Fault Judging v. whole judging - Page 1

A discussion on another thread brought up a question about a strong dog who scored well at a national championship despite two rebites. 

It got me thinking about the difference between how judges judge.  In conformation, obedience or really any dogsport.

In conformation there is a lot of talk about judging the "whole" dog rather than just subtracting points for faults.  A "good" judge is considered one which takes in the whole picture of the dog rather than just mathematically taking off points for faults.

Like a sound, pleasing, typey dog with faulty ears may well be placed over a mediocre dog with perfect ears. Ringsiders will gasp and say "HOW COULD HE PLACE A DOG WITH EARS LIKE THAT!" and that shows there ignorance.

In French ring sport several points are given for "general appearance", meaning does the handler and dog look good out there?  Does the dog slink?  Look "electric"? Does the dog radiate assurance and love of handler?

I think the Europeans are better than Americans sometimes at this type of judging. I rather suspect that in the case of the dog which scored a 97 despite a nip here and there the judge was scoring the over all performance of a strong dog. I'd rather have that than a judge who gives 100 points to a lifeless dog who is technically correct. Or the dog who "just hangs in there" while everyone holds their breath.

Your thoughts?   : ) 

Interesting topic; I'll look forward to reading the responses.

By the way, if you remove the quotation marks from the original subject line, it will save everyone else from having to type it in their responses.

What I understand is that the more points a judge gives to a dog in a show competition the more the judge is encouraging breeders to breed from the dog especially when the dog is a male. Allover look and performance of the dog is important but if there are certain serious faults in structure or character they should make the dog loose points otherwise unsound or dogs with faults in structure will have more dominance in the breed and thus bring down the next populations especially when we hear nowadays so much talk about the decline of the breed.

Ibrahim

I was directed by the system to put a topic name, why so?

Thanks for the tip Keith, I think I fixed it.

[quote]In French ring sport several points are given for "general appearance", meaning does the handler and dog look good out there? Does the dog slink? Look "electric"? Does the dog radiate assurance and love of handler?[/quote]

This is an incorrect interpretation of what "general allure" is used for.  In French Ring it's all about "technically correct", there is no category of points for attitude.  Some judges may give a dog who shows real enjoyment and attitude in the heeling a little leeway for forging, or forgive something else because the dog is showing real enthusiasm, but that's technically incorrect, the rulebook is very clear on where proper heel position is, and how far out of that position the dog can get before being dinged, and then how many points.  Same in the other exercises.  If the dog has 15 seconds to do the retrieve, then as long as they get it done in 15 seconds it doesn't matter if they race out adn back like greased lightening, or mope out and back looking stressed out of their mind.  FR really isn't about "how" the dog does it, it's about "does" the dog do it? 

General Allure is used as a catch all penalty section.  Maybe a handler is walking oddly in an exercise, the judge doesn't want to fail the entire exercise because it's not really effecting the dog that much, but at the same time it's not being done perfectly so they don't want to give them the same points as someone who didn't walk oddly.  So they take a point or two from general allure.  Maybe the handler flagrantly breaks a rule, or goes into "training mode".  Not only can they loose all the points for the exercise, they can get an extra "kick" by loosing some general allure points to. 

At the beginning of a performance, there is a percent of the total points possible that is assigned to General Allure (GA). 

Brevet - 8/100
FRI - 12/200
FRII - 28/300
FRIII - 36/400

After the performance is over, the GA the team earns is based on how many points they earned.  So in a Brevet, if the team earned 86 of the possible 92 points (92 + 8GA = 100) they only earn 7.4 GA points of the possible 8 for a final score of 93.4/100.  If the judge docked them some GA points, maybe they were walking at an inconsistent pace in the heeling and got -1 GA then their final GA score would be the 7.4 - 1 = 6.4 for a final score of 86 + 6.4 = 92.4

Clear as mud?  :-)

It sounds like you have a lot of experience trialing. I've only trialed two dogs, and that was how two judges have explained it to me.  Thanks for the additional info.

Lots of experience trialing, but I'm also an FR judge.  We've met quite a few times over the years, I was at the FR trial in WA last month with Leri but I also used to live in the PNW.

Gotcha! Super, well, again, thanks for the additional info, its good to know! And from the horses mouth is always the best!!!! : ) 

If they figure out how to transplant my head onto another body I will get back into ring sport, I LOVE it!

 Also, just to be clear... I was at the event and the Judge was writting and did not see the 2 rebites, he did NOT just choose to ignore them.

I like when judges take the "whole" into account (especially in terms of work/sport trials).  I used to be a competitive gymnast and before I was born, gymnastics was also judged this way (eg. Nadia Comaneci taking a step on her dismount yet scoring the first 10.0 in Olympic history).

As far as show/conformation judging, a lot boils down to what areas the judge is more critical of, and people know this going in.  So if there's a judge that is REALLY strict on size, someone with a dog at the high end of the standard may choose not to enter or would not be surprised if this was mentioned in critique.  Unlike sports where you *can* get perfect scores, no dog really *is* perfect so the judge is looking at the total package yet may be more critical about eye color while the next judge is more critical about weak pasterns, etc.  Last summer I entered my dog in two shows just weeks apart and he was in the same class at both shows, got the same placements (VP2) and the judges gave nearly opposite critiques, lol.  So I guess for me tosee the "whole" picture I like to show my dog more than once to a range of judges and also take critiques with a grain of salt.