The Tack Box Podcast
The Tack Box Podcast is an informative and relaxed show that covers all aspects of dog ownership. Join AKC judge and Renowned breeder, Dale Martenson, and new enthusiast, Tyson Wald, as they discuss topics ranging from acquiring your first dog, showing, breeding, marketing puppies, and running a Kennel.
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The Tack Box Podcast
Episode 60: Breed Education | How to Promote Your Breed | Educate Judges
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Most dog breeders and enthusiasts overlook one key factor that could dramatically improve judge education and breed reputation—until now. In this eye-opening episode of the Tack Box Podcast, Dale and Tyson uncover the secret pathways breeders are using to elevate judging standards and breed understanding, from AKC breed tests and CEUs to innovative mentoring techniques.
Discover how a rigorous judging process, including breed tests, long-term mentorship, kennel visits, and breed-specific courses like AKC's canine college, are transforming the way judges learn and evaluate breeds. Dale shares firsthand insights into the meticulous steps judges must take—from passing written exams and earning CEUs at national specialties, to observational assessments that can make or break their certification status. You'll learn the difference between provisional and regular judging status, and why these certifications aren’t just bureaucratic hoops, but vital quality filters for breed integrity.
We break down practical tactics breeders and judges can employ to foster breed education at every level. From the importance of deep breed passion and sharing detailed knowledge—like the significance of eye white in Japanese chin or the impact of markings on conformation—to the subtle art of ring-side observation and kennel visits. Tyson highlights how standards and point systems evolve, underpinning the need for up-to-date training and face-to-face learning, ultimately helping judges see the "truth" of a breed beyond just the surface.
Why does this matter? Because lack of breeder-driven education risks a decline in breed quality and recognition, but embracing these methods offers a huge opportunity to shape the future of breed judging—making it more consistent, informed, and unprejudiced. For breeders committed to advancing their breed’s reputation and for
What is going on, everybody? Welcome to the Tack Box Podcast. It is episode number 60, the Big Six Zero. We're climbing up there. Yeah, we're coming to you today from Texoma here, and we have an awesome episode for you. Dale's uh fresh off of a huge weekend at the dog show. We had a Japanese chin specialty. So tell us about that a little bit, Dale, and then we're gonna dive into Judge's education. So stay tuned for hearing all about uh Judge's education. And for those of you that you know walk around after dog show saying, I wish the judges knew more about our breed. This episode is for you. So stay tuned.
SPEAKER_00Well, hey, welcome to Texoma. And I hope you are enjoying our beautiful weather. It's great. Isn't it awesome? It's awesome.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. I'm surprised he's not out doing his his podcasting by sitting by his pool. But for the rest of us, we're in the kitchen. But this weekend we had this the uh specialty for the Southern Chin Club, and we had we had uh you know four opportunities to show our dogs, and we were did some judges education this weekend over there at that special because specialties are a wonderful place for judges education.
SPEAKER_01How'd you how'd you uh turn out in a specialty? Because you were showing, you were exhibiting for the first time exhibiting.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I hadn't been to a dog show as an exhibitor for like 10 months, so it was like very cool. Um our uh Chin Puppy boy uh he won all all four times, and so fortune did well, and Jane's puppy girl won three of the four times, and then our little champion bitch, uh J Lo, Jungle Love. She got four best of breeds and three group placements, so she won a specialty show. So we had a great, of course, whenever your dogs do well, you have a that's a pretty great time, right? You know. Even if the hotel bat is bad, it's just like it doesn't matter because your dog's like, yeah, you're you're sleeping on the on the wings of victory, you know. So it's it's it's uh it's all it's all good. But we had some chances to to visit about uh with some people who want to learn about our breed and to get a chance to see some, touch some. And you know, I was thinking about that on our way home, that as breeders, we are all responsible for judges' education, you know, because education period, whether it's for for fellow breeders, for exhibit you know, exhibitors, you know, for the judges, everybody who's involved in our breed, you know, we have we can all play a part in education. And and if you if you don't participate in it, if you don't make your dogs available, if you don't, you know, join into the the club aspect of supporting the education stuff, then you have no room to complain when someone doesn't do a good job. You know, because it's really falls upon you know you know, the parent club, the regional clubs, and then ultimately the breeders to provide information about their breed.
SPEAKER_01So how do because a lot of times we have kind of like I said at the beginning, is like you'll go to a dog show and you don't maybe you don't win or you don't the judge doesn't see your dog the way that you see your dog. And so you hear people saying all the time, like, Oh, the judge just isn't educated on our breeds as as somebody that's showing or breeding, how do they how can they help with judges' education? What steps can they take to to help educate the judges out there on our breeds?
