By Dr. Al Grossman

A friend of mine recently had the opportunity of judging a very large National Specialty where quality dogs were the rule. He said it was a pleasure to judge most classes. Of course his winners were delighted and expressed their pleasure. Even some of his “losers” were satisfied they had gotten a fair shake. These were the ones who made the second and third cuts in very large classes. On the other hand those who didn’t survive the first cuts were, of course, displeased. He didn’t blame them. After all, they had come all that distance to suffer the ignominy of losing in the first round. In their mind it was like Tiger Woods or Venus Williams losing to a qualifier in the first round of a tournament. He could sympathize with them.

For the handlers, the dog’s loss is a double bind. Clients have paid them good money to take their dogs to the National. The handler has usually told the client that the dog stood a chance of winning or he/she may have higher aspirations. Now the dog has lost and not even made a credible showing. It is hard for the handler to attribute the dog’s loss to poor showmanship, for that casts a negative shade on their abilities as a handler. They don’t want to tell the client that the dog was not up to the competition for that casts suspicion on their ability “to pick good ones.” That doesn’t leave many scapegoats does it? The old tested and true dodge, “It was lousy judging” rears its ugly head. You know, there is no way a judge can escape this truism in the judging business. We cry all the time how unfair it is that we are blamed for all the ills in the dog game, however, it has ever been thus and IT WILL NOT CHANGE! Human nature being what it is, the most convenient and accessible target will always be chosen. No one has been drummed out of the ranks of exhibitors for criticizing a judge. In fact, it is the most popular indoor and outdoor sport in all of dogdom.

Before you cry “that’s typical of a judge trying to turn the tables” let me hasten to add that judges accepted this burden when they made the decision to judge. Harry Truman’s old axiom “get out of the kitchen if you can’t stand the heat” holds true here. And, you know what? Many judges do get out of the kitchen. Some find the talents they thought they had for judging are just not there; some refuse to take the heat for their decisions, and still others tire of the slings and arrows directed toward them. They begin to accept fewer assignments and for the obviously poor ones the exhibitors vote with their feet by not supporting that judge with an entry. Clubs quickly get the drift. They are not about to go broke by bringing in unpopular judges.

Losers abound in this sport. The wins in each breed are few and far between. In an entry of 200 there is a winner’s dog and winners bitch, Best of Variety (Breed) and Best of Opposite Sex plus a Best of Winners who has already won points. Those are not very good odds are they? 190+ dogs go home with, at best, a class win and a reserve among them. Yet each owner feels his or her dog deserving. What has kept them from that purple ribbon? You know who, the GD judge, that’s who! So the GD judge gets poor mouthed in the exhibitors home area for “robbing” his dog of the deserved win. The exhibitor has held out high hopes for his dog. He has crowed to his fellow club members about how high the handler is on the dog and is taking him to the National. After all that inflated puff, how can he get off the hook? Uh huh, you guessed it. Old judge whatzizface takes it in the chops again. This act is repeated until old whatizzface has been beaten into the ground. The poor judge should have never gotten out of bed that day.

Sometimes I think there should be a Judge’s Appreciation Day. That judges will be applauded when they leave the ring after a judging assignment. They will have their pictures in the paper for what a wonderful job they did and everyone will look up to them. Then I wake up.

Dr. Grossman, a long-time judge of Sporting Dogs, and publisher of Doral Publishing, is now the president of winningsolutions.info, a website devoted to developing the Professional Mentor concept via killer ideas and vital information for the breeder who wants to a high degree of success in his efforts. This information can be found at http://www.winningsolutions.info