Much Ado About Nothing or A Major Sea Change?
By Larry Lee, BraceBeagling Editor
March 24, 2008

“Wow!, I thought to myself, 20,000 entries each year, which amounts to 40% of all entries in field trials and they want to change things?” Someone must be nuts.” But contrary to my thoughts that is what is happening with traditional brace beagling-or is it?

If I am right it all started when a faction of disgruntled beaglers realized that traditional brace beaglers had become complacent and weren’t being represented on the BAC. This disgruntled group gathered steam by getting the attention of the BAC in which most of the representatives knew nothing about the traditional sport of brace beagling. They prepared a proposal that would have relegated the title of Field Champion to the scrape bin and initiated a proposal to attach the title of Tracking Specialist in its place. If I am right if that proposal had been approved then on all of our traditional brace trial champions would not be called field champions but instead tracking specialists.

Finally, representatives of our sport realized what was going on and rallied their forces and came up with the proposal that passed both the BAC and and the AKC committees. In short, this proposal requires that all current licensed trial judges from all segements of field trial beagling must attend a four hour seminar within the time period of three years. If they do not attend one of the seminars they will be removed from the list of approved judges for licensed trials. In conjunction AKC field representatives will attend licensed trials and monitor the job of judging that our licensed trial judges are doing. If the judge or judges do not measure up to the AKC representatives expectations the judge or judges would be given an x. If in the future he received another x then he would be barred from judging any more licensed trials. In other words, two strikes and you are out without any mediation.

In conjunction with the judging proposal a prefix will be assigned to each new field champion designating what form of trial it finished in. For instance, if a hound finishes in brace competition it will be designated as a Brace Field Champion. If in finishes in an SPO format it would be called an SPO Champion and etc.

So that is where we stand at the present time. Three Advanced Judge’s Seminars are already scheduled and one has already been completed. The first one took take place during the Southern Federation. Another is scheduled for the Midwestern and I believe one is also scheduled for the Mid-Dixie..

I understand that evaluations of field trial judges will begin after the federations are finished and in fact may have already begun. My question and the main concern of many traditional brace trial beaglers is what criteria will the AKC representatives be using when they evaluate the judges. Judges will surely have to know what they may be penalized for before the penalty in inflicted.

From what I can gather the information gathered by the AKC representatives at the advanced judges seminars will be evaluated and used to arrive at a set of requirements that must be adhered to by our judges. Right now the main concerns of the AKC will serve as the format for the judges seminars. As previously mentioned on this web site, measurement of hounds, hounds touching other dogs in competition and the length of runs was on the agenda for the first seminar. As I understand these subjects and many others were discussed during that first seminar during the Southern Federation.

However, from what I can gather traditional brace trial judges that attended the first seminar still don’t have any idea what they may be penalized for when the AKC preresentatives arrive to evaluate them. I believe that would be totally unfair to all concerned. I believe that is where the title of this article comes into play. Is the AKC only interested in some minor adjustments or is their purpose to radically change the performance of our winning and placing hounds?

As Michigan beagler Henry Alkema pointed out to me recently, there are certain parts of the rule book that contain objective rules and other parts that contains subjective rules. Two examples of objective rules are the measurement of hounds and hounds fighting when in competition. If a judge makes a flagrant mistake in evaluating these procedures then he is liable to receive a poor evaluation. There are other parts of the rule book that are also of the objective nature.

Having said that about the objective parts of the rule book let me now speak concerning the subjective things. Of course we all understand that the subjective things are defined in the book called Beagle Field Trial Rules. These rules are divided into two categories listed in 5-B called Desirable Qualities and 5-C called Faulty Actions. 5-D and 5-E lists Credits and Demerits. These are the standards that are very subjective and also subject to the theory of relativity.

When I speak of relativity I am not speaking concerning Einstein’s Theory of Relativity but the theory of how things compare to each other in other people’s eyes. I think we can agree there are no absolutes in our Standard For Judging with the possible exception of quiting. The rule book states, “Quiting is a serious fault deserving severe penalty and, in its extreme form elimination.” However, even the undesirable fault of quiting can sometimes be considered a subjective quality that can be looked at differently in the minds of many judges.

Both desirable qualities and faulty actions such as cooperation, competitive spirit, pottering and lack of independence are even more subjective and are related diffently in the minds of different judges. I won’t bother you with the details of these different credits and demerits but I think you may be getting the jest of what I am trying to say. There are no hard and fast rules here.

I understand that the criteria for evaluating our judges will be derived out of the conversations durng the Advanced Judges Seminars. I have also been told that no hard and fast rules were agreed upon during the first Advanced Judges Seminar. Of course it is early in the game and hopefully the AKC Representatives will arrive at some conclusions before they start evaluating our judges and publish what they are. It would be the only fair thing to do. The future of traditional brace beagling’s relationship with the American Kennel Club will hang on the outcome of those evaluating standards. If the goal in these seminars held by the AKC is to establish procedures to guarantee a stronger running hound for traditional brace beagling than most beaglers will not agree with that action.

I have been beagling since about 1970 and I fiirmly believe that the winning hound of that era can be favorably compared with the winning dog today. Some very competent licensed trial judges that see many more hounds than I do tell me today’s winning hounds are even better. If there are any differences it is that most of today’s deficient hounds are much slower than the deficient hounds of yesteryear. The charging, hard running hound is mostly absent from today’s competition. Examples of winning hounds in the seventies that compare favorably with today’s winners are such hounds as Cajun Country Mr. Ed, Green Bay Scot, Brooks Acre Sammy, Lakeville Hank, Lynn Haven Julie, Pinedale Super Sam and many others. All of these forementioned hounds are examples of positive, accomplishing hounds. The majority of our winning hounds today are of the same mode.

Hopefully, the rhetoric from the Advanced Judges Seminars will shed some light on the differing thoughts of judges on the credits and demerits used to evaluate our hounds today.

It is always good to talk things over and hear other people’s ideas. However, a rapid and major departure from the way things are today would not be to the advantage of either traditional brace beaglers or the American Kennel Club. Hopefully, we will not throw the baby out with the bath water. Our winning and placing hounds today are hounds we can be proud of.

Editor's Note: Since I posted this editorial late last evening I have been informed that it was not a disgruntled faction of members that caused the action that is taking place today. This is how it happened: One beagler got the attention of an AKC field trial committee of which he was a member and suggested to that committee that a brace champion should be called a tracking specialist because it should not be considered a hunting dog. Then the Vice President of Performance Events got involved and took the situation to the BAC and told them that things had to change. The members of the BAC came up with the proposal that is being incorporated today. I apologize for the mistake.