SPEAKER_00Okay, that's that's all very valid. I will say one thing, uh just as both an exhibitor, a breeder, and a judge. In order for me to apply for a breed, first I take the AKC breed test. So I have to pass the breed test. I have to pay for it and I have to take it. And then I have to go ahead, after I've taken the test, I have to, you know, get between um, you know, have to get the required number of CEUs to get to be able to apply for the breed. So I take the tests and then I have to do the CEUs. And some of the different ways you can get CEUs by judging and sweepstakes. It's a very good way to do to get to get CEUs because you can actually see them, touch them, and kind of get a feel for it. You can do a kennel visit and get CEUs doing like that. You can have a long-term mentor, which would involve an ongoing relationship with someone that says that I'm I'm going to take your phone calls or your messages, and we can talk about this breed and any questions you have going forward. You can you can uh go ahead and go to a national specialty and you can watch, you can get pick up a lot of CEUs at a national specialty. You can get dogs, if you have different individual mentors, a parent club mentor from you know, from for dogs, bitches, and breed, you can get three CEUs going to a national talking to the people. If you're a breeder and if you are qualified and a member of your parent club, the parent clubs have uh have a uh designation called uh you know, parent club approved mentor. Now you can mentor somebody if you have the qualifications, have been in the breed long enough, bred champions, participated. You can be a mentor, you could still be, you could still do it. So, I mean, if you're not a parent club member, you can still be a mentor. But if you are a member of your parent club and you qualify, then you should absolutely be a parent club approved mentor, because that that is part of what they want to know is are you working with the same material that's put forward by your parent club? So you have your ringside observations, you have your institutes, you have seminars, you have uh um, you have your your individual long-term mentors, you know, and all all of these are ways of getting information. Some and they're also for some of the breezen, we are just in the final process of this with the Chin Club, they have a canine college course put forward uh with breed information that if you go ahead and pay, you know, to take the the canine college course, that also counts as uh CEUs towards uh towards your being able to judge. So after you get your six to ten CEUs, depending as to where where they are, as far as the the the judge, if it's a low entry breed or a regular entry breed, then after you do that, you submit all that to AKC. And then at that point, you take a closed book interview test with the AKC rep, where they're gonna interview you on the breed. And they're gonna want to talk about hallmarks, they're gonna want to talk about disqualifications, breed specific things about about your evaluating it, and where you cannot look at notes, you cannot look at the standard, you have to like know this stuff. And then if you've passed your tests, your CEUs, and your in your interview, then you are provisional. Which means at that point, you have to be observed and you have to have observations where they're gonna go ahead and you're gonna talk about all your placements and that with the rep. And if you pass your observations and you do this multiple times, then you can get what they call regular status for the breed, where you're no longer provisional for the breed. So it's a lot of steps to get one breed. But when someone says they don't know, they da-da-da-da. They've put some work in. They've put some, they have, you know, you may not agree with what they did, you may not see it through the same eyes, but you cannot take away from the fact they put in a substantial amount of work to get into that judging position.
SPEAKER_01Well, and at one point in time, you know, maybe they got approved for this breed 15 years ago, but at one point in time they were very educated on it. Is there any like recertifications or anything you have to do along the way? Like, or like once you're approved for a breed, it's just like forever there, you know, like you don't have to retest or re you don't have to show your knowledge, you know, five years down the road or anything like that?
SPEAKER_00Well, there's not re-certification on breeds that you're permanent status for. You know, I mean, obviously, if if I guess if someone did poorly or did something wrong that they could, they could, you know, the the complaints went into the kennel club that were valid, other than, well, I didn't win. They're terrible. You know, I mean, because lots of lots of whining, because only one person really gets to win, and then everybody else's degrees of unhappy after that. Um, but uh, you know, so I mean, the I to me, I think where this involves the breeders and the parent club is looking at the information that they bring forward for people to learn their breeds, you know, and how good the information is. Because if somebody has, you know, if if there is a if there's good information on a breed and you have good dedicated people there to teach it, you pick up on that and it's it's just like infectious. And you get, and you know, and I I love it when I'm talking to someone about their breed and they're telling, they're going deep and they're telling me stuff, and it makes me into their breed. For that moment, I I own a Lunden Hun because I'm in it with them, you know. And, you know, I mean, if you have if it's just like stale, dry, and they're gonna read me the standard. Well, I can read the standard. I've already read the standard, took the test, got to see, did the closebook test. I mean, I got that. You know, I want you to go deep, give me the give me the guts of this breach. Um, what's special about it, why, why it's different, why these things, the why. I want to know the why. You know, give me the why and make make me make me feel a part of it. That's that's where I think it kind of comes into play.
