Erikoisnäyttely 2025

Regards from judge Charlotte Höier

It was with great excitement I went to Finland to judge the third specialty for Broholmers held by the Finnish Broholmer society.

 I have been very interested in the breed for many years and have had the privilege to judge four times at the famous Broholm Castle Show.

From these shows I knew that Broholmers have a big “fan Club” in Finland as there always come in a bus full of Broholmers to this show.

 I was impressed by the number of entries at the specialty, 37 Broholmers. The biggest entry so far at your specialty. What a great number and far more than we have at our all-breed shows in Denmark.

My stay was cozy and well organized, and I could not have asked for better help in the ring. Minna as a writer and Miia as steward. I felt like fish in water and talking about water. The show was dry with no rain, until we had finished the judging. Impressive luck as the weather forecast wasn’t the best.

I looked very much forward to see the quality of the Broholmers in Finland. I have judged Finnish Broholmers at the Broholm castle show and at all breed shows in Finland and always thought that the Finnish breeders had a good feeling about the breed and knew what they wanted.

Broholmers are a lot about fronts and heads. That’s where you have the type, so I was really looking for the typical fronts and the typical head and expression when I was judging. You may perhaps have noticed that the standard has been changed in May 2025. I would recommend that you read the last version. Some details have been highlighted.  F.ex. is it now stated that the Broholmers must have a Distinct knee angulation. We have through the years seen many Broholmers with very narrow upper thighs and very little angulation in hind legs. The new addition doesn’t mean the Broholmers should be angulated as a German Shepherd, but we have seen many Broholmers with very poor hind angulations and cow hooked hind movements.

I was happy to see that most of the dogs at the show had correct hindlegs and I didn’t see a single dog with very cow hocked hind movements. A few of the young dogs was slightly narrow behind and could be more parallel seen from behind but nothing compared to what I am used to see when I judge the breed.

The new version of the standard also state that the Broholmer isn’t a square built dog. And there are a few other things highlighted in the new version, which is worth reading.

At the show there was a few dogs with incorrect head type. Something I would describe as a coarse Rhodesian Ridgeback head or a head like a Retriever/Great Dane cross. The same dogs which had incorrect head types was also too narrow in fronts.

Tails – the never-ending story. A bad tail curled over the back or carried far too high over the topline of the dog as a sword, really disturb the whole outline of the dog a lot. We have bad tails in many breeds, and it is not an easy thing to get rid of, but I really would ask you to pay attention to awful tails in your breeding. If you aren’t strict with tails the problem will never disappear.

To put a long story short. I wasn’t disappointed with most of the dogs at the show. There were many really good Broholmers of high quality at the show. My BOB and BOS are both Broholmers of extremely high quality where you can choose one of them for BOB at one show and the other for BOB at the next show.

It also impressed me a lot that there were no less than 6 puppies from the same litter entered in the puppy classes. I call this commitment to get so many owners interested in showing. The puppyies was of really good quality and it is always nice when the dogs entered in the puppy and junior classes is of high quality. This is good for the future of the breed.

I had many very nice juniors but want to mention Good Mind’s Your Grace Amélie Lundahl as one I see is going to have a very promising future. She is so much Broholmer and when she is 3-4 years and a full mature Broholmer bitch I would so much like to see her again.

Good Mind’s Call me Mama Quilla and Good Mind’s Call Me Madonna both from champion class bitches was bitches of very high class.

The breeder’s class from Good Mind’s was a class of dogs very true to type. I can see that this is a kennel which really has the right “grip” in the breed and understand what a Broholmers “must have” is all about. Please continue the good work for the breed.

Thank you for inviting me to this very exciting show and thank you for accepting my decisions with such great sportsmanship. I wish the Finnish breeders all the best of luck in the future with this historic Danish breed.

Charlotte Høier