# Grey Areas



## Ljilly28 (Jan 22, 2008)

So a person I know just did the CCA with her own breeder as one of the evaluators, but it was a "grandpuppy" evaluated. 

However, I have decided not to show Mystic to Lushie's breeder when she judges a specialty sweepstakes at a show I usually attend in the winter, bc it seems to put her in an awkward position- we are friends bc of Lushie and she more than knows who I am, if not the pup. 

She did not breed Mystic though, so technically, I could enter; I do believe she would be impartial - it just seems like poor form all around. 

What do you think about showing dogs to mentors and breeders who fall in these grey areas? Would you do it? How about showing in obedience to a judge with whom you have taken a ten week class session in the past?



> A SPORTSMAN EXHIBITOR DOES NOT ENTER OR EXHIBIT UNDER A JUDGE WHERE THERE IS EVIDENCE THAT THE JUDGE'S PLACEMENTS MAY BE BASED ON SOMETHING OTHER THAN THE MERITS OF THE DOGS.
> A SPORTSMAN EXHIBITOR DOES NOT COMPROMISE THE IMPARTIALITY OF A JUDGE.


It happens all the time bc the dog show world is a small world, and it is understandable. However, if you have a well known close tie to someone who then gets a judging assignment, it is time to err on the side of not entering.


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## Ljilly28 (Jan 22, 2008)

American Kennel Club - Conflict of Interest Committee Report


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## AmberSunrise (Apr 1, 2009)

I personally feel there are more than enough shows/tests/trials that it would be best to avoid even the appearance of favoritism 


There are a few dogs sports where judging is fairly cut & dried and I feel it is fine to show under friends or mentors:
- Agility is pretty black & white (time and faults)
- Hunt tests are also pretty straight forward unless bad line manners come into play; but with 2 judges these matters are discussed & even out any preference I think
- Tracking seems like it is fairly straight forward although I have no personal experience

In most other dog sports the judge can be placed in an awkward position. 
- In conformation a breeder breeds to her ideal of the standard so showing a dog under that judge that she has bred is really not fair to the judge or other exhibitors. 
- In obedience showing to your trainer - first off the judge will know your dogs weak areas and secondly might have a bias towards certain styles which she presumably gears her teaching toward. An exception might be if you trained with someone for puppy & manners classes but not competition classes or if you have not trained with the judge for say 6 months. 
- In field trials the same subjectivity would apply.

I think in any dog sport where subjectivity enters into the picture, it is best to just not show to any judge where impropriety may even be whispered ...



Ljilly28 said:


> What do you think about showing dogs to mentors and breeders who fall in these grey areas? Would you do it? How about showing in obedience to a judge with whom you have taken a ten week class session in the past?


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## Megora (Jun 7, 2010)

Disclaimer: I'm planning on having fun with conformation and am not serious enough about it to be strategizing about who I show under as of yet. I figure I'm in the position where I shouldn't be counting my eggs before they're hatched.  

But =)

Coming from the obedience side of things.... I would be very careful about showing to somebody I trained under, trained with, or have any affiliation with. Anything that gets people yapping outside the ring.... 

In conformation especially.... it seems like it gets a lot more personal because people are spending so much money and they get upset if it appears (to them) their dogs have not been fairly looked at. You already have people yapping about unfair advantages which known handlers or dogs from known breeders get - whether those advantages exist or not.


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## CarolinaCasey (Jun 1, 2007)

When you have to ask the question in your mind, should I or shouldn't I, it is best to not enter. People love something to talk about so it is best to not give the appearance of impropriety. 


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## Ljilly28 (Jan 22, 2008)

We wouldnt let out junior handler Keller show under Sarah Crepeau, a young handler we use, when Sarah judged juniors. Lots of tears from Keller, but a good life lesson. Matches are interesting too- different or same standards as for shows?


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## Tahnee GR (Aug 26, 2006)

Matches are for fun and practice and don't count towards titles, so I don't think the same rules would apply. I would have no problem showing under a mentor or co-breeder at a match. If I want practice at a match, it's next to impossible to find one with a Sporting judge that I haven't traveled with, helped evaluate puppies or even co-bred litters with. Match judges tend to be very local (of course, this could also be a function of where I live).


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## TheZ's (Jun 13, 2011)

Ljilly28 said:


> So a person I know just did the CCA with her own breeder as one of the evaluators, but it was a "grandpuppy" evaluated. . . .
> 
> What do you think about showing dogs to mentors and breeders who fall in these grey areas? Would you do it? How about showing in obedience to a judge with whom you have taken a ten week class session in the past? . . .
> 
> It happens all the time bc the dog show world is a small world, and it is understandable. However, if you have a well known close tie to someone who then gets a judging assignment, it is time to err on the side of not entering.