SPEAKER_01Well, and I think that I think that can be a huge part of anything in life, right? Like I think the more interesting something is, the more we're invested in it. So when you take that to dogs and judging and maybe this goes hands in hand when people are like, oh, the judge didn't seem to care about our breed, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's like, well, they're obviously educated on the breed, but maybe nobody's talked to them in depth of the why or what makes this breed special. So it's just a breed to them. But maybe if we spend time and share our passion of the breed and get that across to them. Because I would imagine being in the ring judging a breed that somebody has spent time pouring their passion into you about the breed, now you're a little bit more passionate about the breed because you understand the why behind it and what makes the breed special.
SPEAKER_00100%. You know, so when when they when they go in there, like when you talk to the Yorkshire Terrier people and they talk to you about the color and coat texture of their dogs and the generations and the years and decades and decades that went into perfecting this dilution, this blue and gold dog, and how important the color is. When I go in to judge them, I'm looking for that color. I'm looking for the clearing, I'm looking for the resilience of the code, I'm looking for the cool, the tech correct texture. I'm looking for it because I know that's what's going into it. So, two of the forms that are used with mentoring and judges' education. Now, this is a mentoring tutoring form, and where you can go ahead and you can either be a long-term mentor, you can be a tutor, or you can do a kennel visit. Any one of these for like a tutoring or for a kennel visit, that's 90 minutes. It's a minimum. 90 minutes where you're gonna have to talk about that. And you're gonna, they're gonna want uh for the uh for the mentor. Do you have to complete this? And you should maybe take a picture of it so you can have it for your records. Um, you they are gonna ask, are you parent club approved? Are you a judge? Are you a breeder exhibitor? How many years have you been exhibiting this breed? How many years have you been judging this breed? How many years have you had the breed? And then you're gonna describe the experience and the judges can put in their information. And so the this right here is this is a window into your breed in three different venues of either either mentoring, tutoring, or kennel visit. Very, very cool. This is a really good way for us to take time, either sit ringside and talk to somebody about about a large entry, or have them come to your house and see and touch your dogs, or just um be a be a mentor saying, Hey, I'm gonna take your calls. Let's friend on Facebook, we're gonna be, you have a question about this, talk to them. And I periodically, when I've when I've judged a breed that I especially newer stuff, if I've questions like I put up this one, I like this, I like that, I was put my priority here. What does my mentor think about that? I mean, I want to talk to you and see what you think about it as a breed expert, someone who, you know, how does that, you know, how does that translate into the decisions? The other thing that they have here is a ringside observation form. Now, this is like for a major entry at a show where you're going to go ahead and sit ringside and visit about, and you're talking about the quality of the dogs, the entry of the dogs, and again, it's gonna be parent club proved mentor, you know, whether or not you've judged a parent club national exhibit at the show, all of this stuff here. Again, I'm gonna throw something out there. Tyson loves it when I do do this because this might be a tiny touch controversial. Oh, my favorite. Yeah, I know you love this. It's like, you know, I feel that if I mentor somebody and I have and I'm in communication with them and I'm sharing their experience with this, personally, I don't want to show to that person. Technically, I suppose you can, but I don't think that is in really the spirit of mentoring. If you're my mentor and I'm supposed to be learning from you, you know, hmm, are you uh are do you care enough about your breed to mentor me and and and not and not cash in on that and thinking as though, well, I taught them everything they know. Now I'm gonna even if you showed uh dogs that, you know, or dogs were shown of your of your dogs shown to them, but personally, me myself, I would not really want to go show to somebody that I had mentored. I'd want to be their mentor and help them with it and stuff, but I I don't I I I kind of don't I don't kind of like that so much. I don't think that that I think that's I think that's crossing a thing there.
SPEAKER_01It gets into the gray area a little bit, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00It goes into the gray area.
SPEAKER_02And hmm.
SPEAKER_01Is it wrong? I guess it maybe no. There's no one that says it's right or I mean if AKC hasn't said you can't do it, I guess there's no right or wrong. But morally, you know, it's just like I kind of look at it as like, what does it do to the mentor-mentee relationship if all of a sudden you're mentoring me and then you, you know, you groomed me to do this, and then it's here, now I'm gonna show you all my dogs, you you know, with other people, like there's a little subliminal part of that person's mind that's like, well, I mentored this person, so they need to put my dogs up, you know, and like that can ruin a relationship real fast. Really fast, you know.
