As regular readers of this blog know, there is a lot of whining going on about the Kennel Club’s new policy of checking BOB winners in 15 high priority breeds.
This whining has been mixed in with some bizarrely paranoid conspiracy mongering, and too many of these people think that anyone who refuses to denounce this policy in the most nasty matter possible automatically assume that you’re the enemy and, therefore, must be a dreaded “animal rights activist.” (If I am an animal rights activist, then why do I wear fur?)
However, the reason for the implementation of this policy can be found in the 2011 report from the Kennel Club’s Dog Health Group.
One of the initial reforms the KC undertook after “Pedigree Dogs Exposed” came out was that standards in certain breeds were rewritten. The KC then began a process of conformation judge education, but it became more and more obvious that judges simply weren’t adhering to the new standards. By and large, they were judging to the old ones.
So in 2010 and 2011, the KC started a program in which trained health observers would evaluate dogs in these breeds.
Each judge was required to submit a health report in which the dogs were given a score from 1-4. 1 indicated the dog was in poor health, while 4 indicated the dog was in excellent health.
The observers were asked to use the same ranking system.
The results were an extreme discrepancy between judges and health observers.
With the exception of the Clumber spaniel, the judges generally thought the dogs were healthier than the trained health observers.
If judges are seeing health were trained health observers (who I’m guessing are probably veterinarians), then there is a problem with judges.
Thus the Kennel Club sought to find a way to get judges to pay much closer attention to health and welfare issues, and that’s why it implemented the new mandatory health check policy. It is an attempt to get judges to change the way they think about these high profile breeds.
This is nothing more than a governing body of a sport implementing a new rule to protect the athletes. In this case, the athletes are show dogs.
This is not big government. The Kennel Club is a private entity.
It’s actually a very responsible action on behalf of the Kennel Club, and it is one that will serve it well as an institution for the long term.
If you cannot see that, then you fundamentally don’t recognize how the animal rights extremists operate. If you deny facts and become a conspiracy monger, the real animal rights people are much better propagandists than you are. If you give them this much rope, they will surely hang you with it.
So you’re better off addressing real issues within your own system. It’s far better to address these issues rationally than to act like Dale Gribble.
If you act like Dale Gribble, you’re losing.
Badly.
And you probably don’t even realize it.
Wow, excellent find. I was beginning to think that the factual element of this debate was now over and that most of the conversation was going to be reinforcement of existing opinions, i.e. people retreating behind their walls.
But, this is new an interesting data to add to this debate. It’s pretty clear that you can’t teach an old judge, new tricks.
Well, you can thank Jess for finding it.
She sent me the link yesterday. We talked about it in the chat room last night, so I blogged it.
There’s one for 2010, as well:
http://www.thekennelclub.org.uk/item/3671
Interesting information! just goes to show that judges can’t see health or performance in the showring nor who should be considered to follow the breed standard. I am serious, why have exhibitions at all really?? What have they got more for utility and function than to please the ego of people who are too ugly to be able to participate in a fashion show themselves?
Shows for me are purely to see what other dogs are out there for breeding. Wether the dog is a champion or wins first place would not affect my choice
I think the problem is that in conformation, both in AKC and KC, the judge doesn’t become a judge based on knowledge of health OR performance. It’s certainly the exception rather than the rule that a herding judge in AKC has ever worked livestock with a dog. Few have even bothered to go and watch herding events. None are ever asked to understand basic health issues — The majority become judges by knowing the words of the standard and having bred or handled x number of dogs to conformation CH. So if they have always been presenting sickle hocked GSDs why would they think anything else was “correct”? It’s not required to know anything about military working GSD or Seeing Eye GSD or herding/protection sport GSD. In fact, they have done their “apprenticeship” in an environment that considers such dogs “coarse” or “common” and the conformation dog as the “real” GSD.
There was a brief push to have “performance” demonstrations (form follows function) for conformation judges, but instead of presenting the top dogs of the various breeds, at least in herding, it was consistently the case that the best show dog that could manage to herd (even if only at the lowest test level) was the one presented. In the Gazette, for every one dog that was “field”, 99% of the rest were ‘bench”. Ditto with the magazines found at shows and illustrations of the standards. So why WOULD they change significantly in 3 years? The thing is that it never should have gotten that way in the first place. People like to compete. They especially like to win at competitions. How one can push people into realizing that “moderate” does NOT mean “coarse or common” is a real challenge.
I do think it might have been better to do the health checks FIRST and then force the judge to pick only from among those that passed. This would have rewarded those who did try to meet the new criteria. I agree with the goals of the KC (which one would wish were not ones imposed on them but ones that they realized were necessary without force). I can’t agree that a public humiliation was the way to do it. Yes these people are often in denial (or really truly ignorant). And some will never change. But those that might or would do better with education freely provided.
My own feeling is that the policy was instituted at Crufts very largely because at that show, the Group judging is televised, hence the Best of Breed winners would be seen by a huge number of the general public. Certainly the KC intentions at improving “fitness for function” are laudable, but the whole thing could have been handled far better, and should have been instituted more gradually.
As for the educaton of judges, ideally this would follow the model of livestock judging, with college-level courses, including basic anatomy and working forward from that.
I’m more bothered by judges not implementing the KC’s revised standards as I am by the differences of opinion between judges and Observers. If the standard contradicts health, most judges will side with the standard. How can the system change if judges simply ignore changes in the standard done to promote breed health?
Has anyone seen a systematic comparison of the old breed standards and the new standards, as rewritten by the KC? How closely does the breed list for revision of standards match that for the 15 breeds given health checks at Crufts?