Have Rating Systems Hurt Conformation Shows?
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It’s a decades-old question: Has the chase for the top dog, at the breed level, group level, or number 1 dog amongst all breeds, hurt the sport? Is this really the reason entries are declining? Is it even a contributing factor or just another excuse for the lack of participation at dog shows we are witnessing today?
By Dr. Gerry G. Meisels
In 1967 or1968, my wife Sylvia and I developed a friendly relationship with Jimmy Butler, then the AKC Executive Field Representative who covered Texas. Jimmy had guided his Wire Fox Terrier to BIS at Westminster a few years before that. We had just finished our first Westie and were showing him as a special. We will always be grateful to Jimmy for taking us under his wing, mentoring us, and helping us accept and understand the inevitable series of losses to a campaigned, good quality special handled by Michele Billings (then Michele Leathers). I don’t think that we would have stayed in the sport if it had not been for that understanding and kindly encouragement. In one of our discussions he told us that he was concerned with the emergence of rating systems and that he feared they would destroy our sport.
Pretty soon it will be 50 years since we heard that opinion. Conformation shows are still here. Jimmy’s pessimistic prediction has not come to pass, rating systems and conformation shows are still here. Rating systems or rather the speed with which ratings become public have changed. To what extent if any have they influenced conformation shows?
Looking back to when we first started in this sport more than half a century ago, all shows were benched, shows were on weekends only, and the venues were almost all at or near the centers of the areas they served. Few people traveled to shows in motorhomes. Four monthly publications served the purebred dog fancy (the AKC Gazette, Popular Dogs, Kennel Review, and Dog World). Breed columns were a mainstay of the content of several. Magazines included periodic reports on statistics of dogs defeated. They were done “BC” (before computers) and therefore compiled by hand from the results published in the AKC Gazette. Considering the delays of the three steps (show to Gazette, Gazette to compiler, and compiler to appearance of the magazine on the newsstands or in the mail), this was a time consuming and slow process. Only the year-end ratings received much attention, but it was many months into the following year before those ratings became available.
Whatever records influenced placements were more along the lines of respected judges exchanging comments with other judges, a conversation that went like this: “Say, Ken, I see you just judged in Florida in January. Did you see any nice dogs down there?” Ken responds, “Well, I didn’t see much except for a (pick your breed) that is one of the best I have ever seen.” This exchange is a loose recount of one I actually heard about. There were only 300-400 conformation shows then, and a few dozen experienced and respected judges had a great deal of influence. The most influential opinions were informal communications among judges.
Technology is probably at the heart of changes in the use of statistics over the decades. User-friendly computers and data storage that is cheap make complex information easily accessible. The memory and speed of supercomputers of a decade ago is now exceeded by the power of smartphones.
The connection to ranking systems is straightforward: when manual data entry can be replaced by searchable digital files from which information can be extracted, the delay between shows and publicly available reports decreased dramatically. AKC, seeing a revenue possibility, made its digital files accessible and now sells its analyses of rankings to any buyer, primarily the major conformation dog magazines that do not have to do their own data extraction. As a result, rankings are now available on leading showdog websites such as www.caninechronicle.com approximately two weeks after the end of each month, and in print two weeks later. Technology now offers even more: daily coverage of show results for many shows from at least one superintendent, and group and BIS results from The Canine Chronicle’s website, both within hours after judging ends.
Rating systems provide something akin to “truth in advertising,” and a more national approach to conformation shows. While any dog with a few wins could once advertise “top winning Mutthound”, the better magazines now require a quantitative and verifiable claim: “Fido is the number 5 Mutthound in all-breed and No. 7 Mutthound in breed competition, and in small print *CC statistics for the period ending March 31, 2015.
Anything can be “gamed”, and as many writers have pointed out so can ratings. Handlers of winning dogs may tend to avoid each other and thus never compete against other good dogs. The location of dog and handler may make a big difference as fewer dogs are shown in Montana than there are in New York. This regional difference is recognized by the AKC championship point requirements but not in BOB/Group/BIS competition. Money is a major factor in trying to gain rankings because it is quite expensive to have a dog shown professionally and to advertise successes. Some judges give preference to top ranked dogs thus judging the record rather than the dog. While this also happened half a century ago on an informal and limited basis, the rapid dissemination of results makes it more common now. This applies to Best of Breed, Group, and Best in Show competition, which becomes a sport for owners with fairly deep pockets and is very different from competition in the classes. That is a problem for the future of the sport and breeds only if it leads to ranked dogs winning over better specials in the breed. Breeders who cannot evaluate their bitches or available studs tend to breed to top ranked dogs regardless of the fit. Perhaps the biggest problem in principle is that rapidly available ratings make winning everything, while dog shows should be mostly about the evaluation of dogs and especially of breeding stock. So while the rating systems solved one problem, they created others – a good example of the law of unintended consequences!
Technology has changed the use and influence of rating systems and thereby our sport to some extent. Our challenge is to find modifications that reduce some of the undesirable side effects. AKC has introduced the Owner-Handler series to address the closely related criticism that “amateurs” cannot effectively compete with professional handlers. However, some of the same issues remain, especially the differences between regions. Is that system also at risk to succumb to a “winning is everything” philosophy? The need for a system that provides a reasonable and objective comparison of dogs on a national level is very real. At this time rating systems are the only game in town. Can we think of something better?
I am pleased to acknowledge very helpful comments by Tom Grabe and my wife Sylvia when writing this article.
Short URL: http://caninechronicle.com/?p=72589
Posted by ralbee
on Mar 20 2015. Filed under Current Articles, Editorial, Featured.
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