SPEAKER_00Well, and and how do I how do you maintain the objectivity of going in there and saying, you know, yeah, you gave my dogs last? Well, you know, there you go. I mean, so now did you do wrong because you didn't? I mean, and I see this, I see this all the time on Facebook and stuff where I see people go, Well, they they didn't put up my dogs, and I'm going to offer to mentor them. Is that to help the breed or to help your dogs? I mean, are you doing this as because that's how I feel about the breed education is that this is information about the breed that will be there after I'm no longer there. And this is like my part to ensure the you know the existence and the the uh the my breed to thrive into the future, you know. So I mean, I that's something as I consider it a giving back, you know, to to my breed to to help share the information. And I mean, and that's it can be in many ways. Uh you can be a do a meet the meet the breeze and let people come and pet your dogs and kind of do that. All of that stuff is it, you know, it doesn't have to be just for judges. I mean, it's just that's sharing the information about your breed for no personal benefit. It's not gonna, it's not doing that so that so that the judges will turn around and give you best in show later or whatever. But you're doing this because you want your breed to go forward and succeed and be and and grow.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and and so to be any of those for a judge. So you have a a judge that's coming along and wants to do your breed, and you have an opportunity to mentor them, or for them to come look at your kennel, get hands-on with dogs. Is there there's rules and regulations with that, correct? I I believe if you're a breeder and you're gonna be a mentor, you have had to bred for 10 years. Is that correct?
SPEAKER_00Right. So most clubs would require you to have the same qualifications to judge the breed. So just like if you were gonna fill out and say, I'm gonna apply to judge this breed, this is my breed. They you have to have those same qualifications to judge the breed, to be a mentor and teach people to judge breed. You might say, you might be like Jane and go, no, I don't want to judge. That's not me, honey. You know, you know, you're all wonderful, you're all winners. Thanks, I'm out. You know, that might be Jane, but she will take the time and she will share her knowledge about the breed and she'll tell people how to evaluate the breed and and she'll give you perspective as to the importance and the priorities you need to place on different things. And that's where it's kind of one of those things where you know it where where we come up with different answers as to which dogs are better, it comes to the point of priorities. Like, is it more priorities for this or less I like so like the my my original breed being cockers and I had party colors, the markings were not terribly important. It just they weren't that important. They could be unsymmetrical, they could be, you know, I mean, the color of the markings. It was just, it didn't matter. The dog underneath the collar, that's all the value was there. So then we get into our chin, kind of had to readjust that. Because like you got the best dog in the whole world, if it's not marked right, pet. You know, I mean, you have to put so you have to realign those type of that type of thought. So, and so then, like, you know, then now I I look at markings in a very different light. And I sometimes I have to go ahead and take the hat off and go a different way and go, okay, now we're in this breed. Markings are not very important, you know, a good one can't be a bad caller, you know. So we're gonna put that priority in our minimum required markings, are this, all right, we're at this point. And we're if you don't, a buffalo cap, if you don't evaluate to them, to their standard, and that's where that's where your mentors come in. Where you can say, if it's a half-mask or white-eared or whatever, Japanese chin, it can't be the best one. You know, it can't. It's too big a fault. You can't overcome that. It's a deal breaker, and that's where you know the passion of the breeders comes in to instill that. Because it doesn't say that in the standard, not a DQ, you know, but the breeders will tell you, and they'll say, well, if the better overall mover has a has a black head or something like that, or a white head, what what is that that's okay, right? And that's when the breeder goes, No, it's not okay. It's never okay. Withhold the ribbons, withhold them. Yeah. So that's part of where you go with this. Sharing the details on it. And that's where you get different people coming up with different answers because someone's going to put more priority to this, more priority to that, the degree of the deviation of which of these is more of more importance. And that's different people have different answers. That's for what they come up with.
SPEAKER_02When you're when you're provisional, you can be you're being watched, right?
SPEAKER_01By other AKC people or judges.
SPEAKER_00The AKC representative, yes.
