One Man’s Opinion

by Ric Chashoudian, From the archives of The Canine Chronicle, August, 1991

My last article ended with me expressing my opinion that we judges should be allowed to ply our craft in our own individual way. This is a subject upon which I feel very strongly. I believe that the American Kennel Club and AKC Reps should not interfere with judges and critique their decisions. If there happens to be some mistake made in judging procedure, then I am for a Rep getting involved.

The answer to this statement by AKC would probably be “but you don’t realize the amount of complaints we get”.

Now let us analyze these complaints and who they come from. In the first place, dog shows have, for one reason or another, been put under suspicion of being crooked. This paranoia seemed to commence in the 1950s, in my opinion. I watched it advance to the state we are now in today. If a judge is seen talking to an exhibitor or handler before the show, say on the morning of the show, the suspicion starts. Believe me folks when I tell you this is not the way it used to be. Our old GREAT judges–I mean the people you trusted to give you a truly educated opinion of your dog and the other people’s dog–talked to any living soul before, after and during the show. We, who were lucky enough to be around in that era, accepted that practice. There was not one-tenth the suspicion then that there is now. These judges would discuss everything with us. They would talk about the weather, the dog you were showing, the way you were showing the dog, the way you had him trimmed, and any other thing they wanted to talk about. These were what I call the good old days. Everybody talked to everybody. Now, AKC will tell you that there is no time for all this talk because of the larger entries and the faster pace of the shows. This is poppycock. I went to a show back in the early 1950s in Vancouver, British Columbia. There was an entry of 250 dogs. This was a very large show at the time. These were the old P.N.E. shows put on by Billy Pym, a good Canadian judge in his own right. The judge was another good one by the name of Tommy Joel. Tommy was the husband of our own Edna Joel, who I believe was not treated too kindly by our Kennel Club. I was in my early twenties and had doubled up with one of the Pacific Coasts good dog handlers by the name of Roland Muller. I had never seen Mr. Joel before because he lived on the Eastern Coast of Canada and did not come to the West Coast of the United States to judge. He was to judge the total entry of 250 dogs, all the groups AND Best In Show. This included puppy groups that they have up there. In other words, he judged the WHOLE dog show. He was a very busy dog judge that day. Mr. Joel took the time to talk to almost every handler and exhibitor. We all came away knowing that our dogs were judged that day, not just pawed over. I was very proud because I came away with Best In Show with a class Wire Fox Terrier bitch. All of my friends, mostly my older peers, were congratulating me on winning under such a knowledgeable judge. Now mind you this man judged about 220 dogs, allowing for some absentees, 12 groups, because of puppy groups in each, and two Best In Shows, the Puppy Best and the regular Best. He still had time to talk to all of us. Now this is my idea of a dog judge. When the American Kennel Club decides to do away with all of this unnecessary suspicion, and allows the judges, who want to, to talk to everyone they want to talk to, then we will get back to an educational type of show. One hundred percent more educational than all of the ideas The American Kennel Club has come up with since the 1950s. This includes the hands-on test, the written memory test, and the fancy symposiums in New York and other places. Let the judges talk to the people and share what we know and, believe me, the judges will also learn from the knowledgeable exhibitors, when the exhibitor is an expert in their particular breed. Sometimes the judge is nowhere nearly as educated in the breed as the exhibitor. This is a learning experience for everyone.

One of the most respected and loved judges of our time was Alva Rosenburg. Alva made the statement that there was no such thing as an all-breed judge. Alva was an all-rounder. He did a beautiful job on most breeds, but there were a lot of breeds that he did not consider himself an expert in, and this holds true for all judges.

Now Mr. Lou Auslander went a step further, I understand, by saying that there should be no all-around judges. I do not think this to be true either. Many times, we breeders, and I am one, need the opinion of a person that is not quite so close to a breed.

Let us look at the perfect example which could be made of German Shepherds. These Shepherd boys talk about the regular judges and the specialty judges like they were two different entities. I am not going to stick my neck out and say anything nasty about specialty judges, however, let us look at the state of this great breed. A few key people came back to the all-breed shows with good Shepherds, letting the good judges of other breeds take a good long, hard look at what was happening to Shepherds, and things may be starting to get a little better. [Editor’s Note: This was written in 1991 and German Shepherds were indeed two different breeds–those shown at All Breed shows and those shown at Specialty shows.]

I can say the same thing about many other breeds where head-crazy breeders that forgot the basic dog started to ruin some very good breeds. This has happened to my favorite breed in England, which is Airedales. They have come up with the greatest headed dogs in the world but they have to struggle to make it around a decent-sized ring.

Now the all-around judge should be one very good dog person. This is not a title to mess with, and we in the fancy know the good ones and respect their opinions. In fact, we in the fancy know who the good dog judges are, period. If you are fair and open minded you will have respect for the judges that have proven themselves in some facet of dogs. They have either owned, shown, or bred good dogs. Now, I said good dogs, and that does not necessarily mean winning dogs in all cases. Then we come to the part where very good dog people differ on how good a dog is, and that is where this sport becomes tricky. That is why I do not think this hands-on or performance test, or whatever you want to call it, will or can work. Opinions differ depending on the expertise of the judge in that particular breed and making them agree with three ‘expert’ evaluators is not always possible

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