This was a feature in Dog world this week but I've been thinking ? ....is it ?....when I judge should I penalise a dog I know comes from epileptic lines ? ....or a dog that I know has sired monorchids ?.....or is my role to find the dog tha most closely fits it's breed standard ...I don't think that any judge would reward a dog with an obvious health problem such as a skin complaint or lameness but should our primary role be to judge dogs on their known genetic health rather than on their appearance and general fitneess ?

Yvonne

how would you know about the health issues  behind a dog if some breeders keep it quite. it only the ones you as a judge would know in your breed.that have a problem,
when judging other breeds that you have not got you wouldnt know the lines or health problems behinds them.
i was judging goron setters last week i not had a gordon or know much about who lines or health problem behind them as i have not had a gordon for over15 years but i do know what i like to judge the breed stander and fit for life and to they job.
that at the end of the result i must of like one line beause the wins and bob rbob and bp were from the same lines.
the old fashon lines of the gordon setter.
so judging for me  would be type and movement and general fitness
you ask the gordon setter exhibter what they had to do on by the why on moving,

A very thought provoking post.

When judging ones own breed, it's impossible to include all the information you know about each exhibit and must just judge to the blueprint (excluding those we can see are not healthy).
When it comes to other breeds it is very difficult to give a prize to an example which makes you feel "poor little thing" when you see a breed exageration which makes that dog, in some ways, disabled.
I struggle to wish to reward a dog whose owner panics if you want to look in it's mouth because it will impede it's breathing or one who's shoulders are so spaced as to make it stand so wide in front, it is twice as wide as a similar sized dog.

Makes for very uncomfortable choices ( nothing compared to the dog's discomfort of course)

trevor you said that you do not think that a judge would reward a dog with lameness well it has happened on more than one occasion
in more than one breed that i have seen, and of course it was not welcomed around the ring .

I would ask the kc for clarification if you need it, because you are just judging what is put in front of you for the day and( unless i suppose you are a vet) it must
fit as close to the breed standard as possible, and who to say the dog/bitch has those complaints epileptic etc. if you do not know from
first hand experience of that line it could be possible for rumours to have spread and nothing been proven that has been
known to happen as well.

it must be a mine field for judges nowadays to judge and i must say i wish them the best of luck
because whatever they do will never be right in someones eyes

A few thoughts:

Even vets rarely see a dog fitting, and have to rely on the owner's word that it needs medication. If you don't know for certain that a particular individual (or even line) is affected, then you'd be penalising a dog on the basis of rumour and hearsay - not very professional.

Unless the judge knows the veterinary record of every single dog in the class it is unfair to judge just some of them on what they might (or might not) be affected by; it is unfair to give some dogs extra 'hurdles' to clear.

A judge should place the dogs according to what he/she sees before them on the day. It would be as unfair to penalise a dog on the basis of what its genetic health might be as it would be to give honours to a dog that was lame on the day but that the judge has seen moving soundly in the past.

In my opinion you shd. judge the dog on the day and that dogs fitness on the day.  Sadly I've been in a class with a boy that had won two RCC's he was put fifth out of five and the dog that won the class literally was on three legs all day!  It was a few years ago but I have seen it since.

Hmmmm....but that's not what it says - or is this statement only for judges of breeds with obvious visible problems ? ( Pekes ? Bulldogs? etc ) - if so it seems a tad unfair that breeds with less visible but nevertheless significant health problems are not 'penalised' by their judges - take SM in Cavaliers - if the stud dog that sired a huge number of pups that went on to be affected by this was penalised in the ring by those judges that KNEW about the problem might this have prevented the spread of SM ? - or would it just drive problems underground ?

- like most judges I would of course penalise dogs that appear to be unwell and I think the overwhelming majority of judges would do the same - but beyond that ? -

I'm not a vet - and I'm not a geneticist  and to be honest I really don't understand what the KC means by statements like this !

Yvonne

>would it just drive problems underground

I think that's exactly what would happen, and everyone would working even more in the dark that they are now.

Think about it this way; how do you know that a dog you're judging doesn't have a hereditary heart problem, or will develop hereditary cataracts? The answer is, you can't - so all the dogs must be judged on a level playing-field. Otherwise only qualified vets with access to each entrant's DNA profile would be suitable to be a judge.