SPEAKER_01And so so they'll watch you judge and then they'll ask you questions like why did you pick this dog? Or do they is that only if they question it? Or is it automatic? Like they're gonna ask questions.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, when you get an observation when you're provisional on a breed, and they're gonna say, We're gonna do an observation on this breed. So you need to have notes on all your placements. Why did this one win? Why did this one lose? Why did you place this one, you know, here? I mean, and they the reps will watch the dogs, they'll go out ringside, they'll look at them. If they have a question about something, they might even go look at the dog. I mean, but they're gonna come out there and they're gonna say, you know, I mean, and if you fail the observation, you have to then that's bad. That means you have to be observed three more times before you can ever go permanent on that breed. And you know, I mean, if imagine if you did it wrong enough, they might they might take the breed. You know, I mean, does failing and observation happen often? Oh yeah, it happens. Really? Oh yeah, sure. If you miss a DQ, you fail. You know, if you if you don't seem to grasp the essence of the breed type, if you put if you don't, if you do something and it doesn't stack up or goes a you know flies in the violation of blatantly in the standard, yeah, you can fail. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01I suppose sizing could come into that, you know, where you have some that should not be over 12 inches tall or something, and then you know, maybe there is one that's questionable and you don't look at it or you know, wicket it or anything like that. I suppose that could be something that would get you failed.
SPEAKER_00That could be, yeah. You I mean you have to be, you have to have your thought processing, your reasoning, and your prioritization has to be reflected in your placements. And uh, so I mean, so I guess I I don't I you know we all everybody who competes thinks that they probably should win. And uh, because we all know our dog's the best, but you really and truly, by the time someone has gone to get your breed, they they have put a fair amount of work and time, money, effort into being able to judge your breed. And if they if they didn't uh get the information that they should that should be uh forthcoming from the breeders and the parent club and all that, well, that's shame on you. That's shame on you. That was your opportunity to form the sort of the I love clubs that go ahead. Um, our club is seeming to have a little problem with this, but I love clubs that go ahead and have provisional judges come and judge their sweepstakes. I think it's such a wonderful opportunity because this is someone that could be judging your breed for the next 30 years and they're getting to get a chance to do this in a formative time. Super important. I I like uh I like clubs that, you know, the Chin Club, a kudo for the Chin Club, over 20 years ago put together uh an illustrated standard, a really good illustrated standard. One of the one of the first clubs to really bring that together and with and without hair, and I mean, and we've been tweaking it, put colorizing it a little bit so you can see colors mark. I mean, but comprehensive, good, good material, great material that is consistent to that. So, I mean, we've worked we worked hard and all fought bitterly and killed each other for it. By the time it was all said and done, scraped ourselves back up and presented it to the world as our illustrated standard. And it has gone for you know a quarter of a century forward, spreading the the word about the chin and showing up what was important, something tangible that people could look at and touch for people learn in different ways. Some people are more visual, some touch it and see it, you know, some people can absorb it more from reading and that kind of thing. It just depends as to who you are. But that that's a really good one that we have worked on.
SPEAKER_01Well, it's always nice to see pictures. And maybe I'm just a visual learner in that aspect of things, but you know, specifically when you are talking about the Japanese chin and we talk about eye white, it's nice to see pictures because how much eye white is too much eye white to get walleyed, you know. So it's like when you can see the pictures of like, this is the correct amount of eye white, and this is too much eye white type of thing, you know, you can really put it into perspective of what could be correct and what not. And I've seen a couple other illustrative standards that it's just like, cool, that helps me a ton, but it does help.
SPEAKER_00It's it's super good. And uh the other thing that is kind of of the now is the canine college. So breeds that maybe had don't that are especially lower entry breeds, breeds are harder to see numbers of to get cohesive information. The canine college has with AKC. They are gonna go ahead, they're gonna do interviews with breed experts, they're going to do filming of the dogs, they're gonna do a breakdown of the stuff, and that's really good information. And right now, we are with the Chin Club, are in the final stages of approving the canine college information that will go forward and educate a whole nother generation of judges. So that's super cool. It's it's actually it's it's something. I mean, it's hard because everybody has a different opinion and everybody wants it, you know, that that kind of thing. Everybody has a different idea as to what's right and wrong. But you know, you have to kind of stick within the standard step. But Tyson's actually on the board right now for the parent club that is actually going to be the ones that usher in this whole next generation. So breeds that have done canine college stuff, kudos. Good job. You're making a big step towards, you know, is there a lot of judging?
SPEAKER_01Is there a lot of clubs and breeds that have done the canine college, or is that something that's fairly new?
