The Juniors Perspective: Fault Judging Juniors

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126 – September, 2023

By Jessica Braatz

Fault judging–while frequently a topic of conversation in regard to the breed ring, junior showmanship often escapes consideration. It is common, though, and is prevalent every time a talented junior is immediately written off for a few mistakes. Instead, the judge will reward mediocrity–the perfect dog or the junior who took no risks, thus enforcing the idea that perfection is the only way to win ribbons. Fault judging in junior showmanship systemically encourages juniors to show “push-button” dogs rather than taking risks and learning from those challenges.

When judging juniors, its easy to get lost in a sea of talent and start weeding through your entry by watching for their errors. This is much like fault judging in the breed ring. There, a judge will, for example, let a beautifully balanced and typey dog go because of an obvious fault. In doing this, they will not use the most objectively correct dog because they got “stuck” on a singular fault and rewarded mediocrity instead. It’s the same for junior showmanship. When fault judging in juniors, a mediocre junior who made no glaring mistakes will win rathern than the best handler.

The judge here, hypothetically, will pick each kid to pieces until they lose the whole picture. They will write off talented juniors for mistakes they got “stuck” on. Instead of selecting a talented individual, they will award the mediocre handler who did nothing wrong, but didn’t do anything extraordinary, either. By the time they’ve written off every talented junior for a small mistake, all that’s left is the handler with the perfectly trained dog. Who would you want to show your dog and join the next generation of professional handlers? If you start immediately weeding kids out for having one misplaced foot or a dog breaking in movement, you’ll miss when that junior steps up, handles it, and showcases their handling ability.

Click here to read the complete article
126 – September, 2023

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Posted by AnthonyA on Sep 11 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.