STATEMENT 12th November 2021

On Tuesday 26th October, at the meeting of the BDS Council, it was unanimously agreed to revoke Gary Docking’s membership of the Society due to repeated and sustained breaches of the ‘Guidelines on Ring Etiquette (for Judges, & Owners/Exhibitors)’, in particular in relation to the use of social media. All our panel judges including Mr Docking, sign an acceptance form each year agreeing to adhere to these guidelines.

In particular the guidelines, which were introduced a number of years ago & last amended early 2019, state “SOCIAL MEDIA: A judge must not express his/her views on specific animals/exhibitors/judges or their judgement via any form of social media via the internet.

The BDS had been in communication with Mr Docking about the issues for a number of months.

This is a very sad outcome, which was only reached when all other options to reach a satisfactory conclusion were exhausted.