Grifón de Bruselas"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder "

This age old adage is so very true of judging dogs. What pleases one person displeases another. For my part, the very first thing I look for in a dog is a firm topline, from which stems balance. At our judging teach in I held my demonstration Griffon by its tail and also firmly under the chin and hung the dog from its topline. It was firm and straight, no hump and no dip. This is as a topline should be in a Griffon. I have always been taught that a dog should hang from its topline, though when being taught this it was not meant literally, the object of the demonstration was to accentuate this point. A weak topline will never be able to hod itself leve if the dog is held fore and aft.
So having assessed the topline and balance as I view the dog on the table I move round to the head. Without a type head the dog might not be a Griffon! A dog may be short and cobby, but without type is it a Griffon? Being a breeder I have a fetish or two:
* On my males I like broad massive brow and skull with large dark eyes shining out with large black nose pad. The Griffon standard used to list "dudley" noses as a fault.
* Then the line of the black lipped underjaw. This is the same in the roughs as in the smooths.
Even if the dog is whiskered these are points which will always be clearly visible. The females do not usually have quite such broad brows, but even so the sides of the head should be slightly rounded and not flat and straight back as are found in so many of today´s Griffons. The standard does say that the Griffon´s head should be large in comparison to body. The head does go on developing right up until the dog is about four years of age. However even at the pup stage the head should never really appear to be too small. I can forgive a bit of length to nose provided it is tilted back. I can forgive too large an ear provided it is used. I cannot really forgive lack of pigmentation around the eyes and this appears in black coated Griffons as well as the red coated ones. The lack of pigment detracts from the dog´s expression. I do not like a narrow jaw.
Having assessed the head I then let my eye drop down to look at the hang of the front legs and bone thereon. In the mature dog the chest line between the front legs should be reasonably level and even coming on a line just below the elbow, on a puppy the chest line may rise slightly in the centre, but not a definite inverted "V", and it will usually be on a line with the elbow allowing it the room to "drop" slight as it matures. Viewed from the front the elbows should be tucked in. There should be no light under the armpit. At this time one can then inspect the feet for compactness.
Side view again and study shoulder placement. The leg should appear straight from the ground to the elbow, then the forearm should be angled forward and the shoulder then angled backward. In this way you will find there in a good free forward movement of the dog. There will also be a brisket and the elbows will properly set into the sides. Some dogs do not have enough angulation from the elbow, and the forearm tends to go up too straight, even though there may be good angulation from the forearm to the shoulder. It is when these angles are wrong that the front movement becomes either stilted, or impaired in some way.
The chest should be well sprung leading into a short loin which in turn leads into the croup. Although there should be some "tuck up", as the loin should be thick, the whole of the dog´s body should rather look like a barrel and as one, not in two parts with a chest, a gap and then the rear.
As the tail should emerge at the right angles to the top line this is something which is easy to see in a smooth, but in a rough it is necessary to just quickly feel beneath a full rough coated! You may be surprised to find that the tail is lower set that it looks on the surface. Then the rear and whole hindquarters. If a Griffon is to appear cobby then is not just the chest which should be wide and deep, but the rear end should also be of substance. It is of necessity lighter looking than the front, nevertheless there should be some width to the buttocks. The rear legs should be well muscled at the thighs and the stifle bent with the hocks low to the ground.
Then one comes to the coat which is the icing on the cake. I have noticed that sometimes judges have not taken much notice of either the colour or the texture of the rough coats, perhaps there are not enough good "cakes" around to take much notice of the icing, or maybe the cakes are sufficiently outstanding in their own right. When I first became acquainted with Griffons the icing seemed to be as important as the cake, and unless the Griffon was presented in the correct coat, neither blown nor skin tight, it would not get to the top. Mind you in those days there were only about twelve sets of CC´s and not the temptation to try and keep the coat going for too long. Smooths, of course, are always ready to go into the ring and in this respect have an unfair advantage, however they do not always have a fair deal over the attraction of the whiskered variety!
Movement, last but by no means least. If whilst the dog is on the table you feel lightly down the back legs for the muscling, and you find one leg has bigger muscle than the other, you will immediately know that the dog has "favoured" that leg at some time. It might even now be still "favouring" it. Watch the movement carefully, don´t let your eyes deceive you, if you felt different muscles then you should seek conformation of the fact in movement!
If the set on hips is correct the rear legs should not walk narrow. The legs should hang down either side and walk parallel to each other, more or less covering the front legs when viewed directly from behind. They should move freely and with drive and preferable not stiffly. Fluidity of movement is beautiful to watch. No pin toeing of flapping of the front legs please.
The old standard used to mention faults and his was most useful as it put and emphasis on those points in the breed which were really not at all liked, nowadays without the mention of faults all judging has to be on good points only without any mention of what is highly undesirable there is no yardstick excepting on good type. Perhaps an interesting topic for discussion?.