From The Publisher

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10 – August, 2023

 By Tom Grabe

In a sport where results are based on the opinions of an individual guided by their knowledge of a breed and their interpretation of the breed standard, it’s easy to understand why there is so much discussion about judges. As we all know, depending on the results each day, the discussion about any particular judge at the show will trend positive or negative in short order.

Exhibitors will always have a list of their favorite judges (the experts), judges they are ambivalent about (the majority of judges), and those judges they “will never enter under again!” (the ones that shouldn’t be judging in their opinion). As stated before, opinions vary as to which category each judge falls into.

There is very little discussion about the ones that got away–those who chose not to pursue judging certification and those who tried and quit out of frustration, lack of quality assignments or other reasons. We might say that those people don’t matter, but they do–now more than ever in my opinion.

There are a good number of qualified applicants who have decided not to judge. Why? I am sure there are as many reasons as there are potential applicants. Here are a few things I have been told over the years… “I don’t want to go through the application process and be tested on breeds I know better than the person who wrote the test.” “I can’t afford to do all of the things required to become approved for one breed let alone an entire group.” “I can’t afford to quit my job as a professional handler, spend who knows how much time and money to get a couple of groups, then wait for years until I have enough assignments to make it worthwhile. So, by the time I can afford to retire, I’ll be too old to get enough groups to get hired.”

Click here to read the complete article
10 – August, 2023

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Posted by AnthonyA on Aug 8 2023. Filed under Current Articles, Featured. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.