VALUE OF BREED SEMINARS

CHARLOTTE PATTERSON “I think the value is based on how good the presenter is and I feel very strongly that parent clubs have the responsibility to make sure any breed seminar sanctioned by the club has the information that they want to give these judges and also, it should be consistent.

I have a real bad problem with one presenter saying one thing and another one saying something else. Consistency - and I really think you have to have someone that’s been in the breed a long time. These people who have been in it 18 months and give a breed seminar .... I don’t think for the most part they are presenting their breed in the way new judges need to hear about it."

ANDY LINTON “They’re only as good as the people who put them on and that means that the people putting them on are adequately prepared and adequately knowledgeable and, yeah, then you can insure that the seminar is good.”

“I have been at some shows where people come out of breed seminars and put up incorrect type because it is fresh in their minds and because this was what the seminar taught. Then you have to wonder how much they learned. “

DARYL MARTIN “Some breed seminars are very good because the people do them very well. Some are really time consuming.

"Some people said they learned something just because they have been to one and yet they don’t know what they are talking about. I’ve known people that come off these breed seminars and take whatever they are told as gospel. Sometimes they don’t realize they have to get a little bit from everybody in order to form their own opinion."

SUSAN PORTERFIELD “Well, breed seminars can be valuable if you have a presenter that is knowledgeable in the breed and they can present the structural points that are important to prospective judges for that breed.

Unfortunately I’m not sure that in all cases, the people that are presenting breed seminars are the right people.”

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JANE FORSYTH “I think breed seminars are helpful if they are run by somebody like yourself that is knowledgeable in your own breed. The trouble with a lot of seminars is that the person teaching doesn’t know any more (or as much) as some of the people there to learn. I think they are very important though.

“I also agree with one of the things Wayne Cavenaugh brought out and that is that people need to be taught how to breed dogs. I think that is one of the most important things - back in the beginning, if you know how to breed good dogs then you should know how to evaluate dogs but if you’re not a good breeder then you probably can’t do it.”

TheJudgesPlace: Jane, that leads to another subject. Judges can only judge what we breeders bring them. So what you’re saying is that breeders should do better so judges can do better?

“I do think more people need to get on the band wagon and talk about teaching people how to breed good dogs. I think this has gone by the wayside. People think that they can breed to any dog and get a good one and you don’t - you’ve got to know what you’re up to and study and pay attention.

“You have to able to take criticism of your own dog. I mean some people think that everything they breed is terrific. I haven’t seen a perfect one of anything yet. I have had dogs that have broken all kinds of records but I could have improved upon them in little places.”

TheJudgesPlace: Do you think AKC should be involved in Breed Seminars?

“Yeah, I think they should definitely be involved in that kind of seminar. At least they could help run breed seminars. The biggest teaching tool that we have that people don’t seem to make any use of is the one Wayne started a few years ago and I took it to England when we did the Boxer seminar. Wayne started out with just Pointers which are his breed. It goes through the history and then into not one dog, but pieces of dogs, all put together in slides. When Wayne and I did the seminar in Raleigh, he showed them a slide of a Pointer with a long tail and then he showed a slide of a Pointer with a short tail only when the whole dog was shown, the one with the short tail happened to be a hound. So it proved tails aren’t the only thing you look at in Pointers.”