14 Breed Notes – March 2026

Joan Miles has asked me to let you know that Geraldine Clark has drawn a very good entry of 50 dogs making 51 entries for the Championship show on 4th April at Roade Village Hall. The Committee looks forward to welcoming you to the show which will open at 9 am, with judging starting at 10 am. Bacon rolls and egg rolls will be available in the morning and a choice of hot food will be available at lunchtime. Contributions of cakes and raffle prizes will be gratefully received.

This leads me neatly onto the latest edition of the Kennel Club Journal, where the RKC have published the latest CC allocation – entry rolling averages. Given is the 2025 average entry and 4 year rolling average (2022-2025), providing an indication of what these average entries could mean for the CC allocation in the future (although this will not be reviewed until January 2027). These figures will act as a guide to breed clubs on the direction of potential future CC allocation.

Keeshonds had an average of 31.04 dogs entered in 2025 with the previous 4 year average being 34.31 – not much of a decline you might say. But the 2025 figures were massively skewed by the entry for the Anniversary Ch show where 83 Keesies had entered. Remove this show entry from the equation and the entry average for 2025 is a more realistic 27.56 dogs. To put this into context, average Keesie entries at CC Shows between 2015-2019 were 43.81 and that was when we were getting around 100 puppies born each year. With fewer than 60 dogs born annually in the last couple of years (and none so far this year) entries are only going to get worse.

I did write in my D&G notes at the end of the year that out of the twenty-five sets of CC’s keesies have annually, in 2025, 12 Ch judges had 20 or fewer Keesies present, with the choice of judge often being the determining factor, not the location. Only 7 Ch shows (which includes Crufts and the 4 club shows) attracted entries of over 30 dogs and that we need to lose at least half our CC allocation.

Our allocation is fairly evenly spread geographically; with 9 Ch shows in the Midlands area (Manchester, Crufts, B’ham National, Keeshond Club with B’ham City, Richmond, Midland Counties, BUBA & LKA) 8 Ch shows ‘up North’ (SUBA, SKC, Border Union, Blackpool, Leeds, NoEKC with Darlington & the NoEKC) leaving 8 ‘down South’ (Keeshond Club, WELKS, Bath, Southern Counties, Windsor, Paignton, WKC and SWKA)

There are no Ch shows in February, 1 in both January & March, 2 in July, August, October-December, 3 in April- June and 4 in September with the 2 club’s both holding partnership shows.

What are your views on which shows, and how many, we need to lose? If no suggestions are put to the KC by the breed clubs, then decisions will be made on our behalf – which won’t necessarily be what we want. Given that there are so few of us exhibiting, now is the chance to have your say – or forever hold your peace!!

Anji Marfleet