Bernese Mountain Dog CC Awards

Welcome to the section where we detail and give some summary analysis to all the CCs that have been won by Bernese in the UK and also give dates and judges of forthcoming appointments when available.

For anyone who may not know CCs, or to give them their full name Challenge Certificates are awarded to Bernese at Championship shows, either at most general ‘All Breeds’ or one of the  annual BMD Breed Club Championship shows. Please note a few General Championship Shows do not schedule CCs for our breed so always check if you are specifically travelling to see our breed – or any other breed for that matter. You also need to check which day our breed is scheduled for as not every group of dogs is present on every day, each just having one day when their group is featured. The judge or, occasionally at club shows, judges, will award a single CC to the best dog and a second one to the best bitch in breed at the show, one of these two will then be selected as BOB – Best of  Breed. The BOB does not count for any further reason though but this is the dog that will go through to the Working Group at a General Championship show and some of the larger Open Shows judged on a group system.

An individual dog requires 3 Challenge Certificates (from three different judges) to become a Champion. Every dog in the lists accessible from this page who has three or more CCs will be a UK Champion and their name will often be recorded in red on most pedigrees.

The chance to win one of these Certificates is the main reason why Championship shows garner much bigger entries than Open shows. They actually take the form of a card certificate with Kennel Club green trimmings signed by the judge and are often referred to as ‘tickets’ by the show fraternity – hence you will hear talk of the ‘dog ticket’ or ‘bitch ticket’ as well as ‘CC’. Just to be technically correct, the CC is not valid until it is confirmed by the Kennel Club and owner is sent a certificate from the KC. This also applies to the award of the title of Champion, it is not truly valid until the KC have confirmed it.

In order to be approved to award CCs to a breed judges have to go through a defined process involving such things as experience at lower level, attendance on specified courses, active assessment and breed club approval although the exact nature of this approval and the judges training process is currently being revised by the Kennel club and from 2024 will be known as the JEP, Judges Education Process, replacing the JDP (Judges Develop Programme) with the two systems currently running alongside each other giving people well into the older system chance to qualify. Details of this process can be gained from the BMD Breed Education CoOrdinator, or BEC, Emily English via education@bernese.co.uk

As you can see from the table below, CCs were first granted to Bernese in 1977 when there were just 6 sets awarded. Over the following years the number rose to 32 in the mid nineties and since then has fluctuated between that and 27. The way the KC allocates CCs and appoints judges is set to change and emerging from the delays and confusion that COVID restrictions have caused means things will take a while to settle. So, as we move more into the 2020s, we can only say ‘watch this space’ for future allocations to become clear. 2022 had some COVID delayed CCs added to the normal quota plus a bonus set awarded to the BMDC of GB to recognise our Golden Jubilee year. This set was one of the ones delayed by COVID from 2021 as well. For 2023 there are 30 sets of CCs announced, go to our 2023 events page for a list of shows and judges awarding CCs in 2023.

At the last major update, at the end of 2022, there had been 1,148 sets of BMD CCs awarded to Bernese since those first ones 45 years earlier. Those who have been around the breed for a few years will recall a few memories of dogs and people when looking through these lists and I hope people will find them interesting and enjoy browsing through them.

Steve Green

(BMDC of GB Webmaster January 2022)

Several lists featuring dogs, bitches, kennels and judges can be accessed from the links below but firstly, here is a simple year by year breakdown of the numbers of all the BMD Challenge Certificates issued to date from the first CCs in 1977.

The table below gives a breakdown of the distribution of CCs and the numbers of Champion BMDs, i.e. those with 3 or more CCs.

What is the point of CCs?

Of course in one sense CCs only relate to ‘show quality’ which many people have no interest in and many happy owners of a happy Bernese Mountain Dog have never been to a show. However, many people take showing very seriously and have little interest in any other activity such as the working side of the breed or fun events. From time to time some sections of the media have been very critical of the show world and showing is often seen as only relating to ‘beauty or appearance’ to the detriment of everything else. It is seen solely as promoting the breeding of exaggerated features in certain high profile, well documented breeds However, showing should also reflect soundness, temperament and where possible should overlap with certain visible aspects of breed health. The Kennel Club have been been strongly promoting this aspect for well over a decade now using campaigns with various tag lines, such as ‘Fit For Function, fit for life’, and judges are strongly reminded that they have to consider health aspects of every breed wherever this is relevant to the show ring.

