LES MONTAGNES SERBES

OD SRPSKIH PLANINA

CONTINUATION OF THE TRAVEL N° 10

As I already mentioned in the travel nr 10, we visited 2 dog exhibitions, the first one was with the CACIB award, and the second was with the CAC award. The first one took place at Kostolac, a town which is downstream the river Danube. It is situated in the middle of coal region. The judge was Mr Dragan Janjic. 18 Sarplaninci were registered and what astonished me the most was the strong presence of the wellknown breeders of our breed : Mrs Vesna Bojovic, Mr Matorcevic, Orasanin, Perakovic, Gvozdenovic, Milic, Toth … I did not make any pictures of the young males. The best young female was Ami od Ljubomira. She was very tall and strong, but I didn’t like her head that much, her snout was too long that resembled a ram’s, with a pigmentation of visible mucous membrane which was not the best and weak loose lips. In the open class of the male dogs, the following dogs were exhibited : Gari-Korab, father of Zoro-Bucko, whom we saw at the married couple Skipic-Bojovic, Cer-Meda Marsoniski, owned by Mrs Bojovic, Don od Vuka, Grizli fod Pece and Roky SU-Ringa.

The victory of Cer-Meda Marsoniski in this class was justified, but I can not sustain not to mention the bad placement of his ears, very slanting croup and a middle ranged skeleton.

Gari-Korab on the other hand, had a much stronger skeleton but the back line, the angles, his posture, his movements and temperament were rather catastrophic ! The mark «Excellent 3» surprised his owner very much, he was used to seeing him getting the first place but only while the dog was owned by Mr Skipic.   Don od Vuka, the son of Roki-Soko, was very long and with a light skeleton, he got the fourth place.

Grizli od Pece, owned by a Polish man, was a very tall dog and was a minimum of 80 cm. I liked the dog but he didn’t walk very well. He came second.

Roky SU-Ringa, the son of Dingo-Ben, was very tall, with long legs and with a downwards backline and a nearly female looking head, came last.

Jogi od Pece and Golf od Vuka were in the champion class. Jogi od Pece was in the front of Golf who still had a very juvenile look.

Jogi had a bad posture of back legs and walked badly.

The CACIB was awarded to Cer-Meda Marsoniski, but in my mine opinion the best dog was Golf od Vuka.

Among the females, the winner was Biba, owned by Zlatko Perakovic.

Look at the posture of the ears and unsatisfactory free behaviour. The second place went to the nice bitch Malena, owned by Cvetko Milic.

When I look back at all these pictures, I think that the quality of our breed has increased, despite the unfortunate manipulations. A number of the dogs became national champions : Cer-Meda Marsoniski, Don od Vuka, Biba.

The Second exhibition was in Cacak, a town on river Zapadna Morava, in the hart of the Sumadija district. Mr Skipic was the judge and I was his apprentice. Only 11 Sarplaninac were registered. In the open class of the males, there was a Bleki, bread by Mr Sobek, Don od Vuka and Bak bread by Mr Steva Jovic.

Mr Obrad Skipic insisted so much that the Sarplaninac should have a short body, that in the moment of grading and due to my presence, he felt obliged to give the first place to this Bleki, who obviously never managed to achieve such a result again, and he was extremely short !

The second place and RCAC went to Bak. Look at his light skeleton and highly placed ears !

Don od Vuka was third and Mr Orasanin, was so upset that he didn’t want to take Golf in the champion class, although he was so good looking. Don was too long, as you can see on the picture, he had a modest skeleton and a strange colour. I asked myself if the mark «very good» was better suited to reality.

Golf has not achieve full maturity yet, but at least he had no defaults and had a very nice head.

There were no females. Anyhow we made pictures of Baks’ mother Alisa, the champion of Yugoslavia. The owner of Alisa, Mr Jovic made a big announcement in the magazine Zov» when she got the first place, I think it was in Austria. Maybe she wasn’t in good shape because of her change in fur, but she failed to impress me.

In between visits to the kennels, exhibitions, cousins and friends we walked around Belgrade. Here are a few pictures of the center of town and other parts :

Terazije.

Knez Mihaljova street (from the Prince Michael-Obrenovic) which is one of the main shopping streets, which is also the main walking street where you can see all the youth until midnight and later

Belgrade by night and an airplane view on the Federal Parlament building.

Next time we will take you to visit the kennel of Mr Petar Sobek, breeder of Sarplaninac.