JG has it exactly - you can only judge based on what you see on the day.  I am not about to change my placings based on what may well turn out to be rumour or hearsay, and I'm not about to second guess which dogs may be carrying a condition based on pedigree alone.  I could be completely wrong.

In any case, once genetic tests have been developed, there is no reason why carriers of a particular condition should not be included in the gene pool if that gene pool is a small one, on similarly tested, known clear stock.  This was the case in my breed when the new prcd-PRA test was developed.  There were some surprises once we started testing, both in terms of those dogs that were clear and those dogs that proved to be carriers.  Guided by the experts, our breeders decided to continue to use carriers for breeding, at least for the time being, as to remove them in one fell swoop from the gene pool would reduce our breeding choices, and may in fact lead us to doubling up on something else for which there is no test.  Why should those carrier dogs be penalised in the ring when they can be used safely?  The main thing is to ensure that dogs are not bred from if their status is not known, and to ensure that any carriers are used on appropriate, clear mates.

Dogs that are showing clear signs of ill-health in the ring should of course be penalised.  In my breed, faults in movement that may lead to damage to joints and arthritis in later life should be penalised anyway, as they don't meet the standard.  We are looking for an unexaggerated animal that is fit for function, in our case a fit and agile hunting dog, bred to endure long days in the field.

Me and mum have been talking along these lines for quite a while now (were not judges) but we came to the conclusion that for a dog to get top honors or from PG class upwards should have to produce good health test results before they can enter the show. Pups wouldn't have to produce HD tests etc as it very rare that a pup get the CC.

But then some aliments like cancer don't show until much later in life so would make the this idea defunct, also on the flip side people who only show for the fun and a nice weekend out wouldn't want to be testing their family pets.

> take SM in Cavaliers - if the stud dog that sired a huge number of pups that went on to be affected by this was penalised in the ring by those judges that KNEW about the problem might this have prevented the spread of SM ?

The inheritance of this disease is far, far more complicated than that and for what it's worth, the winning dog in the PDE film pups are now old enough to scan and they appear to be no better or worse than any other at this point.

This is where this amateur vet-judging will fall down......too little knowledge....to much supposition and too much hear say.

Well strictly speaking you shouldn't have a clue of which dog is in front of you of course, so unless the KC wants the show management to hand catalogues to the judges BEFORE judging...........

Good point Marianne!   In a minority breed like mine, you do get an idea of who owns what because we all know each other, but even so, we do all swap handlers from time to time...

I think that the KC should make breeders have their dogs certified by a panel "FIT FOR USE AS BREEDING STOCK"  This would greatly reduce the risk of inherited health conditions. It wouldnt penalise those who wish to enter shows for fun

> I think that the KC should make breeders have their dogs certified by a panel "FIT FOR USE AS BREEDING STOCK"  This would greatly reduce the risk of inherited health conditions. It wouldnt penalise those who wish to enter shows for fun

By what criteria would the panel judge 'fit for breeding'?    In my breed the main health test (DNA) is not even mentioned in KC health testing - because the DNA result isn't the whole story yet and work is still in progress.  Never-the-less, responsible breeders wouldn't dream of breeding from untested dogs and bitches or those with less than good results and are very aware of current developments regarding health matters within the breed.

How often would the dog/bitch need to be certified?    would it be a one off, yearly, monthly, weekly? things can change very quickly regarding health of individual dogs and bitches.  Would it be different for dogs and bitches?   dogs can have a far greater impact on a breed and can sire far more pups than a bitch might produce, but bitches also have an impact too. 

Who would sit on the panel?    How many people are actually qualified to even discuss the individual health problems of each breed ?   many qualified vets wouldn't have a clue and I wouldn't trust anyone from any of the large rent collectors - sorry, charities.

> I think that the KC should make breeders have their dogs certified

> It wouldnt penalise those who wish to enter shows for fun

Maddie, is that presupposing that breeders aren't showing their dogs for fun??   And yet again it raises the debate about what constitutes a breeder.

> that for a dog to get top honors or from PG class upwards should have to produce good health test results before they can enter the show.