Thanks for raising this issue. It really surprises me that someone would or could for that matter have a CCA evaluation by the person who bred the dog's mother (did I get that relationship right).

I thought it was a violation of the AKC rules to be judged in obedience by a person who had trained the dog. I can see it maybe if the training was only general puppy, good manners stuff but not if the training was for competition obedience.

*A SPORTSMAN EXHIBITOR DOES NOT ENTER OR EXHIBIT UNDER A JUDGE WHERE THERE IS EVIDENCE THAT THE JUDGE'S PLACEMENTS MAY BE BASED ON SOMETHING OTHER THAN THE MERITS OF THE DOGS.
A SPORTSMAN EXHIBITOR DOES NOT COMPROMISE THE IMPARTIALITY OF A JUDGE. 

*The rules you've quoted seem to leave a lot of room for personal judgment as to what's appropriate. Whether your relationship to the judge is well known seems somewhat irrelevant to me. The question should be could the relationship affect the judging. If the relationship were known to others could they reasonably think the relationship affected the judging.

Can a judge decline to judge an entry where they think they have a conflict?


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## Sally's Mom (Sep 20, 2010)

The woman who used to show my Goldens in conformation NEVER puts one of my dogs up in a match!


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## ragtym (Feb 3, 2008)

When Jennifer K. started judging, she sent out a request to every one of her puppy owners that showed and asked that they not show under her. I have no problem honoring that request. Now I have Ember who is out of a bitch that Jennifer bred. Since I co-own that bitch with Jennifer, she is the co-breeder of Ember so I won't be showing her to Jennifer either. Even if Jennifer hadn't been the co-breeder, I would have had serious reservations about taking Ember to her. It just doesn't look/feel right and Jennifer is too good of a friend for me to do something that might tarnish her reputation.

In all honesty, I'm not sure that I would show to her even if I had a completely unrelated dog. I would probably ask her if it would make her uncomfortable before I did.


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## Tahnee GR (Aug 26, 2006)

Sally's Mom said:


> The woman who used to show my Goldens in conformation NEVER puts one of my dogs up in a match!


Yeah, I figure if I show in a match to any of my friends or breeders, I probably won't win


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## Ljilly28 (Jan 22, 2008)

LOL! Sally'sMom, that makes me giggle. I would never dare go in there with her.


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## Ljilly28 (Jan 22, 2008)

ragtym said:


> When Jennifer K. started judging, she sent out a request to every one of her puppy owners that showed and asked that they not show under her. I have no problem honoring that request. Now I have Ember who is out of a bitch that Jennifer bred. Since I co-own that bitch with Jennifer, she is the co-breeder of Ember so I won't be showing her to Jennifer either. Even if Jennifer hadn't been the co-breeder, I would have had serious reservations about taking Ember to her. It just doesn't look/feel right and Jennifer is too good of a friend for me to do something that might tarnish her reputation.
> 
> In all honesty, I'm not sure that I would show to her even if I had a completely unrelated dog. I would probably ask her if it would make her uncomfortable before I did.


That is so cool of her to do that.


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## sterregold (Dec 9, 2009)

The other thing to consider is that the CCA is not competitive--it is an evaluation, and there are three evaluators present, and there need to be three qualifying scores. The assessment is also recorded on the form so there is a lot influencing the evaluator to do an honest assessment--it would look very odd if they gave the dog straight 10's and did not note any obvious faults that the other evaluators found.

In a conformation show, whether sweeps, regular classes or non-regular classes I agree that it puts the breeder in an uncomfortable position--if they put the dog up they will be accused of favouritism, and if they dump it they are saying they do not like a dog that came from their stuff! In that case the best thing to do might be to shake the exhibitors hand and ask them to excuse themselves as Peter Green did when he judged the terrier group at Westminster.


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## Sally's Mom (Sep 20, 2010)

I agree with Shelly about the CCA. I looked at the evaluators in the Northeast. One of them is a woman, who is more than a passing acquaintance. If I came before her in a CCA, I think she would be fair and honest. She certainly wouldn't give me good scores if my dog were gay tailed, sway backed, short necked, and east west in front. Dogs in a CCA are judged against the standard, not each other. It seems then to be able to fairly evaluate field, bench, English type, etc held to the standard. 

