Who Needs to Reform?

One of the questions it's probably important to ask in this whole area of AKC conformation reform is the quandary over what behaviors need to be changed, and by whom, in order to make things better. I've been saying a lot about AKC judge behavior and the shortcomings of the current judging process, but it should be fairly obvious that the shortcomings really affect the behavior of all of us some degree. This is quite obvious in the face judging area; my description of the breeder / handler who only shows when she believes she has developed some sort of advantage with a judge is just one example. So with this in mind, some readers may be wondering why I don't address personal integrity as the real issue.

The answer is simple. I do believe that we as exhibitors have a personal obligation to conduct ourselves in a professional manner. Certainly if we all did so, most of the issues I've addressed here would go away. But this is not a reasonable expectation. If we could get away with a reliance on personal responsibility, we'd never have recognized a need to govern ourselves. Human beings find it impossible to be consistently altruistic. We have found it a necessary foundation of civilization to put systems of checks and balances in place. This is no different. Any system of evaluation must have in place a set of controls to protect those availing themselves of it from abuse and injustice. In the case of AKC conformation, these must protect judges, clubs, and exhibitors from those who would bend the system to serve their own goals.

So, while I would agree that there is plenty of room for more consistently professional and ethical behavior from everyone involved, I have to question those who would suggest such as the one and only solution here. To free ourselves, we have to adequately govern ourselves; this is the counterintuitive and uncomfortable truth. Do we need to reform our own behavior? Absolutely. But we need to put objective, clear controls in place to reform the process before personal reform can be expected to deliver any lasting benefit.

Perspective

I'm always looking for other perspectives on the issues I'm discussing here. Yesterday I came across an article in The Dog Press that caught my attention. Written by Louis Fallon, the article is the second installment of a two-part discussion of the civil defamation suit brought against breeder Sandra Teague by AKC judge Philip Martin for remarks made by the former on a public forum. The articles are highly recommended reading for anyone interested in AKC judging ethics.

After reading the articles, I emailed Mr. Fallon to invite him to read this blog. He was kind enough to reply and give me his permission to publish his message. I am reproducing in full the text of his insightful and informed response here. Thank you, Mr. Fallon, for your willingness to contribute your valuable insights to this discussion.

Hello Reform Conform:

Thank you for your email. I enjoyed reading it and also the words in your blog. It is good that there are concerned people, newcomers or 'old timers', that take their time and effort to look into and seek to improve dog show judging in the sport of pure-bred dogs. Every person is entitled to their opinion, about dog show judging, the interpretation of a breed standard and all other facets of the sport of pure-bred dogs. That being said, just as in a real Court room with a real Judge, the crime of 'contempt of court' with incarceration and/or a monetary fine awaits anyone foolish enough to dispute a real Judge's opinion in a real Court. The AKC rules and regulations allow a suspension and/or a fine to a person's activities defaming or disputing a dog show judge's actions while the dog show is on or even ,gasp, before or after the dog show. People have also been brought upon charges for writing or talking about specific dog show judges after the dog show.

In 1973 I judged at two all-breed match shows, for working breeds and the working group also. After the show I thought about it and decided that I did not want to be a dog show judge. It was not my cup of tea. I enjoy being a dog show volunteer, a member of the show committee, the show chair, a steward, even one of the traffic people in the parking lot. I know dog show judges and take pride in assisting people in obtaining assignments, watching them go up the ladder from one breed to many breeds, group judging and BIS. One lady of my acquaintance is a group judge who has judged "our breed" at the Westminster KC, and I am as proud of her as of my own daughters. The world needs good dedicated dog show judges.

If one visits the Library of the AKC you can read the old dog newspapers and magazines with people bemoaning the sad state of affairs with incompetent, uneducated, ethically-challenged dog show judges in the 1890's, the 1900's, the 1910s and every decade since that time to today. Sour grapes say I. If dirty old man dog show judge Mr. so-and-so likes having women rub their breasts against him in the ring, if dowager woman judge Ms. such-and-such favors smiling young men one learns to identify and overcome such situations or one exhibits their dogs before other dog show judges.

The world is not perfect. There were and are dog show judges that favor professional dog handlers. There are dog show judges that appear to assign placing in catalog or numeric sequence, first into the ring is first place, etc. There were and are bad dog show judges. The wise exhibitor maintains a record of the 3,300 dog show judges they exhibit before or watch their behavior in a ring. Some dog show judges place the breed standard over a well trained dog, other dog show judges favor a structurally sound animal over a picture perfect breed specimen. The best dog show judges combine all of the above and select the best dogs before them – withholding an award depending upon the circumstance – all within the time constraint of 150 seconds for each dog and 175 dogs in a day's judging. Faster than a Municipal Small Claims Court Judge or Traffic Court Judge with a full docket of anxious litigants and a 2 p.m. golf tee-off.

