Should you be allowed to be a judge and run a dog?

[Whiskey River Kennel]

[quote="RangeViewKennels"]This was a thread I wasn’t sure I was going to stick my nose into at first, but here I go.

Once upon a time someone talked me into the trial game and I decided that I would try it. In the format that we were competing a lot of the judging is subject to someone’s opinion. In several of these events it seemed to me that there were people not being scored as fairly as they should have been and some of their buddies were getting some favors in the point department. Then they would switch up and the same things would go on again.

For the sake of argument let’s assume that I was wrong and that was not what was happening and what I thought I saw didn’t.
quote]

I am not sure what you mean when you state, "being scored fairly" or "favors in the point department" since at field trials there are no scores and no points. A field trial is a competition, each dog against the other. I've heard many people new to field trials, folks that haven't put the saddle time in to watch hundreds or even thousands of dogs, remark that they thought a different dog should have won or placed (and normally it is their dog they think should have won). A new gentleman in our club decided he would run three of his dogs in the puppy/derby stakes. He did not get a placement with any of them. At the club meeting afterwards he loudly proclaimed the judges were biased and giving favors to their friends. This happens a lot, and some of the folks decide not to keep field trialing, this is unfortunate, but some of these new folks stick it out and after a few years they know why the dogs they ran back then did not win.

Of course all field trials are subjective, it is just two judge's opinions on which dogs win and place in a stake. But if the judges are qualified and have been around for a while put up the dogs that deserved it and the placements would probably have been the same had two completely different judges judged the stake.

[RangeViewKennels]

This was a thread I wasn’t sure I was going to stick my nose into at first, but here I go.

Once upon a time someone talked me into the trial game and I decided that I would try it. In the format that we were competing a lot of the judging is subject to someone’s opinion. In several of these events it seemed to me that there were people not being scored as fairly as they should have been and some of their buddies were getting some favors in the point department. Then they would switch up and the same things would go on again.

For the sake of argument let’s assume that I was wrong and that was not what was happening and what I thought I saw didn’t.
quote]

I am not sure what you mean when you state, "being scored fairly" or "favors in the point department" since at field trials there are no scores and no points. A field trial is a competition, each dog against the other. I've heard many people new to field trials, folks that haven't put the saddle time in to watch hundreds or even thousands of dogs, remark that they thought a different dog should have won or placed (and normally it is their dog they think should have won). A new gentleman in our club decided he would run three of his dogs in the puppy/derby stakes. He did not get a placement with any of them. At the club meeting afterwards he loudly proclaimed the judges were biased and giving favors to their friends. This happens a lot, and some of the folks decide not to keep field trialing, this is unfortunate, but some of these new folks stick it out and after a few years they know why the dogs they ran back then did not win.

Of course all field trials are subjective, it is just two judge's opinions on which dogs win and place in a stake. But if the judges are qualified and have been around for a while put up the dogs that deserved it and the placements would probably have been the same had two completely different judges judged the stake.

Send me a PM and I will tell you how it happens.

[phillipsgsp]

I am a judge for Hunt tests and have run a dog or dogs in levels that I was not judging. I will have to say that I have failed just as many times in a test that I was not judging as I have at a test that I was judging. A lot of times I run Master Hunter and then judge Senior and Junior. I think that sometimes that judges are tougher on other judges that run dogs just because of this very argument.

Rangeview, you should try Hunt Tests, they are by no means field trials. They are a great way to test, title and proove your type of dog. A MH dog is a top notch gentlemans hunting dog, that is the reason the tests were developed and started. Hunting dogs are what i raise and I am a hunter as well. I feel that everytime I go hunting I reap the benefits of training my dogs for Hunt Tests. 95% of the pups I sell are to hunting homes and the HT titles show that the dogs are trainable and are hunters. HT dogs are held against a standard, not competing against the other dogs that are there.

Chad