I've been in the Toronto area for the last 4 days, visiting with friends in anticipation for this week's Canadian National (Sept 20/21st). Best of luck to all the exhibitors! On another note I've been watching a few DVDs from past Canadian Nationals - last year's with Sue, Karin and Frank .....such wonderful judging and a very good education to watch and re-watch the dogs and listen to the critiques. Awesome... I also re-watched one of my favorite Canadian Nationals - I believe the year was 2006, with Morton Golfarb, Nancy Harper Mulvaney an Lee Brown. Three wonderful voices from the south who clearly share what they see - what they know! I recommend people contact John Gibbons and order a copy of it. It occurred to me after watching Morton Judge Specials on the tape just how valuable a tool this is in preparation for his judging of the U.S. Nationals next month. He's so consistent - so thorough - and so much of what he writes about is exactly what comes to be in the ring...that natural, slow, easy, suspended trot he mentors us on - that correct German Shepherd Dog gait....those that performed as such were the animals who left the ring at the top of the line - with their names forever in our history books! In my opinion it's not too late to train your class bitches to slow it down a few few notches! Don't we all want to see them gait this way too? I'm not sure what inspired this little tangent - I imagine it was the education these DVDs contain - thanks to all judges who take the time to teach us something...."and the crowd called out for more"....! jack ============================================================================ POST is Copyrighted 2012. All material remains the property of the original author and of GSD Communication, Inc. NO REPRODUCTIONS or FORWARDS of any kind are permitted without prior permission of the original author AND of the Showgsd-l Management. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Each Author is responsible for the content of his/her post. This group and its administrators are not responsible for the comments or opinions expressed in any post. ALL PERSONS ARE ON NOTICE THAT THE FORWARDING, REPRODUCTION OR USE IN ANY MANNER OF ANY MATERIAL WHICH APPEARS ON SHOWGSD-L WITHOUT THE EXPRESS PERMISSION OF ALL PARTIES TO THE POST AND THE LIST MANAGEMENT IS EXPRESSLY FORBIDDEN, AND IS A VIOLATION OF LAW. VIOLATORS OF THIS PROHIBITION WILL BE PROSECUTED. For assistance, please contact the List Management at admin@xxxxxxxxxxx VISIT OUR WEBSITE - http://showgsd.org SUBSCRIPTION:http://showgsd.org/mail.html NATIONAL BLOG - http://gsdnational.blogspot.com/ ============================================================================