Face Judging, Real or Imagined? How can a highly successful exhibitor in a competitive breed talk about face judging? Not very easily perhaps but it is certainly an issue that gets to a lot of people and something that some would have you believe is pervasive within dogdom, supposedly more so in some breeds rather than others. I am a very successful exhibitor in my breed, Staffordshire bull terriers, and I guess that makes me a face. For some it is one only a mother could love, for others it is one to hate, the sound thinking types, think it is good looking, suave, debonair and honest face. Well something like that. I started in dogs in 1977. I was not a face at that stage. Nobody, in my view, unless they are someone famous’ son or daughter starts out with any advantage due to their face. It is about the dogs. Hopefully we will agree thus far that when someone turns up at their first show, it is all about the dog. I am sure most breeds have stories about the time someone turned up with something fantastic and got recognised immediately. Actually I know one so will digress for a moment. This chap is looking for a Stafford, so he has a look in the papers under BYB and P/F and finds a litter to go, ready now and by the local champion dog. Off he tootles with his dosh in his pocket and buys himself a dog puppy. He takes him home, the wife looks askance, the kids are thrilled and everyone’s a winner. Now our buster, as that is his name turns into a smart looking dog and one day our hero is out walking the dog and a man says to him that he has a very smart dog and he should take it to a dog show. So he does. Lo and behold, he wins a first prize, I’ll be having some of this he thinks to himself and enters some more shows, wins some more prizes and now that he knows a bit decides to enter a championship show. More first prizes fall his way, and buster being a scottish dog gets his name in the local paper as he each week sets off down south to lay waste on the Sassenachs, which he does and is feted in all parts of the village where he lives. Such is his success that before you know it Buster, note his name now spelt with a capital B, is a champion. His owner, who now knows that he knows a thing or two about all things dog show related, has saddled our Buster with a hefty stud fee and if anybody wants to use him they will be paying the needful. Strangely, the folks that have been to more than one show in their lives know that smart dog that Buster is, his pedigree is naff and they are not paying an exorbitant stud fee anyway. However, and happily for the blanket in Busters bed, the locals don’t know any different and they do use him. Our two legged hero goes along and inspects the resultant puppies and decides to have one, marked just like Buster and he is christened young buster, with a small b, and will surely have a glittering career ahead of him. The big day arrives, young buster goes to his first show, his owner full of confidence knows whats’ what and all will be well until... young buster gets last in his class. Oh dear what can the matter be. Our hero thinks for a moment and realises it is a novice judge and probably doesn’t know anything anyway, so forget that, it’s the big show next week and YB will be on the case then. Incredibly he is not. He is last again, and at the next five shows. YB’s owner consults with one of the breeds supposed know alls, it may even have been a suave , debonair type, you know the sort, and asks why YB isn’t winning. The answer that he is not winning because he is no good does not go down well. It must be because he has won too much with big Buster, they won’t let him win anymore, its all bent, its face judging. The truth is of course that Buster is and was a good dog, any idiot could have made him a champion and of course one did, but whilst winning the owner of Buster did not know why, he just assumed that is how it is, so when young buster ( never got to have a capital letter for his name) is not winning, he does not know it is because he is no good, it is for all the other reasons that you about it and demonstrates his ignorance in matters canine to all and sundry and sadly disappears from view fairly quickly. You will note have ever heard at the ringside, and because our hero has walked a mile in the sun he is very voluble that I slipped in the phrase “face judging”. Our man finds himself in the ring with smart alec suave, debonair type and cannot get within touching distance. He is only winning because he is a face, he gives out judging appointments, he sleeps with the judges, when he gets the chance, its not fair, he knows all the judges, he shows the best dog, lah de dah, you have heard it all before. So, to the key questions, is there anything in any of the accusations? We will deal with the notion of whether big time exhibitors actually know anything later. Yes he is a face, he has been showing for about 100 years. He never misses a show. He does win a lot, but not ALL the time, it just feels like that. He might give out judging appointments, but does he show under those judges? Sleeping arrangements are always conjecture anyway and mostly fantasy for all concerned. Does he know all the judges? Yes he does, he has been showing longer than any of them anyway and it would be odd if he didn’t know them. Is he showing the best dog? The results will tell you the answer to that. If a dog goes to twenty shows and wins at the majority of them, it’s fair to assume it’s a good dog. If it’s a dog that needs work in the preparation, it will have had that done very well. So, generally speaking there is something in all accusations that are made about face judging. Does that make it true? There are some weird decisions made at most shows and they are oftentimes very difficult to explain or understand. On a number of occasions, you would hear ringside comment that every one of the placed dogs is handled by a ch show judge! These guys are supposed to know what they are doing, and they should know what others preferences are in a dog so this is hardly an insight of mendelian proportions is it? So we move on to the question of whether or not the winning dog with the face is actually any good, does the face know what they are doing and is it just sour grapes on the part of those who don’t know any better, should know better, and don’t care, but just complain? There are of course people in most breeds for whom the only time the judging is honest is when, 1. They are judging & 2. When they are winning. I have shown a lot of dogs to win CC’s RCC’s and 1st prizes. Were they all the best in their class or in the show. I may or may not have thought so, but, I wasn’t judging and generally, but not always I can work out what it is that the judge is seeing in the ones that are actually winning. I may wholly disagree, but I can see why THEY like it and that is the key factor here. It is not me or you that is judging is it? It’s the other fellow and all too often I hear people saying that dog X is quite modest ( the ringside commentator often uses more agricultural language) and it should not be winning, and if they were judging they would be right, but when they are not it would do them well to remember that each and every one of us sees it differently. You may be a reader who thinks this could have been penned by Charles Dickens. You may need to read a bit more, but you are entitled to your opinion, right or wrong, and so are others who take a rather different view and think of a heap of typewriters and a bunch of monkeys. It’s all a matter of opinion and when someone else is judging, they are right. What I cannot understand is the people who are full of it telling the world that X is going to win but are not available for comment when X gets a third. Or don’t know why they entered when everybody knows that Y is winning anyway. As a way to demonstrate my belief that most judges look to go and give it their best shot, I ran a competition for several years offering a major prize to anybody who named up front the CC and RCC winners from any ch show. It was won once, and by general concensus there was absolutely nothing amiss on the day. The world and his uncle knew what the judge liked and one person, just one, managed to name all four winners. That would be once in about 5 years, so once in about 200 championship shows. Face judging, maybe, but I think I will continue to be hard to convince. I cannot say it is definitely not happening, but simple, if unwelcome explanations are often readily available.
Posted on: Thu, 18 Jul 2013 16:44:51 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015