Most people will by now be aware that the UK Dachshund Clubs have an agreed set of criteria which are applied to decide which Judging List an individual can be placed on.
Much discussion and effort has been made by the Clubs over the past two years to arrive at a workable set of criteria. A number of the requirements are set by the Kennel Club, so we have to adopt those. The full list of criteria, which became effective on 1st January 2001 are given at the end of this article.
In order for people to progress up the Judging Lists, they not only have to achieve specific levels of judging, breeding and stewarding experience, but they also have to participate in various forms of education programme.
With effect from 1/7/01, the Kennel Club requires prospective CC Judges to have passed their Rules and Regulations Exam, which must be run by a KC accredited trainer. They also require you to have attended a Conformation and Movement Seminar, again run by one of their accredited trainers. You can find details of these events advertised regularly in both the dog papers and several of our Clubs have already hosted such events or have them planned.
The third type of educational event that the UK Clubs have included in their criteria are Breed Seminars. These differ from the KC Conformation and Movement ones in that they are Dachshund specific. Typically, they will involve established Dachshund breeders and judges speaking about the breed and then hands-on sessions to allow "students" to find out about judging a variety of dogs "in the flesh". The Southern ran one of these events, with Ruth Lockett-Walters and Val Beynon as our speakers in November 2000.
These Breed Seminars must comply with a set of "best practice" guidelines laid down by the Kennel Club. Additionally, the Dachshund Club has helped by making available a number of supporting items of reference material that all the Clubs can use. In this way, we are able to provide a reasonably consistent approach across all the UK Clubs.
Once you have met, or are close to meeting, the criteria relating to seminars and experience, the final element of the UK Dachshund Clubs' programme is a Breed Assessment. Passing this enables a Club to propose a candidate for inclusion on the KC's A2 List. Once accepted, no further form of evaluation is required if a CC appointment is offered. Anyone not on an A2 List who is given a CC appointment will have to be "evaluated" at the time of that appointment. The Clubs agree that this is not a desirable position; it is clearly too late to be evaluating the suitability of someone to judge at CC level, on the day they carry out their first appointment!
The Dachshund Breed Assessment is considered by the KC to be one of the most rigorous of any breed and is held up as an example of good practice. It comprises three elements:
1. A written examination, based on the Standard of Points (and Sayer's interpretation)
2. Judging a class of four Dachshunds and giving a verbal critique of the candidate's placings to a panel of three Assessors
3. Judging a class of four (different) Dachshunds and giving a written critique which is reviewed by the Assessors
So far, 12 people have passed the Breed Assessment in 1999 and 2000. The SDA will be hosting an Assessment on 31st March 2001 and we hope to have a few more successful candidates to propose for the A2 List.
Having helped to organise one of these events, and seen how it works, I can say that I feel it is both rigorous and fair. It is a potentially stressful day for the candidates, but the host Clubs do everything possible to minimise this. Special arrangements can be made to help anyone with disabilities, as it is intended to be a process that treats everyone fairly and consistently.
The three Assessors are experienced breeders and exhibitors who award CCs in all six varieties of Dachshund.
The written paper can best be described as challenging, but is of a similar standard at each event. It is vital that consistency is maintained at these events, or we fall into the danger of some candidates having an 'easy' passage, so standards must be maintained.
Obtaining dogs is always difficult, and creating the ideal mix even more so. How to do this without offending owners continues to be difficult, especially when they have to listen to candidates giving a verbal critique.
At the end of the day, candidates are interviewed after they had finished their papers and useful feedback is obtained. Candidates are also able to discuss the dogs with the Assessors later in the day, and hopefully this contributes to the learning process for all.
Since the first event, we have improved the day in terms of it being "user-friendly" and the assessment process itself is robust and well tested now.
The organisers must continue to listen to candidates and others, and never be satisfied that we have the assessment entirely right, but the Clubs should feel satisfied with efforts to date.
We have to hope that we will continue to have a significant level of passes, and that the Kennel Club will endorse our results by giving approval for A2 Listings.
Finally, our thanks should go to Jeff Horswell, Jeff Crawford and Lovaine Coxon who developed the initial assessment process.
Judging List Criteria:
A1, A2 and A3 are agreed nationally; B and C are Club-specific.