AKC Gazette Articles

August 1999

Judge Education

Basic Judge Education means learning how to run a ring efficiently, and use the ring to best advantage for yourself and your entry. AKC wants to be sure a judge can handle their ring before they are left completely in charge.

In a desire to deepen the education of judges, AKC encourages seminars at specialties and regional events, and workshops put on by organizations dedicated to furthering breed knowledge. These seminars touch upon various aspects of the breeds in question. Some discuss correct outline, movement, and the nuances of type which separate one breed from another. Some teach about breed origins and original purposes, and attempt to relate that to what goes on in the show ring. All these seminars have value, in varying degrees, and will add to a prospective judge's knowledge.

These skills, and this knowledge, are a critical part of judge education. If we think these are the only skills and knowledge necessary to make a good judge, we are sadly missing the boat.

No visual aid, be it photograph, slide, or video, can substitute for the reality of actual field work. Performance testing, such as field trials, herding trials, lure coursing, etc. provides a semblance of reality, sometimes the only avenue of testing open to many owners. For many judges, this is also the only readily available source of knowledge beyond what is taught in seminars and handbooks. Is this truly sufficient to prepare someone to stand in the middle of the ring and make decisions "for the good of the breed?"

Anyone who works their dogs will tell you the reality is far different from formal or informal competitions, with the primary purpose of collecting points toward a title. Herding sheep, hunting grouse, chasing rabbits, tracking people day after day tests the ability of a dog not only to perform but also to recover. Flash and appearance rate a distant second to down and dirty performance, and soundness is evaluated by the ability to get up and go to work the next day.

This same criteria holds true for all breeds originally evaluated by their ability to work. When you study a breed standard against the purpose for which the breed was intended, you gain a far clearer picture of what the breed should look like and be able to do.

The challenge to a student of any breed is to obtain this knowledge in as pure a form as possible, as close to the original function as they can manage. Salukily speaking, this means in a field day after day, chasing game. Lure coursing is a wonderful sport and is often considered the only available test of Saluki ability. However, in some parts of the country, people still get up before dawn to trek out to the fields and test their Salukis against live game. Today it's done in trucks and vans instead of on horseback, but the ground, the vastness, and the game remain the same.

Observing organized Open Field coursing, seeing the cream of the sighthounds in competition with each other, is an eye-opening experience. If possible, go out free coursing with experienced Saluki people. Here you can see what really matters in a running dog, and learn what a reconnaissance gait actually looks like

This asks for a tremendous effort for an aspiring judge, and possibly great expense. When compared to, say, a trip to Cruft's or to some of Europe's bigger shows, the expense becomes more reasonable. To attempt this depth of knowledge about Setters, and Terriers, and Sighthounds, would be a daunting challenge for judges who attain extra breeds in large blocks. For those who wish to be students of a breed, and to judge from the standard and history of a breed instead of just from the center of the ring, it should be the only way to approach a breed.

Monica Henderson Stoner
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