Yo, G.
What likely screws up breeds the most are the damn judges.
Absolutely. Same for horses in halter and for a while, western pleasure “peanut rollers”.
They seem to get it in their mind what "they think" a dog of a certain breed should look like. Not sure how it is in the horse rings, but in the dog rings a judge might be very experienced with half of the breeds they're judging, somewhat experienced with the rest. They may be judging most of a group at some shows, as it's hard for smaller shows to attract enough judges at time, or so those dog people have told me.
When I found out those shows are supposed to be for bettering the breed I thought to myself "Well, what happened to the Irish Setter and some of the terriers".
I had a friend in Juneau when I was up there, raised a terrier breed, did a breeding whenever she needed to replace an older dog.. Mentioned one day that judges have the right to have the dog on the table while someone brings up another dog to see what the reaction is. They're not supposed to be friendly to other critters, they're terriers after all. But, she said it rarely happens. There should be some sort of test, long before they reach the rings in my mind, of will a hunting breed retrieve, or point, or do what it was intended to do, and if it fails then it doesn't get to progress until it can.
Oh well, I've never been too impressed with judges of any sort......................unless I win!
