Rule Book Judging
By Ralph Gillum, BraceBeagling Columnist
August 09, 2008

Rule Book Judging
by
Ralph Gillum


Over the years I have often heard and read individuals make the statement that “I judge by the Rule Book”, or “So and So doesn’t judge by the Rule Book”, and even “If everyone judged by the Rule Book, we wouldn’t have all these problems”. I will state right up front that every judge that I have ever judged with or run under has judged by the Rule Book. All judges follow the objective rules and procedures for conducting field trials. There is little room for debate about how to handle measuring, calling second and subsequent series, each dog defeating the dog placed below it, etc.

There is apparently some confusion between what is listed in the Rule Book as objective rules to be followed, and the subjective criteria (STANDARDS), that the Rule Book provides judges in PROCEEDURE 5. STANDARD FOR JUDGES, for use as a guide for evaluating hound performance. If subjective means that something is open to interpretation, then these STANDARDS are most certainly subjective as practiced by beagle field trailers.

For example, accuracy in trailing is one of the desirable qualities defined in the STANDARD FOR JUDGES. If these were objective standards, there could be little if any differences in how they are interpreted by the different types of field trial beaglers, whether traditional brace, Allalachian gundog brace, small pack option, or even hare hounds. Is there even a question that these different types of beaglers have big differences in how they interpret this standard? For example, a traditional brace beagle may well be demerited for getting off the line two or three feet, where this distance could well be ten to twelve feet for some faster types, and may well extend to twenty or more feet for the fastest going beagles. Only subjective standards could accommodate these huge differences between the different types of field trial beagles. Since these STANDARDS FOR JUDGES can be interpreted to accommodate these extremes of performance, they obviously are not objective rules. In fact, they are not rules at all. Rather, they are standards the BAC developed for judges to use in making their evaluations.

Another good example of the subjectivity of these STANDARDS was supplied during the AKC Judges Seminar at the Southern Federation. One topic of discussion was what constitutes pottering. The consensus seemed to be that if a dog barked fifteen times on a jump, that would be considered pottering. Think about that for a minute! Does this mean that fifteen fast, machine gun chops delivered in four or five seconds is to be considered the same as fifteen long, slow bawls given over perhaps a minute? Is it to be considered the same if this happens on the first jump while getting off, as it would be if done during the flow of the run? How about on a long, hard check, while working to get direction? Again, this makes it apparent that only the two judges following the run can properly evaluate the hounds’ performance under the circumstances of that run, based on their past experiences with the type of beagles being judged.

During the course of a field trial, the two judges will typically have differences of opinion as to the relative merits/demerits of some of the hound’s actions, as related to the STANDARDS. They talk it over, reach a compromise, and proceed on with the trial. These differences will be relatively small between a pair of similar trial judges. However, not only is there a large difference in the way these STANDARDS are evaluated between the different types of field trial beagles, there is apparently a significant range of different interpretations even within the individual Federations. In the April issue of Hounds and Hunting, Marjorie Dinger expressed the position of their Appalachian Gundog Brace Federation by writing, “Flopping around hit and miss isn’t our style. If you don’t want what we are looking at then I suggest you run in a different format that is more forgiving. We aren’t saying that you can’t own and run what you want just don’t try to change us to meet your standards. We are what we are. And if you hire judges for your licensed trials that don’t follow the Rule Book, don’t complain because our members don’t support you with entries.”

I believe this pretty well sums up the way each segment of beagle field trailers feel. Actually, I feel this is a good thing as it allows a wide array of differences in the beagle hound. That is, long as we are all honest with ourselves and admit that when we say, “Judge by the Rule Book”, we are actually saying, “Judge by my interpretation of the Rule Book. Because of this reality, I believe the AKC reps should only evaluate judges on the objective rules and not on the subjective STANDARDS FOR JUDGES. If they presume to do this, then each rep will be evaluating judges based on his own personal interpretation of these STANDARDS.