Experience from the other side of the clipboard

Camilla has been active in IGP since 2006 and has served as an international FCI IGP judge since 2017. Her published profile records nine IDC World Championship appearances with four different dogs, participation at the 2024 FCI World Championship and a national IGP championship.

That background matters. She knows the sport as a judge, but she also knows it as the person walking onto the field with a dog she has prepared herself. A three-phase result can look tidy on paper. Getting there is rarely tidy. It takes years of selection, training, setbacks, rebuilding and showing up again.

A judge with real competition mileage understands the weight of that work. It does not lower the standard. It gives the standard context.

The Dobermann makes her story different

The Dobermann is not always the obvious choice in modern IGP. Camilla did not treat that as a reason to lower the ambition. She built her work around the breed through Kennel Diragos and kept taking those dogs into serious international competition.

The kennel’s public record lists 19 IDC World Championship starts by 11 individual dogs. One exceptional dog can happen. Different dogs reaching that level over time point to something deeper: a repeatable body of work.

Her public training philosophy grew out of that experience. She describes a system built on relationship-based communication and clear rules, while preserving energy and cooperation between dog and handler. The aim is not a flat, mechanical picture. It is a team that remains alive while the work stays clear.

Training philosophy is not a score sheet

There is an important distinction here. A judge applies the FCI IGP rules; she does not score teams according to a private training system. Camilla’s training philosophy should therefore not be read as a forecast of individual marks at CACIT KZN 2026.

It does, however, show what she has spent years learning to read: clarity, energy, control and the relationship between dog and handler. IGP becomes difficult precisely because these things have to exist together. Precision without life is empty. Drive without control is unfinished.

One judge. Three phases. Every level.

Camilla is the main judge for the full event. She will assess teams from IGP 1 through to IGP 3 in Tracking, Obedience and Protection. That gives the weekend continuity. A team cannot be understood from one spectacular exercise or one strong phase alone. The complete result has to hold together.

Why the international appointment matters

South African IGP needs more than local enthusiasm. It needs chances to place local work in front of judges who operate across borders and who see different dogs, training systems and competition fields. That creates a useful benchmark.

The value is not that an international opinion is automatically better. The value is comparison. Newer handlers get to see the standard applied in practice. Experienced teams find out where their work stands. Clubs take those lessons back into training. The sport gets more honest.

Camilla’s appointment also gives CACIT South Africa – KZN 2026 the standing of a genuinely international event rather than a local trial wearing an international label.

Use this event as a starting line

Not every handler reading this will be entered at KZN. That does not make the weekend irrelevant. Follow the scores. Watch how the leaderboard moves from phase to phase. Look past the final total and see where teams gained ground, where points slipped away and how the complete performance was built.

Then take that information back into training. Teams working towards IGP 1 can see what the first level asks under trial pressure. More experienced competitors can use the event as a harder benchmark. When the next CACIT South Africa entry opens, enter when the work is ready enough to be tested—not when it feels perfect. Perfect usually arrives too late.