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Dear,
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March is here and with it, soon enough, the spring show season. To get the juices flowing, we've dug into the
Sighthound Review archives and come up with this gem, from our September-October 1990 issue. We hope you enjoy revisiting it as much as we did. -- SR
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NOT SEEING THE FOREST FOR THE TREES (Or "How to Get Lost on the Way to Awarding Best of Breed")
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By Dr. John Reeve-Newson
The judging world seems to be divided into those who judge on the positive and those who judge on the negative. Or, as a friend of mine in Afghan Hounds says: "Those who judge from the 'heart' and the 'eye,' and those who judge from the 'head' alone after dutifully memorizing standards."
The positives are people who judge on balance, type and the "overall" picture of the dog. The negatives are those who decide that one or two positive attributes or negatives are paramount, and all judging is decided on those principles, regardless of overall picture.
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Missed our last issue? Click on the cover below for highlights.
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One will see a dog in the Group and wonder how in God's name, out of an entry of that size, did that particular dog end up representing the breed in the group. Later, while talking with the breed judge, one will hear: "... it had the most perfect layback of shoulder" or "... the feet were the best I have ever seen in a long time, so beautifully arched," or "the dog was so sound," or -- that old kingpin -- "it has all of its teeth." My Aunt Ida has all of her teeth, but she doesn't look much like a Sighthound -- as a matter of fact, she looks more like a Pug.
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Elegance is the byword of a true Sighthound.
Photo: Jessica Bolander
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For me, the essence of a breed is contained in the preamble to the standards. Such words as elegant, exotic, graceful, symmetry, commanding, etc., appear in almost all of the Sighthound standards. These are the unmeasurable attributes that make a Sighthound a Sighthound.
If we fault-judge, or judge on one or two virtues and overlook the overall picture of style and balance, are we doing the breed a service or a disservice?
For example, in my breed, the Borzoi, if we start to count teeth and make the deciding factor of 42 teeth = a Borzoi, are we going to end up with a breed that in a few generations will have heads like Dobermans?
In most Sighthounds, and especially in Borzoi, the head is the hallmark of the breed, not the number of teeth. Shape, form, length and style of the headpiece is most important.
Many Borzoi, as I know from personal experience, have all their adult teeth at a young age. However, many by a year of age have lost one or two premolars playing, carrying food dishes, etc. If we show these dogs, are we going to have to carry with us certified dental charts? Or perhaps X-rays of the permanent dentition?
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As an exhibitor, I was always wary of showing under what are jokingly referred to as "massage therapists." Do you have to run your hands over every inch of a dog to get an impression of the angulation and the outline of the dog? Especially in a short-coated hound like a Whippet or a Greyhound, one can get an impression of chest depth, topline, underline and angulation by simply looking.
One knows these judges have dutifully attended lectures, seminars and workshops in structure and movement. Their heads are full of facts and figures: 45, 90, 180 degrees, one handspan, three fingers ... all these figures are whirling around and being assessed against the animal being examined. Send the dog down and back and let it stop on its own -- no touching by the handler. This will tell you more about the dog's basic structure than all the touching and fondling you do. Perhaps a protractor and a pair of calipers will become part of the well-dressed judge's attire?
Does one need to fondle and twist the testicles to know that there are two? A fast touch will do. The things that should be touched often are not -- like ears for texture, size and shape. The coat for texture and quality. Tails for length and carriage.
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Knowing the indigenous terrain on
which a hound hunts gives
invaluable insights into its type.
Photo: Erica Kasper
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A friend of mine,
respected in Sighthound circles -- the late Robin Hernandez -- said, "No dog should be given a major award if it showed improper tail carriage for the breed." Robin talked a lot about "flow" when describing a Sighthound; the flow of the lines.
Again, we have to get back to basics -- where the dog was bred, i.e. the country of origin -- its terrain and vegetation and what game that particular hound was bred to pursue. This will give the judge great insight into essential features of the Hound breeds and why they are important. These are the hallmarks of the breed. Some examples: hair on the Saluki's feet to keep the dog from slipping in the sand; strong, long nails in a Borzoi for traction on the ice and snow; dark eye rims -- very important, as any Bedouin in the desert or Eskimo who hunts in the snow will tell you; strong feet and pads in the Afghan Hound to run the rocky, hilly terrain of Afghanistan, and on and on ...
If judges concentrate on these, instead of measuring the precise angle of X to Y, you will do the breed much more good. More time should be spent on learning the origins and history of a breed, its purpose and function, and a knowledge of some of the "greats" in a breed and what made them "great."
What is the better dog for the purpose for which it was built? A lightly boned, poorly angulated dog with light eye rims that carries its tail over its back with a backskull like a dolphin and a muzzle that would do a Dobe proud, but has all his teeth -- or a hound with the essential breed features and a missing tooth?
I rest my case -- penalize for faults, but penalize with some sense of balance and importance to the overall picture, function and quality.
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When Billy Wilder made the great comedy "Some Like It Hot," Marilyn Monroe nearly drove him crazy by her tardiness on the set. A fellow director asked him why he did not use some other actress; his reply was that if he wanted someone just to be on time, he could have hired his Aunt Matilda, but for his film he wanted Marilyn, with all her faults.
Are we in the way of overlooking the Marilyns and putting up the Aunt Matildas because they have no "major faults," but then again, no major virtues, either? Fault judging usually results in mediocre specimens, and mediocrity begets mediocrity.
Style and quality are rather ephemeral attributes to assess. Those who have it know it and can recognize it in others. Others who do not have "it" can acquire it through effort and study and learn to recognize it in others. Others never have it, and never will.
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Several year ago, as we exhibited a top-winning specials Borzoi at a large breed specialty show in the United States, I wandered over to ringside to see the ring and observe the judge's ring procedure. I came back to our set-up and said to Dick Meen, "We are not going to win today."
"Why?" he asked. My response: "Any man with a haircut like that will never like our dog." (I was correct -- he did not survive the cut.)
Some examples of style and no style:
I was going to give my impressions of style and no style in the Sighthound world, but my lawyer advised me not to!
When entering under particular judges and you are unfamiliar with their likes and dislikes, try if possible to get photos of what they bred and exhibited. This will give you great insight into their likes in dogs and the points in a breed that they consider paramount.
One also may get surprises. You also learn, for example, that many of our Sighthound "experts" have very little actual breeding experience, and that their success in the Sighthound world is actually due to the breeding program and hard work of others, and therefore their taste in a particular breed may not be as well defined as some other judge's may be. Also, if possible, learn about them personally, their style and tastes; if you breed elegant, graceful dogs and you show under a "polyester princess," you are probably wasting your entry fee.
The older judges talk about having an "eye" for a dog. "Eye" used this way encompasses style, balance and presence -- "being there." This is a talent that is impossible to assess and unfortunately even more difficult to teach. Not that by an stretch of the imagination I am against workshops, seminars and the like, but let's try not to get so overburdened with the facts and the figures that we lose sight of the focus of all this attention -- the dog, the dog as the breed itself, not a collection of counts and measurements.
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