The fact is that, rightly or wrongly, showing is probably still the single biggest activity that underpins most breeds, it still has a big impact on breeding choices which was the original function of the show world, fanciers coming together to check out each other’s stock in the only way they could. Breeding was much closely intertwined with shows but nowadays many breeders operate in total isolation and have never been to a show and have no knowledge of the breed outside their own small circle which cannot be a good thing. Also today there are other defined aspects for breeders to consider, such as DNA and other health related tests, but having an awareness of the breed is surely a good thing. Many people still like to have ‘lots of red’ (champions) on a pedigree and show wins, including CCs, do say something about the temperament, soundness and breed type of a dog. A regular show dog will enjoy the days at a show and be well socialised with people and other dogs as a result and the vast majority of dogs get very excited when they know they are getting ready to travel to a show. Almost all show dogs are also well balanced, confident pets whose life’s are enhanced by their show experiences irrelevant of whether they win or lose.

A few extracted Figures

From the links below you can access lots of different tables showing the biggest wining dogs and bitches, the highest achieving kennels over the years, a complete list of all CC winners, a complete list of all judges who have awarded BMD CCs and which dogs each of them awarded their CCs to as well as an historical list of judges and CC winners at our club Championship Show and Crufts. Finally there is a complete chronological list of all 45 plus years of BMD Championship shows.

The show by show calendar list of CC winners should be updated regularly but the summary lists will only be recalculated from time to time with the latest show included in the figures being stated within the section.

Looking at the list of all CC winning dogs you can see that the highest number of CCs won by any Bernese is 54 by Carole Hartley-Mair’s Champion Meadowpark High Class (Milo) between late 2015 and mid 2019 just pipping former record holder Michelle Gurney’s bitch Champion Monalou Nelly Pledge whose total is even more remarkable for a bitch who took time out to have three litters. In addition to his CCs the impressive Milo collected an unprecedented, by any Bernese, run of  group and Best In Show wins. Moving down the list of the most CC winners there are then 5 more males before the next bitch, which at 36 CCs less, further highlights the achievements of Nelly Pledge who won her CCs between 2002 and 2009.

Moving down the all time CC winners list in third place is Julie Vaughan’s Champion Carlacot Fido on 34 CCs who was the long time breed record holder winning his CCs between 1986 and 1993. Another well known dog of his day is next, the late Pam Aze’s Champion Forgeman Footpad who won 30 CCs between 1981 and 1990. 26 CCs were won by Nicola Jeffries’ Ch Viking’s Dark Billy Majigs (1990-95) followed by Julie Baldwin’s Ch Fortonpark Its Otto (2004-2006) and another Meadowpark, namely Meadowpark Vertigo (2014-2017), both on 19 CCs in joint sixth place. Only then in eighth place do we come to the second bitch in the top ten Mick and Julie Bramble and Shirley King’s Ch Shirdees Star of Wonder on 18 CCs (between 2004 – 2008). The top ten is completed by a dog and a bitch in joint ninth place with 17 CCs, namely Teresa and Stephen Nightingale’s Ch Manisla Ebony Dusk (2008 – 2014) and Ch Meadowpark Whispers Breeze (2012 -2014).

(Just to be clear, all dates given are the years of each dog’s first and last CC).

The list of Kennel bred CC winning dogs also has Meadowpark at the top of the list with a distinct gap to the followers namely Monalou and Fortonpark, the list shows numbers of CCs and the number of CC winning dogs bred by each kennel.

When it comes to the lists of judges you can either view a list of all judges to date and how many shows they have judged or you can view a list of every appointment for each judge and see who their winners were.

Updated Lists

Click on the links below to view the corresponding lists.

Please note that the Master Calendar List of All BMD CCs will always be updated first and will therefore always be the most up to date, this is the list that will also end with forthcoming appointments as announced to date. The various analyses and extractions from it will not always be as up to date as this list but the last show taken into account should be indicated at the top of each list.

Complete Calendar order list of ALL BMD CCs  1977 to present day

All Individual CC Winners combined and split into dogs and bitches

CCs Winners Bred by Kennel

CC Winners at Crufts and Our Club Championship Show

Complete Record of All Judges awarding of CCs