The FCI European Dog Show

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258 – October, 2026

By Anna Szabó

Wow. I really don’t know how else to start this report than just, “Wow.”

This year, it was the SKK (Swedish Kennel Club) who organized the FCI European Dog Show, and didn’t they just put an incredible show together. Incredibly competent and helpful staff to assist exhibitors, visitors, judges and press. Halls and parking so clean you would have had a hard time finding a piece paper on the floor, even during peak hours. An understated yet really beautiful and impressive Best in Show ring, perfectly drawn up schedule and system of pre-judging / judging the finals of two simultaneously run shows (the Swedish Winner Show was held on the same dates in Stockholmsmässan’s Hall C) and a superb judges list. If only the dates were just a month later, the overall entry could have been considerably higher: the first weekend of September is unfortunately just too close to summer, when most dogs are out of coat and most people haven’t yet recovered financially from having spent significant amounts of their savings on holidays / summer shows. Ample marketing would have also helped to boost the entries, even though the Swedish are not at all a loud, self- promoting nation.

Despite the entries on the lower side numerically, the overall quality of breed winners in the finals was outstanding and the Best in Show lineup was certainly the strongest I’ve seen for many years now. Not often do we think nowadays, ‘Well, this is an impossible lineup to choose a winner from’. Thank you to the breed and group judges for having allowed quality to shine. It was very refreshing.

Our Best in Show judge was none other than Annika Ulltveit-Moe, a Norwegian living in Sweden, and a beyond-talented master breeder and judge. Any breeds she touches turns into gold, quite literally. She has bred or owned high profile champions in numerous breeds, and has been especially notable for her American Cocker Spaniels, English Springers, Lhasas–and more recently for her Dandie Dinmont Terriers. She is one of the world’s most experienced and travelled judges, and she is a brilliant mentor to up-and-coming judges, as well. She is a wonderful cook, too ! To pay homage to her Scandinavian heritage, she decided to wear a traditional Norwegian folk costume, a ‘bunad’, for this once-in-a-lifetime appointment. And didn’t she just look magnificent!

Click here to read the complete article
258 – October, 2026

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Posted by AnthonyA on Oct 24 2026. Filed under Current Articles, Featured. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.