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I have what I consider to be a very high quality bitch that isn't winning....I am becoming frustrated as she is being beaten by dogs with much lower SOP and I can't figure out why...handlers? I feel that she should be finished by now....in any case FRUSTRATING!!

Is there something I am missing? I sessioned her several times beyond hitting 20, she's on good food, not bred/close to whelping. I am all for good competition and yes know that losing is part of the game but its starting to feel like I am possibly overlooking something. Is my strategy off?
www.showdog.com/dog.aspx?id=14551508

I would say it comes down to 2 things:
- Bitch’s age
- Handler choices


I've had a quick look through the handlers you've chosen for each show that she's been shown in so far - and have detailed the correct and incorrect handler choices:

Stella W – correct choice.
Alex C – 5th choice out of 5 handlers – unlikely to place.
Amanda N – incorrect handler choice.
Linda S – 4th choice out of 5 – unlikely to place.
Lois L – incorrect handler choice.
Edward T – Correct choice – hence the 2nd in Group
Maria M – incorrect choice.
Erik M – 4th choice out of 4 options. Decent placing.
Joseph G – incorrect choice.
Edward F – incorrect choice.
Michelle H – incorrect choice.
Glen B – incorrect choice.
Charles B – incorrect choice.

Some dogs don’t do well when they are less than 28 days of age. Age certainly does play a role for some judges. Some judges also like the look of dogs the more often they are seen.


In terms of selecting handlers:

Here is some info that I had posted on an older thread – NOTE: this info was posted a few months ago.


You need to be aware that some judges like handlers, and there are some that prefer to see the owner handling the dog (EG – don’t select a handler for those shows). The no-handler judges at the moment are:

Bruce Bass
Pamela Geist
Randal Harris

(But remember to check the new Judges each month in case they are also non-handler judges).

(At the end of every month 2 Judges will retire and we will get 2 new judges)

Each judge also has their own preferred handlers – which you can see when you click on each judge’s link:
www.showdog.com/shows/dog_judge_directory.aspx

For instance – if you look at Patricia Stevens (just a randomly selected judge) – it lists her 25 favourite handlers:
www.showdog.com/shows/judge_info.aspx?judge=Patricia+Stevens

Not all of those handlers are good options to choose though!

Thats when you need to look at the current Top Handlers rankings here:

www.showdog.com/shows/Handlers/handler_rankings.aspx

(you can find that link when you click the ‘Schedule’ link on the left side of the main screen. Click it – then look at the top right of the new screen and it will say ‘Handlers List’).

On the ‘Dog Handler Rankings’ link they are in order of the best handler (the first handler listed), all the way through to the worst handler (listed at the bottom of the screen).

For example – at the moment the top 5 Handlers are:
Maret
Roxanne
Veronica
Julie
Ellen


These rankings change slightly every day as they go by the number of wins each handler gets. In general though – the top 25 handlers generally stay the same.

When you are choosing a handler for your dog it needs to match up with the handlers that the Judge likes – AS WELL AS the Top Handler Ranking system.

So the best handlers for Patricia Stevens are:
Veronica S, Bob G, Kristen G.

Veronica is currently ranked the #3 best handler – which means she would be the best handler to pick if you entered a dog in a show being judged by Patricia Stevens.

Bob is currently the #6 top ranked handler – 2nd best handler to pick for Patricia Stevens

Kristen is currently the #12 top ranked handler – 3rd best handler etc.



I hope that all made sense?

You can also see another list when you are entering your dogs. Once you’ve selected the show and are picking the handler there will be a list of ALL the handlers that are currently available to pick for male/female dogs of that show. (Each handler can only be used on 1 bitch and 1 dog per breed per show per day).

When you’re in that screen – if you look to the right hand side there is a small list of Handlers with numbers next to their names. These numbers correlate to how they are ranked amongst ALL of the handlers. So the smaller the number (EG 1, 2, 3 etc) the better the handler! I wouldn’t use a handler who was ranked higher than 25 (EG 27, 30 etc). Always choose the handler that is closest to #1 as they will be the best option.

