Do You Know Someone Who Should Be Judging?

By Francine Reisman

I find it hard to believe that the American Kennel Club is now accepting letters from breeder/exhibitors which recommend that a judge get approval for additional breeds. The letter then goes before a committee who yeas or nays the approval.

Maybe this could be taken further and consideration should be given to letters that exhibitors and breeders write to the AKC saying that ‘judge so-and-so’ should never be allowed to judge a specific breed or group of breeds again; that he or she is ignorant of the breed or breeds and that every time he or she judges the breed(s) in question, he or she sets the breed back by honoring dogs who should never be bred. Will these letters be sent to the committee? What do you think of that? Maybe this whole idea is not a bad thing!

I think it’s about time that we all realize that there isn’t a perfect system. I do believe that the breeders and exhibitors should have a voice. If they feel a judge is not doing right by their breed, it should be their responsibility to bring this to the attention of the AKC. And the AKC should listen to the complaints and at that time re-evaluate the judge in question.

Shouldn’t accreditation to judge a breed be an honor, not just another “feather in the judge’s cap”? It certainly seems to be too late to stop the quest for more breeds by so many of our judges, but what about following through and making sure that these people are qualified and are doing the right thing for every breed they judge?

Note: I recently heard that a person who was judging one of his new breeds was spoken to by the AKC rep after she had observed the judging. Supposedly the rep came down pretty hard on this judge as she felt that the judge didn’t know the breed and that his judging was totally off the mark. (By the way, the breed in question was the rep’s original breed.) The judge took this very hard and shared his feelings with his friends and the rep became the “bad guy”. Wasn’t she just doing her job? Hopefully when this judge gets home, he will take another look at this breed and in the future be able to judge these dogs in a new (more educated) light.

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Posted by admin on Feb 3 2013. Filed under Featured, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.