The dog breeding world was rocked after the judge of the 2013 Crufts final wrote an article on his blog entitled ‘All dogs look the same to me’. Other judges have since confirmed that they too ‘just guess’ the winners.
The dog whistle blower, Mr Russell Jackson, wrote on his blog:
‘Who the hell could possibly choose between two hundred identical black Labradors? If it wags its tail, woofs, and doesn’t shit on the green carpet then it’s a winner as far as I’m concerned.’
‘My approach to judging dogs is all a big show for the audience’, wrote Mr Jackson. ‘I start by taking a quick look in the dog’s mouth just to check I’m judging from the right end. I then pat and squeeze the animal until I’m entirely satisfied that it is indeed a dog. It might seem like an obvious thing to check, but in the past, I’ve seen goats, pigs and a furry cushion come through to me from the clueless regional judges. No one wants a repeat of the cushion incident, so all judges now include a quick fiddle with the dog’s arse to check for zips and that we’ve definitely got a live one.’
Mr Jackson went on to say, ‘judging identical dogs can also get boring, so I like to spice it up by giving extra marks based on the owner’s dress sense. I award bonus points to those sporting the boldest '1980s' fashion. In many cases, this criteria only reduces the field slightly, so I give further marks to the owner who takes their dog for the most camp ‘flounce around the show ring’. For owners with smaller dogs, I am happy to see a more dainty mince around the carpet, but ‘standard walking’ loses points.’
‘I remember back in the day when we could simply award the rosette to the dog with the most ridiculous kennel club name, but now they’ve ALL got idiotic names. Personally, I’m in favour of awarding rosettes for the least imaginative Kennel Club name, such as ‘Ian’ or ‘dog’.
Mr Jackson concluded, ‘More recently, I have decided to award marks for irony. For instance, an obese owner with a sausage dog gains extra points. In fact, that’s how I chose this year’s winner, a bald and clean shaven man with a hairy, bearded dog. Between the two of them, a mix of bald and hairy, they really were the dog’s bollocks’.