SPEAKER_00There is, I don't I couldn't give you a breakdown as to the statistics of how many, but not a ton, because it's a lot of work. And as you know, is as you and I know, we filmed three times. You know, twice you and I did it, the the successful ones, once done in Florida, but finally the third time we had the filming, the film footage for the canine college for the you know, for them to do that on stuff. So I mean, it's very hard. Now the last stages that's going before the board now is they have to pick the actual photographs that go into it, into their stuff, and uh they're gonna have to find pictures that depict the breed in a natural stent. No Photoshop. Photoshop does not make dogs better and it is not reality. No Photoshop, zero raw pictures in the same vein as the uh Illustrated Standard. So kind of like they should be similar to the to the configuration of the Illustrated Standard as close as we can get, you know, preferably like to profile the straight on, all of those pictures should be to kind of like breathe more life into the illustrated standard with these living dogs. So if our standard says our dogs are short and here's an illustrated standard, we don't want to put a bunch of long dogs. You know, if our dogs are supposed to have manes and culottes and and and fitted coats where they have the hair pattern short on the legs, we're not gonna have illustration, we're not gonna have pictures of dogs with hair uh going everywhere because that's not really reality as to what you're gonna see in the ring. And that's not really what's called for by the standard. You know, so we're gonna we've gotta set our personal, what we think is I love this or I love that. We're gonna set that aside and we're gonna promote this standard. And and what and what the people taking this is what we want them to be able to look for. What they're when they see our dogs, this is what they should be looking for. And and so it it's a big job and it's hard, and everyone's a volunteer.
SPEAKER_01And well, and it's a long process too. This so this show that was this last weekend that officially marked a year since we recorded the video footage for the canine college, because we did it at this show last year, and it still isn't completely done. Still isn't done, you know. So it's like it's a long process. You're involving the parent club, which is all volunteers. You're involving uh AKC, which doesn't move very fast, you know. They gotta check all the boxes and and do all the things that they gotta do. And so when this is done, it's gonna be awesome. Now, is this is is the canine college something that anybody interested in the breed can go check out, or is it specifically made for judges?
SPEAKER_00For any anybody can go in there and take into the canine college and they can take the course and stuff like that. You know, absolutely. You know, I mean I personally I would like to say everyone that's like like new people getting into the breed, if the breed has a has a canine college, man, that would be good money to spend to take and have living animals and having people who may not even be with us anymore that were long time involved in the breed explaining and talking about the breed and sharing their their their passion and their priorities of the breed. Because, you know, when you come in, because you know, I didn't have a ton of mentors in some in some of the things I've done, and I had to just figure it out the hard way, you know, like, oh well, that didn't work, you know, and then you you know try again, you know. So this is this, but it's really cool. I mean, it's hard and it's slow, but you know, but it makes such a long-lasting effect that it's really important.
SPEAKER_01Well, it'll be a nice perk then, too. So like once we get all our canine college stuff done, and now if you're a breed mentor or something like that, and you're mentoring a judge, you know, an aspiring judge for your breeds, like you have more material that you can share with them, more avenues for you to be a better mentor to help groom them and teach them and get them to grow into the breed. So it's just another avenue and another resource to utilize for that, which is I mean, there's never enough, really, is there?
SPEAKER_00I mean, there's never enough, but you know, I mean, you know, when you're talking about breeds that are hundreds of euros of uh uh old and you're trying to 90 minutes explain something that you know based on the seven chakras of the Buddha and the and the development of the perfect man and everything that goes into the chin, you know, 90 minutes. Like, got it. You know. So I mean, that's yeah, of course, that's you're not gonna get in, but the one thing that I think is super important is when you do that where you're gonna share your thoughts on on your breed, you have to step back. And you have to like, not just what I think or what I feel, but the facts. You know, these are the facts. This is how the interpretation of it. And one thing that I can say that like if I'm wanting to talk to someone about a breed and and stuff, and maybe I don't like how they put it together, you know, rather than just go and say, Well, man, that was bad. You know, I mean, rather than to do that, go and say, Well, did you feel the the quality of the entry? Did you feel that you found dogs that were conformed to the sh the correct shape? Did you feel they were short? You know, because maybe that's an area that they were like missing a lot. It's like maybe they were putting out long dogs, you know. I mean, you know, did you feel they were short? Did you feel that you were finding the correct, you know, the correct head type? Did you think that you were, did you in your evaluation, did you use breeze specific technique? It's like, you know, like with the chin, we don't want you checking the expression on the table. Don't do it. They don't like it. The only expression they're gonna give you is if they could flip you off, they might. You know, but they, you know, you're gonna get their you're gonna get their their cute little quirky dispos uh, you know, temperaments when they're on the floor or when they're in your arms and they're looking at you, going, you're weird. You know, I mean you're the lookie then, but on the table, no, they're just gonna kind of like pretend they don't see you. They're gonna kind of pretend you are like some some beggar on the street looking and they're gonna like, oh, I'm not looking at you, you know. I mean, so the things that that you know kind of help you understand who they are, and that goes for every breed. Every breed has their own little ways about.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I would imagine, you know, like with the chint we say, well, you just said, you know, like don't judge the expression on the table. But I bet Siberian huskies have their situation where they're like, don't judge my dog based on this. Like, this isn't the situation they want to be in. Every breed probably has something like that. And you know, I would imagine, and you really only learn that through your mentors and the educational side of it.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. Because the standard tells you this, but the your your breed education tells you how to find it.
