Fewer But Better Judges
This is part of an article that appears on Sarah
Hemstock's (email) . Sarah is the daughter of the founders
of a very well known Stafford kennel prefix - Jolihem
- and, well, just go to her site and she details her current
involvement with Staffords and other activities better than I can here.
She has been working on her Stafford site for several months between her
tough graduate school schedule. I recently received this email from
her:
________________________________
Hi Terry,
I intend to update my web page by the end of next
week - please feel free to use any of the
pictures/articles on your site but must be credited to the source.
Cheers,
Sarah Hemstock
________________________________
So in honoring her wishes I give her full credit for the article that
follows and the photos that are part of the Pedigree Archive for two of
the Jolihem Kennel's most famous stud dogs Ch. Jolihem El Toro and Ch.
Jolihem Dreadnought.
This article was first published in the Stafford Magazine (UK) 1997. The
following article is based around correspondence published in "Dog
World" newspaper earlier this year on an article entitled
"Fewer But Better Judges".
Fewer but better Judges
The suggestion that there may be a connection between growing criticism of
judges abilities and declining entries at Open shows is valid in my
opinion. This may be due to the KC discouraging qualified Championship
show judges from judging their breeds at general Open shows so novice
judges have to be appointed. The same dogs are eligible to enter at
both types of shows so why should the quality of judging be vastly different?
Ch. Jolihem El Toro
It is difficult to know where to draw the line - new judges need to gain
experience, but the quality and quantity of entries is suffering. I
agree that "fewer, but better, judges" would help the
situation but in my view the selection of a judge should be based on the dogs
that the prospective judge has owned, perhaps in conjunction with a series of theory
and practical examinations, rather than the current selection system or exams alone.
For example, a prospective Open show judge should at least have owned and campaigned
winning dogs, such as a CC winning dog or a Stud Book Number winner.
Surely, if this criteria were to be introduced then it would prove to be a
good assessment of a prospective judges "innate flair or
gift" or "eye" which is an important characteristic of
the competent judge. Judging is primarily a subjective process, but a
competent judge with an "eye" should be capable of judging to
type and hence use a more objective approach.