I certainly would not show to a friend/good acquaintance in an AKC show either in obedience or conformation. Where points are involved or qualifying scores and placements are important, I think it would be unethical to show to your breeder, your friend, your trainer... However having said that, I have heard of numerous situations in the conformation ring where I have been told by others who know more than I do, that such and such handler won because the judge owed her/him a favor.

Everyone has the standard that they go by to determine what they consider worthy of a breeding dog. For some it is a Ch, others obedience titles, or a CCA. In fact, I know a person who just bred her first litter who said that she felt if someone wanted to breed one of her pups, it would need to have a CCA. So random and IMO putting a lot of stock on that. It is just part of the puzzle in determining a given dog's qualities...


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## CarolinaCasey (Jun 1, 2007)

I once attended a show where the judge was a breeder judge. His WD was a dog who was out of a bitch he bred but didn't own. However the dam's name carried his kennel prefix and when looking at the catalog, it made you go, "hmmm." You never want to be put in that position as a judge, I'm sure. He probably was unaware of who the dog was or who he was out of but it looked bad and people talked. I think there are lots of grey areas. Jennifer K is so cool, I love that she wrote a letter to people. 


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## sterregold (Dec 9, 2009)

And for another perspective, in hunt tests, where dogs are also assessed against a standard and placements are not made it is very common to run under judges who are friends or training partners. My friends have failed under me in Master probably more than they have passed!! The field world is such a small place that it is nearly inevitable. If I did not enter my dogs in tests judged by friends I would have very few tests to enter--for my friends, it would have meant three Master and two Senior tests they could not have entered this summer. About the only people judging in my corner of the world who are not friends, are people whose approach to judging I disagree with, so I wouldn't run under them anyhow!!


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## hotel4dogs (Sep 29, 2008)

I do think the non-competitive venues are different from the competitive ones. I think a CCA especially, which isn't an AKC title, is very different from the breed ring in terms of who you can have evaluate your dog.


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## TheZ's (Jun 13, 2011)

hotel4dogs said:


> I do think the non-competitive venues are different from the competitive ones. I think a CCA especially, which isn't an AKC title, is very different from the breed ring in terms of who you can have evaluate your dog.


But isn't the CCA sometimes used as evidence that a dog, usually a female, meets the breed standard and is suitable for breeding?


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## Sally's Mom (Sep 20, 2010)

TheZ's said:


> But isn't the CCA sometimes used as evidence that a dog, usually a female, meets the breed standard and is suitable for breeding?


I think that is up for debate...


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## Ljilly28 (Jan 22, 2008)

TheZ's said:


> But isn't the CCA sometimes used as evidence that a dog, usually a female, meets the breed standard and is suitable for breeding?


I agree with this, and the person I mentioned did use that CCA as a benchmark to breed her dog. 

Lushie's breeder Jenn is a CCA evaluator and is judging sweeps at the LI Specialty- I would not have her evaluate Lush or Lush kids, but also not even Mystic who she didnt breed. It seems to croass the line. I also believe she would send me out(lol or shoot me).

The judge's rules involve avoiding even the perception of bias, not just being biased.


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## Loisiana (Jul 29, 2009)

I can't speak for conformation, but in obedience if we avoid every judge we were friends with, ever took lessons from, or bred a relative we owned, there wouldn't be too many judges left. The regs spell out what is allowed and what isn't: what relationships cannot be shown under, how long it has to have been since you trained under them, etc. Personally I'd be more likely to avoid a judge who knows my dog really well because they'd know his weaknesses and really be on the look out for them!


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## hvgoldens4 (Nov 25, 2009)

TheZ's said:


> Thanks for raising this issue. It really surprises me that someone would or could for that matter have a CCA evaluation by the person who bred the dog's mother (did I get that relationship right).
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## Ljilly28 (Jan 22, 2008)

You do see lots of people showing "grandpuppies" back to their breeders in the conformation ring, especially in Sweeps, but I am undecided in my mind about it. It is a grey area to me. I am thinking about if Maverick, Cady, or Stevee were shown to Jenn at the LI specialty. At the National this year, a few grandpuppies were shown back to breeders, at times to breeders with which a close friendship abides, and it happens often at smaller shows. Last year, I was at a show in which a bitch who had a hard time getting her last major was shown to her breeder and won; that caused lots of consternation but for me it isnt grey area- I definitely wouldnt do it. I am undecided if "grandpuppies" is okay or not. I don't think it is against the rules in the letter of the law. Mystic's grandbreeder would have no idea who he was/who I am, as she lives in Washington State, so that might be just fine. I probably will ere on the side of not doing it, but in a way it makes sense that that would be someone to value the style of the dog independently of person connections.


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