Words of Wisdom - Page 3

Confusing proven biology and science with some faith based politics and subjective human ego always results in bad results for everyone. All of the dog organizations are in reality not about dogs ... just people, ego, and a human derived concept of perfection that does not exist. Just because you believe in something does not make it real.

It was difficult to tell if you actually thought you had broken the Rules, when your description of the rules was nonsense. There has never as far as I can recall been a UK KC rule that a place or places could NOT be withheld. The SV grading system does not rely on "first place" and "red cards". To write of both in one sentence was confusing; it indicated you felt that [somewhere/-when/under some Club], there were regulations that prevented every judge from refusing any award. Being as you did not state you were then 'bucking the trend' and BECAUSE I realised you were writing in the later post about your judging in the UK (not that you haven't mentioned that decision before, anyway ), where that wouldn't apply, I asked you to make what you were saying

clearer.  What does that have to do with what I have or haven't done ?

[Hundmutter] on 24.7.2016 - 10:07

● "Mac, I absolutely agree with you, and Les, about that; but you are both on a "hiding to nothing" with that line on this, mainly American-populated site."

Are you accepting that Yanks are ineducable? The PISA surveys every third year (2015 was one of the survey years - see http://www.bbc.com/news/business-26249042 ) DO indicate that the teachers in the USA's state education system and Britain's state education system are NOT succeeding. Nine years ago Canada was ranked about 4th, New Zealand next, and then Australia. The figures show that NZ's current Minister of Education and her predecessor have had the devastating effect on teachers that I expected when reading about the "reforms" they were forcing on teachers.

However, I consider that the poorly-educated/informed NEED a lot of assistance. And those who DO have an historical awareness of the GSD's development & functions are better able to do that than are the people raised where GSDs have been drastically altered to become mere "ring prancers".

● "AKC having so long ago made its maverick decision to award prizes to the NA Ski-Slope breed"
Hi, Doña Quixote - although the AKC is not my preferred KC, you are tilting at the wrong windmill. It unwisely allowed its under-educated citizens to decide such things as that the "Australian Shepherd" was developed in Australia and isn't a Collie, that Louis Dobermann spelled his name with only one n, and that a breed - the American Staffordshire Terrier can have TWO different places of origin AND can magically lose its Bulldog ancestry. It also unwisely allowed those under-educated citizens to decide what should be in the Standards of breeds develop in OTHER countries. Cases of "independence" carried to arrogant extremes.
And so it is the GSDCAmerica that decides what should be in the AKC standard of the GSD. And the GSDCAmerica that has been allowed by the WUSV to be the club with more votes than any club other than the SV, despite the GSDCAmerica NOT yet having passed FCI#166 to the AKC after the WUSV votes in 1976, 1991, 1997, 2009.
 

● "and look at the way the US GSD Fancy has polarised over the SL/WL split ..."
Don't start thinking that THAT split is restricted to the USA. In Canada I understand that the GSDCC didn't want WUSV membership so the offer was taken up by the GSSCC. This month the GSDAC of NZ has been asked to nominate Australia's top GSD

http://www.pedigreedatabase.com/german_shepherd_dog/dog.html?id=726996-jabina-nala to represent Oceania at the WUSV "Worlds" - because the GSDCAustralia is worried about the ANKC's ruling against "attack" sports.

 
● "(apart from the misapplication of commas which I'm surprised Les is letting you get away with)"
#1: I hadn't visited this thread since 23 July (I thought it was longer) so knew nothing about Mackenzie's heinous crime against punctuational literacy. Was it mild enough for him just lose a finger, or should he stand in sulphuric acid for 17 minutes?
#2: No-one with my direct e-address sent me: a contract, 2 false passports (one to fly from here, a different one to return to here), REAL money, the address where a suitable inconspicuous handgun plus bolt cutter or acid are waiting for me to collect them plus the address & mugshot of Mackenzie (I hope it's a he - the Mackenzie (her first name, not her clan name - but I gather that the insemination occurred in Scotland) who was one of my nurses before-&-after my leg amputation was rather attractive and has two pre-school children).
However, should he be a male descendant of the notorious James/John/Seamus Mackenzie/McKenzie, the contract should be okay when it arrives, provided he's not as good a dog trainer as his ancestor was:
http://folksong.org.nz/mckenzie/seager.html
http://twizelnz.com/legend-twizel-nz.html
 

● "LES - I haven't forgotten"

Errrr... Ummmm... Aaaaahh...... Forgotten WHICH? It would take me a while to find my last direct message to you.
 