If you visit the Westminster Kennel Club website at www.westminsterkennelclub.org or the MB-F dog show superintendent's website at www.infodog.com you can read the 32-page premium list for the 2008 Westminster show. At page 13, the BIS trophies include "The James Mortimer Memorial Sterling Silver Trophy for Best in Show if American-bred, for permanent possession to be won five times by the same owner. A Sterling Silver Trophy will be given to commemorate each win." The late James Mortimer was an outstanding dog fancier, a dog breeder, one of the first dog show superintendents and a popular dog show judge who provided a written opinion of the dogs he judged upon request. He always selected the best dog in the dog show ring. He was hired as an employee of the Westminster club with duties as kennel master, breeder, show superintendent in addition to his private employment as a show superintendent and dog show judge. He did such an outstanding work of employment for the Westminster kennel club that the club offers a BIS trophy for permanent possession to be won five times by the same owner. The closest any one person has gone is Mr. Winthrop Rutherford's dogs that won 3 times, while several people / kennels have won twice. Interestingly since 1907 several of the BIS dogs were owned by members of the Westminster club.

The outstanding award-winning book "Dog Shows Then and Now : An Annotated Anthology" (1999) by author Mrs. Anne M. Hier traces the development of dog show judging in America, with 1 dog show judge, 3 judges, even 10 judges. It is recommended reading for any serious student of dog show judging and the sport of pure-bred dogs.

Louis A. Fallon in New Jersey

Please feel free to add my words to your blog.

The State of AKC Judging – Some Possible Solutions – Part I

The first time I ever watched a dog show – I believe it was a Westminster Show on TV – I remember thinking it odd that the judge was all alone and that she made her pronouncements with no attempt to explain her decision. It seemed, well, amazing to me that one person would be given such a level of influence with no accountability. Now that my wife and I are somewhat actively involved in conformation, I’ve lost some of the amazement, but still have to shake my head at the general acceptance of it. The majority of people who exhibit dogs at AKC shows seem, at best, resigned to the state of the sport. Veterans appear to have found that, over time, they can finish the dogs they really want to finish, either by working the system or patiently working through its shortcomings.

Perhaps that’s the tack I should take. By profession, though, I solve complex problems, so it is difficult for me to be passive in the presence of such obvious and rampant malfeasance and opportunism. It’s “just a sport” – true enough – but a very public one in a country where $38.4 billion was spent on pets in 2006. The AKC, two of whose stated core values are "We are committed to advancing the sport of the purebred dog" and "We uphold high standards for the administration and operation of the AKC" places its organizational integrity in question by adhering to this subjective, single-judge system in the face of such widespread misuse by both judges and those who take advantage of the system's shortcomings.

Other sports with judging systems, recognizing the serious consequences of a system without accountability and objectivity controls, have taken many steps over the years to address the problem. None of them is perfect. The ISU's new judging system for figure skating, for example, goes to extremes to remove the human factor from judging, but does so at the possible price of practicality. I don't believe anything so extreme is needed to bring AKC judging to an acceptably professional level. I see three solutions that in combination would go a long way towards thwarting the kinds of misuse I've discussed in previous posts. I'll throw them out for consideration here, and discuss them in more detail in subsequent posts:

1. I've mentioned this one already: Require judges to write a brief review of each dog judged. In European shows this amounts to no more than two or three sentences or sentence fragments. Time consuming? Somewhat. Helpful? Definitely. Knowing that we will be required to explain ourselves always makes us more conscientious and self-aware.
2. Introduce a point system. Assign a point value between 1 and 10 to each of a set of criteria by which the breed is to be judged. This may be a more objective alternative in lieu of or as an addition to item one. The judge assigns the values and they are tallied for each dog by the ring steward. The judge then awards the win to the dog with the highest score..
3. Introduce use of a multi-judge panel. This is used in combination with the point system to award the win to the dog with the highest combined score. This approach serves to cancel out judging biases - indeed this was the reason for its introduction into Olympic judging.

A combination of all these approaches would, I believe, remove most opportunity for ethical infractions from AKC conformation. Next time I'll talk about what this would do to the sport, and address some of the things I'm sure you're already thinking having read them.