and a solid body. There- fore, the head should equal the density of the body. In other words, it is a rather broad head to allow the pleasing picture of two extremely bright, dark eyes to be able to look forward on a skull that is wide enough to allow the eyes to lay on the face without having to curve a bit around the too narrow skull. The eyes are totally on the front of the face—this is important. They are dark and round and have a natu- ral (Hum, well...) dark halo on the skin surrounding the eye and eye rims that have a dark unbroken rim. Sometimes, an extremely round-eyed dog will have a bit of a bulge to his eyeball. The Bichon does not—please! The roundness of the Bichon eye is not Coke-bottle round, but is much softer. The skull is rounded slightly and is greater in width and depth than the muzzle. Actually, the muzzle is short, and with the coat parted on the bridge of the nose, with usually some wispy hairs stick- ing out and up, will look even shorter. A good balance of skull to muzzle is not half as much muzzle as skull, but a bit less in length of muzzle. Or, as the Standard says: ...three parts muzzle to five parts skull. How ever your brain visualizes things, the point being made here is—it is not a 50-50 balance. There is a stop and not just a hint of a sloping indentation. The skull doesn’t slide down into the muzzle. And, the muz- zle width and depth, while not the same circumference of the skull, must match the apparent fullness of the skull and not
be narrow, snippy or chinless. The nose is somewhat prominent and very, very black. The lips are also black, thus giving a pro- nounced contrast of black and white. With the ears placed slightly above the eyes and being very flexible, they can swing forward at attention and give the most beautiful frame to the sweetest face at the dog show.
Now that you have the head in your mind’s image, how do you determine if that skull is wide and rounded and the ears are not too high, or too low and houn- dy. Yes, you can put your hand in all of that coat to feel. It is incumbent of you to find and reward the proper structure. The exhibitor can and will fluff it back up before the down and back. Please allow just a few seconds for this repair. It is much easier to judge a dog that looks good than it is to have to judge a totally disheveled one. The Bichon coat is double and there- fore, an adult coat should merely shake back into place.
The coat texture is certainly not like a Maltese, Havanese, Löwchen, Poodle, etc., other than as some of these breeds, it has a soft undercoat and it is that undercoat
!"#$%%#&'#()*+%# !+)),)+-./012134+-56,7)