Sometimes handlers won’t appear on the list where you choose the handler and that is because someone else has already selected to use that handler for their dog. This is why it is generally better to enter 5-6 days in advance so you have a chance of getting the best handler.

One other thing to note is every judge has a number of handlers that they favour – and all other handlers will be ignored. For instance Patricia Stevens will only look at dogs handled by Veronica, Bob, Kristen and Yvette (and occasionally Elaine) and she will pretty much ignore dogs who are being handled by lower ranked handlers. This means that if you are entering a male dog into one of Patricia Stevens’ shows and you see that there are already 4 males entered who have already taken the top four handlers for Patricia then I wouldn’t even bother entering my male into that show since Patricia won’t bother to look at him if the top 4 handlers that she likes are already taken.

I hope that makes sense?

Do you think it's always up to what handler you pick (assuming the dog is 20-20-20)?

There are many factors taken into account when placements are awarded in shows:

- handlers
- dogs condition
- dogs quality
- dogs 'hidden decimal' value
- gender
- maturity (age)
- judges preferences
- quality of other dogs entered

Choosing the right handler for each judge has a huge importance on the resulting outcome.

No, it is not just the handler.

The end results are based on a number of factors: * The actual overall quality of the dog
* The quality of certain traits (judges have certain traits that they rate as more important, thus if your dog rates high on the traits that the judge rates high, your results will be better). That does not mean that the judge disregards a high trait that they do not consider important, just that it will influence their decision to a lesser degree).
* The quality/skill of the handler - Ellen, Roxanne and others are known as highly skilled. They may not be a judges favourite, but they are still skillful handlers.
* Judges have "political" leanings - some lean much farther than others and their political nature will offset handler skill to a greater degree.

In the end, if you think of it in + and - terms, the dogs quality gives so many pluses, if their good traits match the judges "important" traits, that adds more pluses, if the dog is lower quality in the judges "important" traits those are minuses. If the handler is less skilled, those are minuses, if the handler is a jusdges favourite, thats pluses.

All things have to be taken into consideration - you want to line up as many "plus" factors as possible and a minimum of "minus" factors.

It is not a perfect system but it results in a fairly realistic variety in the winners overall. Handlers do make a difference, but there are other factors involved.

And sometimes a good SOP dog just doesn't show well. I had one in this kennel several months ago, he was higher in SOP by .1-.2 (at least) over the others in the breed and just simply didn't show well, even with the best handlers. He showed "bad" enough that when I let the others in the breed know he was up for stud, I mentioned that he didn't seem to have "it" for the ring!

It was long enough ago, that I don't remember who it was or how much he was actually higher but I remember it was frustrating!

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posted by Lycaons
And sometimes a good SOP dog just doesn't show well. I had one in this kennel several months ago, he was higher in SOP by .1-.2 (at least) over the others in the breed and just simply didn't show well, even with the best handlers. He showed "bad" enough that when I let the others in the breed know he was up for stud, I mentioned that he didn't seem to have "it" for the ring!

It was long enough ago, that I don't remember who it was or how much he was actually higher but I remember it was frustrating!

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And those dogs that struggle in the ring never seem to produce as well either....

Thank you for the detailed explanation! I think for the most part it is my poor choice of handlers as she has had a few bigger wins.
I had read several different "directions" on picking handlers which were clearly wrong....this seems to make much more sense and when I went thru and tried picking what I thought would be the best pick for previous shows I can clearly see that the dogs with those handlers did well.

Thank you so much, this helped a lot!!!

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posted by Chaos and Havoc

I hope that all made sense?

You can also see another list when you are entering your dogs. Once you’ve selected the show and are picking the handler there will be a list of ALL the handlers that are currently available to pick for male/female dogs of that show. (Each handler can only be used on 1 bitch and 1 dog per breed per show per day).

When you’re in that screen – if you look to the right hand side there is a small list of Handlers with numbers next to their names. These numbers correlate to how they are ranked amongst ALL of the handlers. So the smaller the number (EG 1, 2, 3 etc) the better the handler! I wouldn’t use a handler who was ranked higher than 25 (EG 27, 30 etc). Always choose the handler that is closest to #1 as they will be the best option.

