Monthly Archives: April 2023

“Firstly, I would like to say a BIG thank you for the invite to judge this club show, which now makes this a complete set of all Scandinavian Bullmastiff club shows I have had the pleasure of judging.

Just a little insight into my past (in dogs that is ) I showed my first Bullmastiff in 1988 and that was it, the competitiveness in me started. Although he was firstly bought as a pet & family dog, he did well at the local shows. I watched, studied and asked lots of questions, I know, you can’t believe me talking to anybody but, plenty of people helped and gave advice. Anyway, a year later a bitch that I had admired was due to be mated to a dog who I really liked, so I asked if I could be considered for a male puppy. Luckily, I was offered the second pick male after the breeder, who had already chosen hers. The day came for me to go and pick my one, we went to the kennels to make our choice, when all the puppies came running in, one stood out for me as all bar one came running over to greet us, one just looked at us with his nose in the air and walked around sniffing and doing his own thing in his own time before making his way over to us to grace us with his presence. I whittled it down to two males, this one and a slightly bigger stronger male, but loved this boys attitude and he dared me to pick anybody else. “That’s it, that’s the one I want” I said to his breeder, “ok, he’s yours” he replied “and by the way, the other boy is the one I’m keeping”.

We took him home and he just walked in as if he owned the place from day one, I like to watch a dog before naming them, so after a few days he had a pet name “Alf” as he was an “Arrogant little F*r” and his kennel name Dajean Red Dragon, that’s where it all really started for me. Moving it a long, my first Big major win with him was Best of Breed at Crufts, then later that year winning a working group that had around 7000 working dogs entered on the day and finished Top Bullmastiff that year.

He went on to become the Top dog for 3 years on the trot and a Top stud dog. Him and is litter sister became the Top winning brother and sister of all time until a few years ago now, so I wasn’t a bad breeding a?

Well, thats how it all started.

I started judging over 25 years ago now after being asked by some of my elders and I’ve been fortunate enough to have judged all over the world including breed club shows in America, Australia, New Zealand, they majority of the European & Scandinavian countries and just recently was the first British judge to be asked to judge the Top 25 at the American National last year, which was a great
honour.

So I look forward to coming to Sweden and going over your dogs.

Thank you,
Grant”