Re: Judges Programs and Show Absentees

Re: Judges Programs and Show Absentees

If you are interested in attending a dog show about a week before the show you can usually find a judges program on the website of the show superintendent. This Judges Program is an awesome tool in finding out if a show is going to be one you want to attend. It should not be confused with the premium list or the catalog.

• The judges program includes the ring number, ring time, and the breed counts for every breed entered at the show.
  
• The premium list comes out long before the event and gives lots of details, but won't tell you rings, times, or breed counts.
  
• The catalog is only available on the day (or the weekend) of the show and will tell you all of those things, but you can't get it until you get to the show.

So with your judges program you will find directions, ring locations, ring times and breed counts.

You will first look at the index of breeds and scan through to find your breed which will look something like this:
6 --- Maltese ---------- 1 12:45
14 --Manchester Terriers 1 8:00

The 6 in front of Maltese means there are 6 entries, the 1 following means they are in ring 1 and the time is 12:45. There are 14 Manchester Terriers in Ring 1, but they have an 8am ring time. Someone at this show knows what they are doing. Maltese need later ring times to accommodate the grooming. Manchesters do not. So kudos go to the schedulers at this show. Wish they all were as careful.

Okay, but say you want to dig deeper and know something more than just the number of dogs entered. You then have to go look inside further at the actual ring break down which tell you more about the breed counts. So in ring one:

12:00 NOON
12:45 PM
6 - Maltese 2-3-(0-1)
18 - Pomeranians 8-9-(1-0)
24 - Chinese Cresteds 9-15-(0-0)


Maltese will be first in the ring after lunch at 12:45. Usually judges keep it pretty close, so they will most likely start on time. There are six Maltese entered (we already knew that) but now we can see that 2 of them are Boys (dogs), 3 are Girls (bitches) and there is also 1 bitch special--the special means she is finished and is only competing during Best of Breed competition. She will not be part of the classes. Counts for specials are represented inside the parenthesis.

In the Pomeranians, they will start after the Maltese, so even though they have a 12:45 ring time you have to figure they will start about 10-15 minutes later to give the Maltese time to finish. Yes, Maltese will only be in the ring for about 10-15 minutes. The average is 2 minutes per dog. So that means that you would do the math for Maltese at 12 minutes--but it is an average so you give or take a minute or two. Notice the counts for Pomeranians show 8 dogs, 9 bitches and 1 dog (male) special.

So now if you are going to a show you might have a better idea what you can expect to see there. The judges program shows you how many entered (it cannot show you who, that you won't see until the day of the show, though you may be able to guess). It cannot of course guarantee that there will not be absences.

Also, if you know which specials are out in your area, you may be able to guess who the special will be as there are not that many champion Maltese out competing.

Finaly, there are some ways to predict absences as well.

This discussion came from another thread and as I thought it was a very good question and very suited to this forum I am taking the liberty of moving the discussion and the topic here so I can add my own answer without trying to hijack the other thread.

theboyz said:

Diamond Maltese....
There was a dog show here last week end, we always go!
5 Maltese entered and 1 was "Diamond Super Luxury" owned by Du Van Tran. I was very anxious to see this dog. Daryl Martin held this and another one back that she was the agent for. I was very disappointed! She only showed "Ch Seabreeze Caribbean Sun Calling".
Here is a question.....if it was your dog there and not shown wouldn't that matter?

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MaryH said:

Marsha,

I think this thread is straying far off the OP's original intent, which was to discuss a breeder/buyer experience. If you move your question to a new thread maybe in the Dog Show forum I'd be happy to share my thoughts in general about why an entered dog may or may not get shown. But the quick answer to your question is that the Diamond bitch has 9 pts. and still needs her two "major" (3 pts. or more) wins to finish. There were no majors at the shows she was entered in this weekend; actually there were no other class bitches entered, thus no competition. Each time a handler walks in the ring with a client dog the client pays ... generally $75 or more. I would never allow a handler to take my dog in the ring for 0 pts. as it would cost me a handling fee for nothing. There are lots more reasons for a dog not being shown. Start a separate thread if you want because it would be an enlightening topic for all.

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You can also sometimes tell by looking at the counts if the dogs will show up. If you see counts that have 1-1 (0-0). It is a good bet that even though two dogs are entered neither of the class dogs will show up. The reason? there are no points available for them. Even though there are two dogs, girls do not compete against boys in the classes. So there would be no points. Sometimes you get to a show and find out that others are absent and there are no points. I will usually show anyway in that case as I have gone to the trouble of getting to the show, but a pro handler probably will not. They have other dogs to show and will not waste their time.

The other thing you have to consider is what Mary was talking about above. If you have a dog who has 9 of their points, but has no majors, and it is not a show where majors are available, the "polite" thing to do is to not show that dog against other dogs competing for the points. Why? because your dog ONLY needs majors (two wins of at least 3 points), putting extra points on your dog is a waste and takes points from other dogs that need them. This is what they call "pointed out." You can be "pointed out" at 9 points needing both majors or you can be "pointed out" at 12 points (or higher) with one major.

So if you see a dog that is absent it may be that the dog is "pointed out" and the handler is doing the "polite" thing by holding that dog back.

Of course, there are other reasons that dogs can be absent. Some people double enter. They enter more than one show and go wherever the numbers are higher (talk about expensive :blink. Some people enter and then flake out. Some people enter and look at the counts and make guesses about who might be there and decide to pull their dogs rather than face competition. :w00t: That is not the "polite" thing to do, but it happens.