This would exclude a lot of dogs whose owners simply enjoy showing and have no intentions of breeding.

After all the health tests are not cheap.  In my breed your looking at £500, not an amount the average non breeding owner exhibitor wants to be shelling out for no good reason.

We want to encourage new people into the showring not exclude them and make ti only for the people with money.

Shows and getting to them is expensive enough, but each of us can do as little or as much as we can afford at present.

In fact being able to see the Good bad and indifferent examples at shows means a breeder can see the variety of quality that can be produced from various bloodlines.

It is what is bred from that is the issue.  Starting excluding dogs from the ring does not mean they won't be bred from, but others won't see them, leave the owner to work out the worth of their dog from the placings they get against the opposition, as long as the judge knows what a basically sound moving breathing seeing dog is.  Leave the study of genetics and appropriate health testing and decisions based on this to breeders who should be informed enough/compelled to do them.

I've just paid out £87 today just to have one dog have one kind of eye test and my pup the other.  Pup of course will need her yearly eye testing when she's 12 months.  I wouldn't like to guess how much I've forked out over the last 17 years, and with new health tests coming out all the time, I'm about to pay out even more!

if you pay out more for the test and dna test the dog is health to go into a breeding progamme then the price gos up on a litter of puppys.
i paid out 18 months ago to send a dog to a top spec in othpod to have her hips.elbows.patella xrays not my regualr vet,has this vet just had the up todate state of ark x ray machine fitted in the uk.as well having them done we had her growth plates xray and should. then i paid out to have her eyes test gluc.and pra twice with 14 months,

all clear.

> if you pay out more for the test and dna test the dog is health to go into a breeding progamme then the price gos up on a litter of puppys.
>

Not in our breed it doesn't, more health tests yet price of pups only goes up £50 every couple of years.

....so .....are the KC correct ?.....can health possibly be a judges first consideration ?-judging is overwhelmingly assessing what your eyes are seeing and what your hands are feeling - most health issues are unseen and cannot be felt therefore  I think this statement MUST be wrong  - now if we can figure this out then why can the Kc not ? ....why are they making statements like this that are frankly impossible to comply with and which imply that judges are complicit in health issues and that showing rewards poor health  ...should the statement not read " health should be the BREEDERS first consideration "

...is this another own goal from the KC ?

Yvonne

>most health issues are unseen and cannot be felt therefore  I think this statement MUST be wrong ...
>why are they making statements like this that are frankly impossible to comply with and which imply that judges are complicit in health issues and that showing rewards poor health  

However there are visible health issues: don't forget overweight - a known health issue and yet quite common among certain show dogs whose owners use portliness as a substitute for muscular substance. Judges who ignore this are complicit in rewarding poor health.

At the end of the day judging at any show is down to looking like the breed standard, the way that a dog moves and general fitness which can be seen by the eye. When we come to genetic problems and health issues that really can not be seen by the eye that needs to come into play when choosing breeding stock and is nothing to do with being a judge at a show, the two need to be kept seperately.

Although many champions or dogs which do well in the ring, will be sought after as breeding stock it is up to people to do checks on what they wish to use, none of us would just use a dog because it is a champion alone, we look into the lines and match dogs carefully particularly when it comes to health issues.

IMO that is the way it should stay, a judge should be judging the dog infront of them  after all it is hard enough for a judge without having health issues put into the factor aswell.

One would hope that if an owner knew their dog had problems that it would not be put up as breeding stock. One would hope...........

> At the end of the day judging at any show is down to looking like the breed standard

I would also hope that the judge is looking for correct temperament for the breed, they don't have long to do so but should be able to assess this most important point.

We can all live with an ugly, even unhealthy loving dog of correct temperament for the breed.

A poor temperament is no good for anyone, and I feel this is the aspect most ignored by the causal or commercial puppy producer, along with a don't worry as long as it lives to selling age re health..

I don't put the price up either, think it's high enough

Some judges don't even care about visible temperament problems, never mind hard-to-spot health issues. At the weekend my girl was last place behind a gorgeous dog who was so shy of the judge he would have gone off the table if his handler hadn't been using both hands and her body to block him jumping, and another dog with a very dodgy tailset.