Advertising Faults and What's a Dog Show Judge Worth?
By Richard G. Beauchamp
Inaccuracies in Dog Advertising and Determining the Value of a Dog Show Judge, from Success in Show Dogs, July 2011
It’s impossible not to hear the conversations that take place around one’s ringside while judging. Some of what is overheard or observed in the course of a day can’t help but inspire a little note taking as one flies home after an assignment with the thought of a future column in mind.
Then too there are all those tidbits that readers have taken the time to send — some clipped from an unknown source by an unnamed author — with a “this would make a wonderful topic for a column” note attached.
In most cases the individual notes and messages don’t provide enough material for an entire column in themselves, but still the little scraps linger in my folder waiting for the opportune time to be addressed. Well, this is the time.
A sucker born every minute
“There’s a sucker born every minute” is a phrase most often attributed to the great American showman P.T. Barnum (1810-1891) despite the fact that Barnum himself refuted the honor his entire
life.
Whether or not it was Barnum himself who uttered the memorable words they have been quoted often enough through history to have become his and generally are taken to mean there will always be enough gullible people around to buy pretty much anything one might have to sell.
That certainly seems to be the case when it comes to some recent dog advertisements in dog magazines. If the dog has a fault, advertise it like it is the greatest virtue a dog of that breed could possibly possess.
“A colossus among dogs” sounds very impressive, but one shouldn’t get too carried away by the image particularly when it applies to a breed whose standard considers “big” to be the very last thing you’d want the breed to be!
“Speedy Gonzales” and “faster than a speeding bullet” certainly get the point across, but take care lest those words be describing a breed whose hallmark is a slow, deliberate and purposeful gait.
It seems preposterous that those of us in purebred dogs who claim to know all that can possibly be known about everything canine can be hoodwinked into believing the negatives are glowing virtues, but I’m afraid it’s true.
We’ve seen more than one top winner whose real claim to fame is that clever advertising has convinced the “experts” that his faults are what are so good about him.
It does bring to mind the question that is so often asked and obviously so seldom heeded, “Have you read your breed standard lately?”
TMI!
Too much information! Ringside mentors whose responsibility it is to educate aspiring judges, or actually anyone desiring information, please stick to the issue as hand — education.
The fact that the exhibitor of that lovely dog had a grandmother who sold guns to the Indians is really not information the average student needs to add to his breed portfolio. You may not particularly like Madame X, but let’s confine the critiques to her dogs.
As Sgt. Joe Friday might have said on that ancient TV series Dragnet, “Just the facts, ma’am, just the facts.”
Predictability in our Judges
“Predictability in our Judges” is the title of a wonderful column written by Janet Jackson, Yorkshire Terrier columnist for the AKC Gazette. Judges, I encourage you to hunt down a
copy of the September 2005 issue of the Gazette for that article.
Jackson makes many profound points but what I found particularly memorable was the following:
“Watch those dogs as if you were buying one for yourself. Pick out your type within the standard and stick to it. We want predictability in our judges, just as we want predictability in our dogs. Choose your type, and then go for the finer points of that type. Remember to judge the whole dog. It’s the coat, the head, the structure, the movement and the temperament that make up the best overall Yorkshire Terrier.”
If I were to change anything at all in what Jackson writes it would simply be to substitute “style” for the word “type.” Type is set by the standard and style is our interpretation of type. But the important point of the article is that true breeders want a dog show judge to have an opinion (based within the standard).
Selections made with no more predictability than the weather may well be great fun and may indeed give any and all dogs (good, bad and indifferent) a shot at winning, but choices of this kind do little for breed improvement.
Four Horsemen of the purebred dog’s demise
Arrogance, indifference, ignorance and jealousy.
How much is a judge worth?
There’s no doubt about it — many of our show-giving clubs, particularly those attracting entries under 1,000 dogs, are finding the cost of staying financially solvent increasingly difficult.
Sadly we are bound to see the individuality of the single club give way to the constantly growing cluster system of multiple shows sponsored by two or more clubs on a weekend.
The resulting negatives and positives are fodder for another column, but what I have found is evermore increasing resentment among some clubs toward dog show judges and the fees they charge.
I find it interesting that there are those who seem to believe that it is judging fees and expenses that carry much of the blame for single clubs becoming unable to meet the financial obligations of putting on a championship show — that it is somehow unfair of one dog show judge to charge more than another to pass upon the same number of dogs in a given day.
Basically this implies that all judges are of the same background, experience, knowledge and qualification — presumably that the man or woman who has judged all breeds many years throughout the world is no more qualified to charge a higher fee than someone who has just been approved to judge their first Group.
In my mind this would be no different than saying all professional handlers are equally talented despite what their résumé reads or that all puppies in a litter should command the same price despite their varying degrees of quality simply because they are all the same breed.
I wonder how many have stopped to consider the time and money an individual has invested in purebred dogsbefore he or she has become eligible to even judge that first breed. Or how much he or she will subsequently spend becoming eligible to judge two, three or four Groups, much less achieving all-breed status?
Most individuals who judge today fully accept the fact that it will cost them a minimum of $10,000 to fulfill the obligations required to acquire eligibility to judge a single Group.
There are those among us who believe that all any judge does is render an opinion and therefore one opinion is just as valid and worth only as much as the next. I suppose this may be true if an exhibitor shows dogs purely and simply for an opinion and cares not whether the best dogs have an advantage over the lesser dogs.
It would seem to me that the opinion of the judge who has a long-standing reputation for consistently recognizing the best dogs of a breed is worth more than the opinion of an individual whose decisions are erratic at best.
Some dog show judges charge substantially more than others. Their decision one can only assume is based upon what they believe to be their own experience and ability. It does not seem that an inexperienced or unqualified individual charging an unusually high fee would judge very often; that is unless the person responsible for hiring judges made their selections based only upon how much a dog show judge could judge for them and not how well.
And when it comes to complaints about judges’ expenses I can’t help but wonder at the fact that when I began judging here in the US in 1994 the average per diem charge made by a judge was $35 a day. Today, 17 years later, the average per diem paid by clubs is $35 per day. One would think that in 17 years the cost of food alone might have risen just a bit.
But what has always made me scratch my head is the fact that there are no rules that demand that any one dog show judge in particular be hired to judge any show. If a judge’s fee is more than a club can afford, it would seem that instead of becoming hysterical and accusing said judge of highway robbery the club would calmly move on to the judge that they were able to afford.
One doesn’t demand that Tom Ford go out of business because we cannot afford to have him personally come to our home to design something for us to wear. We simply shop within our means.
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