SPEAKER_01You know, yeah, because the standard says, you know, the standard talks about expression with a chin, right? But it doesn't say, but don't do it on the table because they're gonna flip you off.
SPEAKER_00You know, it's yeah, they're not gonna give you expression at that time. That's not the moment you're checking your that's something you're gonna do.
SPEAKER_01Naturally, that's where you would think to look at it because you're looking to them head on and you're grabbing them, you know, feeling around their heads. It's like, I'm gonna look at their expression. That just seems like a natural flow.
SPEAKER_00But it's I'm not saying it's it's it's an unreasonable request. They're just not gonna do it. It's not in their contract, they don't know. And and so, you know, those are the things that you know where where you're gonna have to like as you that's where your mentors are gonna come in and tell you if you do this and this and this, you're gonna have fun judging this breed. You're gonna appreciate them, you know. And like, you know, I mean, whether it's a breed that you're gonna span, spar, scruff, you know, check expressions in the in the arms, all these these, you know, breed-specific evaluations, that's what makes people feel like you're ch finding the hallmarks and you're evaluating off of those. Otherwise, it's generic. It's like this one behaved the best, it was in the best weight, in the best condition, and it showed the best. So it's gonna win this because it's the best. That's generic judging. And that's and that's dogs oftentimes that win that have no zero value to breeders. And when you see generic judging, it's either because someone didn't have someone to share breed specific information, or maybe it's like one of those situations where they were approved rapidly and they, you know, I don't know, because it's the details that that makes the breed. And it's the details that the breeders that know the details and the people who appreciate them are the ones that move the breed forward.
SPEAKER_01When you're so there were three things. There was kennel visits, mentorship, what was the third one to get CEUs?
SPEAKER_00Ringside observations where you can watch them being judged.
SPEAKER_01So if you do a kennel visit, can I mean does that naturally kind of turn into a mentorship? Because I would imagine whoever is bringing it into their home to touch the dogs.
SPEAKER_00I mean, it can be a it could be a uh it could also be a mentorship too. You know, but the thing about it with the kennel visit is like you're gonna, I'm gonna say I showed them puppies from this age to dogs that were this age. I saw they saw my dogs that if it's coated breed, they saw dogs that were in hair and out of hair, they saw different ages of puppies. All of those things, you know, are you know right? Boots on the ground. I had my hands on them. I I looked at the teeth, I felt the bodies, I I got an appreciation for how they should look. You know, and so kennel visit is very cool. It's I mean, again, when someone says I want to do a kennel visit, it's that's a big ask because it's time out of your day, you gotta get your dogs ready, you gotta, you know, but hopefully this is gonna give that person the extra, the extra uh information and perception to really do a good job on that breed. And I think that people that do that are big gold star.
SPEAKER_01You know, do you do you have to do all three or can you pick and choose? You can pick and choose. I mean, so so maybe it's a good thing.
SPEAKER_00So you could do like four observations to get enough CEUs to well that you can get so many, you can get so many CEUs from mentorship, you can get so many CEUs from um uh from judging events like the NOHS breeds. Like, so like when I judge an NOHS group that I don't that I don't already judge, I'll go through the standards and I breed all the DQs of the breeds that are gonna be in there because I want to know what their DQs are. And I'm gonna scan their standards and their general appearances so I can kind of go through there and go, okay, yeah, I'm doing terriers. This is a breed I'm gonna span. This is a gonna breed I'm gonna scruff, this is this is a breed I can spar, you know, and these are the things I'm gonna go look for. And so I that counts towards CEUs, towards judging that breed. And so it's it's a little bit on-the-job training, but it's also important. And you know, it's a chance for you to really get to feel in touch and see the breed. There are several avenues of it, but all of the information that comes out is gonna come from from either mentors, the parent club, and uh parent club approved mentors, kennel visits. There's a difference, there's institutes, an institute that's like a three-hour institute that also does a hands-on where they have dogs there. That can be a three CEU event. Just a breed set standalone breed seminar is one CEU. You know, we usually like at the nationals and at the bigger events where they're doing institutes, they con they contact the parent club and say, who can present the breed? It's a big ask. It's a big, big ask, you know. I mean, to, you know, it's like you're gonna go and drive however many hours and haul dogs and do, you know, spend your day. I mean, it's it's but it's it's you're going to be giving people a real insight on your breed, and it's a chance to really, you know, move your breed in a positive direction.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, and one of the one of the things that I was thinking about and how important just people are, breed mentors, the informational side of things, because you know, we've talked about this before, is some standards have point schedules that kind of break down the most important parts of the dog, you know, and they give it a point to scale. But a lot of them don't. So when you read a breed standard like the Japanese Chin, I don't think the standard itself emphasizes the importance of the head.