● "Hope you got the new ute ?"

Not for at least a month yet. And I can't afford NEW - but I require AUTOMATIC.
My manual ute was collected by the garage on Friday 22nd. Which at last let me see just how much accumulated leaves + bits of paper + bits of plastic had been blown up my short street, up my steep drive-way and into the car-shed since I was rushed to hospital in April 2015. So I planned to start raking the rubbish up during the weekend. Which rained and rained. Monday I had to go to the physiotherapist. Tuesday (using the rake instead of the walking stick for support as I stepped around) I raked the rubbish into a pile and raked 3 or 4 rubbish-bags worth out of the shed and onto a slightly depressed spot out the side of the shed's frontage before my back informed me to STOP-OR-ELSE. Wednesday I raked the rest of the rubbish out, dragged the hose out there, and hosed the residue out onto the driveway and then onto the lawn. Today I relaxed inside.

 

 

[Mackenzie] 24.7.2016 - 11:07

● "Hundemutter -... You are right that I did break the rules because as an honest Judge I could not possibly condone giving out prize cards to animals that had such serious faults."
That's not how I see it. I think the rules support your action. Only one of the 2 Poms I e-mailed about the current rules has answered, and instead of answering "Yes" or "No" to my 2 carefully-worded questions, she answered in 2 sentences, stating that in the UK a judge "can withhold any or all placings. If they withhold 1,2,3 they cannot then give a card for reserve" - "reserve" apparently being a 4th placing, not the Reserve Dog, Reserve Bitch, etc, I expected.

● "I believed it then and I believe it now."
You are right to have that attitude towards crappy exhibits.
I believe you are wrong to consider that dumping a class is breaking the rules. It is over to each judge to decide how extensive an "examination" and how much "gaiting" to allow before instructing the steward to politely announce "No placings in this class," or you personally "invite" each handler in turn to leave the ring or to accept last in the class. And then voila - no exhibits left!
Don't expect many invitations afterwards, of course - and when a club desperately NEEDS you, it won't expect a big entry. In other words, popular judges are usually better politicians than they are judges. Guess why I turned down my invitations to judge, back in the early 1970s when all you had to do to become a judge was to accept some invitations and survive afterwards?

● "Les also commented on the fact that rules in NZ when Barbara Lines had a similar experience. She submitted to the NZ rules whereas I did not do the same in the UK."
WHAT rule did you break?
Barbara was hoist on her own petard - she admitted that 3 of the Broods were worthy of being placed, just not as 1st, 2nd, 3rd. So her options were to either award NO placings. or to elevate the trio to 1st, 2nd, 3rd. The latter probably gave her a better opportunity to explain her reasons and try to educate the owners.


[Hundmutter] 24.7.2016 - 12:07

● "It was difficult to tell if you actually thought you had broken the Rules, when your description of the rules was nonsense. There has never as far as I can recall been a UK KC rule that a place or places could NOT be withheld."
If there isn't already, I think there SHOULD be a rule that any places awarded must start at first and be in sequence. In other words, 1st & 2nd is fair enough, 1st & 3rd or just 2nd & 3rd is NOT fair enough. That makes it clear to the judge and the participants, and it is over to the judge's breed-knowledge as to which path he/she then chooses and how he/she explains the decision to the ringside and in the written report.

Les P

Les: I get into enough trouble if I suggest the Americans are slow to pick up on ANYTHING, especially over on the Off Topic board, that I could not possibly comment further on what I meant ! Oh well then, if I must: I have realised for some years that the 'working' side are better clued up on structure than the fans of the AKC showring.

Attempts in the past by myself and others to explain why the Nth American SkiSlope dogs don't fit the original German Breed Standard have been howled down, mostly because there were more of them than there were of us. These days the 'Show lines' are less well represented and it is clear that, on structure, the WL people are in the ascendency (but of course many of them want to go too far and rid the planet of ALL GSD showdogs ). A few sensible AKC owners (thinking mainly of Xeph and Sunny here) are happy with their dogs, even keeping others of more 'German' construction, but are aware of the differences.

