
I think the section was misleading or misunderstood by you both. Normally dogs are benched in alphabetical order of their owners names. There is no choice of being benched next to a freind, the only way a dog is benched differently is when it is listed as handled by someone else, and it is then benched with this persons dogs!
I have done this once or twice, but occasionally found that the catalogue didn't make the true owners clear,, so last year I had my freind enter her dog under her own name which begins with the letter C, as mine is B, we would be close, how wrong, my dogs were benched one side of the ring and my friends bitch the other side, and with the crowds this made it very difficult for met to keep an eye on them all, as I was the one showing them! In the end I asked a fellow exhibitor to show my freinds dog, and her neighbours to keep an eye out for her.