Judging Study

So I was going through my iphone today deleting some of my notes etc. And I came across a rough idea for a study involving judges and breed standards. I sometimes write things down on my phone when I am somewhere unable to write my thoughts down. Good thing too, as I had forgotten about this so I'm going to write it now so I don't lose it.

How subjective is the judging at dog shows? If veterinary medicine is anything to go by, subjective analysis of animals has a huge amount of error and lack of reliability. I should know, I am currently doing a gait analysis and observation study and I can already see plenty of reasons for someone to say the study is biased etc. Which is why we are using computer programmes etc. to reduce error.

But anyway, back to the dog shows. The judge is meant to select a dog out of the line up that most closely resembles the breed standard. But this can be very subjective. Especially with some of the language used in the breed standards. For example "Muzzle should have a moderate stop." There are two words in bold that are extremely subjective and can be taken in many ways depending on the person. Moderate to one judge could mean it is very visible whereas to another judge he/she may take this to mean you can just about see it as it is not definite. The 'should' can also be taken literally by the judge meaning they will require to see it whereas others may take to completely ignore this point. Very subjective and will result in an extreme lack in consistancy. This can always be seen in the dog shows. For example the Kooikerhondje that won Best of Breed at Crufts 2011? Didn't even get placed in Crufts 2012... Hmm...

But its very easy for me to go tut tut.. mm.. aaa.. etc. I am a scientist and thus I would like to study this properly rather than just make comments. A study I propose would involve taking a breed standard description, followed by 10 photos of the breed it is describing. I would then show this picture to 10 judges and ask them to place the top 5. I would then do the same with 10 vet students (so they have an aspect of anatomy) who are not judges and who do not own the breed (again to reduce bias). I hypothesise that the results would be completely random and you would not be able to tell the difference between the judges choices and the publics choices. Yes I know I'm going to get arguments saying "Oh, but the judge needs to run his hands over the animal first etc. etc. Its not just looks etc. etc." Thats fine. But as said in my last post, a dog was placed that the judge couldn't run his hands over at Crufts?

Perhaps the study will highlight the bias in judging. And the common saying of "Its not what you know, but who you know." I am still surprised to this day that judges are trained by members of the breed club who conveniently do the best in the show ring.

Perhaps more descriptors should be required by the judges. Such as body condition scoring, can you get a comb all the way through the coat, or a training day once a year where each descriptor is explained clearly and consisely without involvement of the breeders. For example, explain precisely what is meant by a square head.

I would be very interested to do this study. But I should probabaly wait until my dissertation is done first eh? :)