Sometimes handlers won’t appear on the list where you choose the handler and that is because someone else has already selected to use that handler for their dog. This is why it is generally better to enter 5-6 days in advance so you have a chance of getting the best handler.



I hope that makes sense?

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Chaos, that's the list that's the same as the judges preferred list isn't it? Those on smaller list on the right? Or has that changed?
I know also I had heard years back that the order on the judges preferred handlers was haphazard, not listed as favorites on top?

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posted by Purrs_Port

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posted by Chaos and Havoc

I hope that all made sense?

You can also see another list when you are entering your dogs. Once you’ve selected the show and are picking the handler there will be a list of ALL the handlers that are currently available to pick for male/female dogs of that show. (Each handler can only be used on 1 bitch and 1 dog per breed per show per day).

When you’re in that screen – if you look to the right hand side there is a small list of Handlers with numbers next to their names. These numbers correlate to how they are ranked amongst ALL of the handlers. So the smaller the number (EG 1, 2, 3 etc) the better the handler! I wouldn’t use a handler who was ranked higher than 25 (EG 27, 30 etc). Always choose the handler that is closest to #1 as they will be the best option.

Sometimes handlers won’t appear on the list where you choose the handler and that is because someone else has already selected to use that handler for their dog. This is why it is generally better to enter 5-6 days in advance so you have a chance of getting the best handler.



I hope that makes sense?

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Chaos, that's the list that's the same as the judges preferred list isn't it? Those on smaller list on the right? Or has that changed?
I know also I had heard years back that the order on the judges preferred handlers was haphazard, not listed as favorites on top?

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PurrsPort - yes thats the same list.

When you're in that screen the list of handlers on the right are all the handlers that the judges like - and you should try to pick the handler with the lowest number next to the name - ie: the handler with 1, 2, 3 etc are a better option than a handler with the number 20 or 30 or 40 next to the name.

In terms of the other screen (when you click on a judge's name and it shows you all the info on that judge) I'm fairly sure that the order of 1-25 is in order of that Judges' 'favouritism'.

99% of the time a high quality handler (rated in the top 20 of ALL the handlers) will always do well no matter where it places on the list of the Judges favourites (out of the 25) as long as the Judge likes that handler.

For instance:

if we look at Patricia Allen again:

When you click her name it shows you HER list of favourite handlers and Yvette rates in as 6th, Joe rates as 19th, Roxanne rates as 20th and Bob rates as 23rd on HER list, but when you look at how those 4 handlers rate compared to every other handler on SD you'll see that currently Roxanne rates as the 3rd best, Bob is the 6th, Joe is the 14th and Yvette is the 18th.

So you should always choose her handlers in this order: Roxanne, Bob, Joe, Yvette.

Choosing any other handler other than those 4 for Patricia Allen would be pointless as she won't even bother to look at them.


To make things easier I highly suggest that players should make up their own Word document or Excel spreadsheet that has all the judges and their preferred handlers (that are worth using) to make entering shows a lot quicker. I have used a Word Doc in a table format like this for years and just update it once a month when new judges arrive and old ones retire.

Forgot to say - that was me posting in my other kennel.

Rij

of Chaos and Havoc

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posted by Quileute Legends
Forgot to say - that was me posting in my other kennel.

Rij

of Chaos and Havoc

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Thanks, that was what I thought, now if Kiroja and other basenji breeders enter would help...

Thanks for this info. It helps me. I have a 94.45 Australian Cattle Dog bitch who just got beat by a 94.20 and a 94.15. She has higher numbers in the traits with higher importance than the other 2 bitches in the show. I think I chose the 3rd highest handler on the judges preferred list because I always look at it when choosing a handler and the 2 that were higher were taken. It's amazing that a handler can make that much of a difference. She won BOB over the same 2 bitches in 2 previous shows.

And now I'm a little confused. The handler I chose was higher on the judges preferred list than the other 2 (the were 3 in a row on her preferred list with mine being highest), but lowest on the overall handlers listing (but only by one below the 2nd highest). It says the judge likes to see certain handlers and that she doesn't think that BOB should go to a dog that hasn't earned it's championship. So I get not getting BOB. Oh well, there's always tomorrow.