Not knowing whether the AKC allowed the GSDCA to write the US GSD Breed Standard, or whether it was a case like the UK, where the KC
'consults' Breed Clubs, and sometimes Breed Councils, on what goes in the 'British Standards', but then sometimes imposes less suitable words anyway, seems a moot point to me (for the American posters, that's the word that always comes out as 'mute' on this website). Either way, Clubs that the SV allows to become foreign Member clubs of WUSV get away with far too much rule-bending !

I have never yet worked out WHO Mac is or which gender (but I think on balance its a bloke). You can torture him however you think fit - he seems to see no necessity to make his posts make sense, especially for an American audience used to BLUE 'First Prize' awards. Point was, the former of the two posts I took exception to was set in the present tense, so if he's referring back to some obscure point in English KC history when no judge was allowed ever to withhold an award, he really ought to have made that clear (er) ... especially where then going on in the later post to claim his breaking of the Rules, in describing his non award of places to dogs with undeserving nerves. Although, as you note, I applauded the fact that he DID withhold, so I don't know why he was so snappy in his rejoinder to me. A simple "Sorry, yes I wasn't being very clear" would have sufficed.

 

I'll PM you on the other stuff ...

When posters use words like “torture” and “#1: I hadn't visited this thread since 23 July (I thought it was longer) so knew nothing about Mackenzie's heinous crime against punctuational literacy. Was it mild enough for him just lose a finger, or should he stand in sulphuric acid for 17 minutes?
#2: No-one with my direct e-address sent me: a contract, 2 false passports (one to fly from here, a different one to return to here), REAL money, the address where a suitable inconspicuous handgun plus bolt cutter or acid are waiting for me to collect them plus the address & mugshot of Mackenzie “ it seems like they are just making job applications to Islamic State.

Hundemutter’s comment “"(apart from the misapplication of commas which I'm surprised Les is letting you get away with)" is the poster making bullets for someone else to fire. It is the sort of usual comment from someone who feels the need to post on so many threads.

I have no further comment to make on this thread which started as information that readers might find interesting from a past SV President.

Mackenzie

OOOoooh !!!

BTW Mac, why do you always insist on spelling my username with an 'e' in the middle ?

[Mackenzie] 29.7.2016 - 04:07

Hi.

SURELY English isn't such a minor part of your word-skills that you REALLY thought I was advocating what the CIA call "termination with maximum prejudice"? If so, you are like my aunt, who had absolutely NO sensayuma (= sense of humour) and could NEVER understand anyone's jokes. Never mind - my uncle loved her dearly and nursed her for her last few years.

 

I am currently cursing [Hundmutter] for sending me a message via the PDB's horrible PM system instead of to my personal e-address - I had my message to both of you almost ready to Save, then decided to check whether her use of "PM" meant the PDB - because her message hadn't come to my direct address (but neither has my copy of a reminder sent to an applicant to one of my groups...). But the CKEditor being the unlovably clumsy thing it is, doing that deleted all except the first 2 lines of this. I'm tired, so replying to her will have to wait. And I can't remember everything that I had prepared for you.

 

I know I had pointed out that what I had writeen was DELIBERATELY so extrem as to be ridiculous - my passages were IRONI(CAL, which is not at all like being SARCASTIC. Sarcasm is like using sulphuric acid - it is meant to hurt. Whereas irony is meant to amuse, to titillate - it is champagne bubbles, not acid.

 

I think you have succumbed to depression (a nasty black dog of a thing!) because you think you have offended against one of The KC (UK)'s rules. My friend in England (not quite as old as Percy "Vikkas" Elliott, but pushing it) ignored my response that she didn't need to check The KC's Rule book, and sent me everything she could find relevant to placing and refusing a placing to an exhibit. Unless you did something as stupid as refuse to award a 1st and a 2nd but insisted on presenting a ribbon for 3rd place, you have offended only the owners you sent out of the ring. (Of course, THAT could be depressing if one of them was a grandson of Ronald Biggs!)

 

So fight the "black dog", get your feet & head in the right places, eat healthily.

Les The Kiwi Pauling - everything is OK Les. I took it in the way it was intended to be, just a bit of fun. The CIA ad NZ Secret Service have stood down and so no worries.

All the best.

Mackenzie