SPEAKER_00Good question. Good question there, Weed Hopper. So at the original inception, all the standards had had had point schedule. Chin had a point schedule. I have shared it on my Facebook page. But as they um as they have like done standard revisions, added things, took away things, redefined things, wanted to get away from the point schedule. The powers of bee at that time felt it was not as good a way of um teaching the importance of value. I don't know. The breeze that have not changed their standards still have their point schedules. Uh for but Japanese chin, I kind of like their point schedule, honestly. It gave 65 points for head, ears, eye eyes, and tail. So I kind of felt like 65 points. Those were the qualities. If you didn't have those qualities, you didn't have a dog. You know, so I mean Now it's up to the people who are teaching this to say to put our put the points, uh, you know, say these are the things that make the that make the whole make the picture. But yeah, some of the breeds still though have not changed their standard, have not opened their standards, they still have their point schedules. But we we have we have changed our standard as like like an underwear on a camping trip. We have changed it multiple, multiple times.
SPEAKER_01And so we lost the we lost the um which just makes it it just puts it on the shoulders of the mentors. Like the mentors need to be able to get that point across to the judges of like how important the head, ears, and tails are like that that is something that we need to be paying attention to. And so that could be the downside, I guess, of of losing the point schedule is you know, I I think there's there's a plus side of it, is people probably live and die by the point schedule, and so then it kind of goes out of the out of the thing and is like, well, we don't want people living and dying by the point schedule, we want them to see the whole dog and and do this and that and that. So it's like, but you also have to respect the point schedule of well, there was a reason why 65 points were this area of the dog, because it's that important, you know. So and then that's where the mentors come in. That's where the mentors come in.
SPEAKER_00The bulldogs, which I recently uh, which I may have my new favorite breeds to judge, I love judging bulldogs. Um you know, and they gave like so few points to size, color, and movement. I mean, I think it's like three points from it's like ridiculously no points. And so, and when I'm reading this point schedule, I'm thinking back to all the times I've heard someone say, That dog was so big and flashy and move so good. And I'm thinking, wow, what you described there was like seven points. You know, I mean, you your winning on that dog was on those seven points, and you missed 93 points of quality somewhere else, you know. And so it's kind of it's kind of it does kind of give you a a guideline, but you probably shouldn't be going in there with a scorecard either and going one, you know, and um so like I say it I however we're that we are where we are, and you know, and working on those materials going forward is what our what we can do for our breed and that in perpetuity, you know, keeping it going.
SPEAKER_01Well, and as long as it's always ever growing, you know, like we're changing we're we're evolving. We got the canine college that you know, everybody's trying to get on board with that so we can show our breed that, you know, if we're as part of breed clubs, we're getting out there and we're wanting to mentor and educate on our breed, do meet the breeds so we can educate people other than judges on our breeds, you know, like sure. That's all things that you can do to help educate people on your breed, because that's what it's all really about. We all want we all want people to know our breed and share the passion of our breed that we have with it. I mean, that's we love them for a reason, so we gotta try to get that out to everybody else. You know, this is why we love our breed. Exactly. All right, anything else on education? We pretty much wrap it up. We wrap it up. All right. There we go.
SPEAKER_00Go enjoy the rest of our beautiful Chexoma day.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, go see how if the pool's cleared up at all yet, or if we're still working on more chlorine. Yeah, yeah. I put I put a bunch in this morning. I was like, something's gonna turn this pool clear. PG says to shock it, you know? I mean, for those of you that don't know, I bought a house and the pool was disgusting. And then I've been working on it for a week to try to get it to clear up. And at this point, I'm just like, I probably should have just drained it and started over. That might have been quicker and easier. I don't know. All right, everybody. Thanks for joining episode 60 of the Tack Box Podcast. We appreciate each and every one of you. I can't believe we're 60 episodes in. It's kind of crazy to me. Um, and how things have have have grown and changed in our lives and and with the podcast. Uh, don't forget to like the podcast, uh, subscribe on your favorite podcast network, and we will talk to you guys all on the next episode of the Tack Box Podcast. Have a great day. Bye.
