International News Round-up from Finland by Roz Davies
Three UK Curly owners with connections in Finland flew out for the Finnish Curly Club weekend camp, and to attend the World Dog Show.
The Curly activities started on Thursday Aug 7 at the Helsinki Conference Centre with what are referred to as World Dog Show Circuit shows. These are hosted by WDS for Speciality (Championship) shows for Breed Clubs or, in our case, the Finnish Retriever Club. CCR’s were judged by Patsy Hollings and the Group judge was Richard Bott. Elaine Robinson was on the Retriever Club of Finland’s stewarding team. You will know Elaine and Anthony, involved in showing and working CCRs since 1985. Anthony had great successes in Working Tests with 5 full champions. They both awarded CC’s and Elaine judged dogs at the World Congress 2018 and Crufts 2019. Their first dog from Finland’s Tiina Illukka was CH Caballus Grand Slam, beginning their long term friendship.
The results can be found here
From Thursday participants from Europe, UK and USA moved to the Finnish Curly Coated Retriever camp at Espoo. The Hotel was home for the next two day’s activities.
Friday was the CCR Open Show judged in the grounds of the hotel by Iris Andre
The evening started with a lecture titled: Finnish tools for breeding healthy and good-temperament curlies. Then there was a very special party. This was hosted by Tuomas Illukka, husband of Tiina who was celebrating her 70th birthday on that day. Tiina Illukka is judging the CCR Club Championship Show in 2026. Her connection to Curlies and the history and development of the breed can be found here Tiina’s Caballus CCRs have been hugely influential in the breed, here and abroad.
There was a fairly early start for Saturday’s Working Tests in the grounds of the hotel which was situated to the side of a most beautiful lake. Working Tests are considered at least as important as conformation showing. First up were Beginners Judged by Iris Andre, then Jackie Evans of Rowancurl judged the Blinds element of the tests for the Advanced entries with Judge Kerolain Filimonova.
Jackie’s first curly, from Gladrags was in 1985, and she has shown and worked on shoots picking up for many years, and as a Committee Member of Mid Wales Gundog Club has run working tests and been part of their demonstration teams at Game Fairs.
Sunday was back to the Helsinki Conference Centre. Overall there were more than 23,000 dogs at the WDS over the 3 days. CCRs started at 09.00 with judge Rosa Agostini. The Results can be found here
I have seen some live videos from this show; if you don’t understand what is happening in the challenges, don’t worry, nor did anyone else including the stewards, and not just in our ring. In a twist to normal FCI rules, the challenges brought in different qualifiers than the usual FCI lineup. The next World Dog Show is early June, in Bologna, Italy 2026.
If you want to start planning an international CCR holiday, in 2026 the Curly World Seminar is hosted by the Danish CCR Club and takes place in August. There will be Official Working Tests and a Conformation Show and many other activities at Feddet Strand Camping in Southern Zealand. It will be a truly multi-national event and an opportunity to actually meet and greet many friends and their Curlies.

Beginners

Jackie Evans Judging Report
Jackie’s had Curlies since 1985, her first were Gladrags Dictator and Gladrags Diplomat. She has worked her dogs since the mid 1990’s and won the CCRC Working Test in 1999. Her affix is Rowancurl.
The day was split into Beginners in the morning and Advanced in the afternoon. In both Iris Andre judged the water retrieves, Jackie the blinds/memories, and Kerolain Filimonova the walk ups. Jackie told us…
The beginners test was to encourage and give confidence to dogs and handlers.
A memory retrieve. Walk at heel on leash to a post 10 m and sit dog, drop the leash leave the dog and walk away to the edge of long grass and handler to throw a dummy in line with a large birch tree approximately 5 metres into the cover. Walk back to the dog and heel to the start. Sit dog and remove leash. Send dog. Whistle and verbal commands allowed to help dog achieve the test.

Afternoon was advanced dogs.
A blind was put out in the wood in line with a large rock. Duck caller used to let the dog know the area which was at a 90degree to the start post. A marked long retrieve was thrown into a woodland clearing. The dog had to go straight out over a small ditch to find the dummy and return in a straight line present dummy to hand. Then handler sent dog for the blind.

All dogs worked well. A few typical thinking curlies decided to curve out and run along a mown path avoiding jumping the ditch away from the area and turn back to the woodland clearing which caused them to lose the line where the dummy had landed.
It was fun. All the dogs wanted to work and it was a pleasure to watch.