Westminster disappointment

[kayharley]

I stayed up to watch the Terrier group in the show last night only to have the adorable Cairn disqualified because of a conflict of interest with the judge and handler. Another dog was disqualified also for the same reason.

Although I am not familar with dog shows and their prodocal, I wondered why it wasn't addressed beforehand.

I turned off the set and went to bed.

[bradl]

Very frustrating and much discussed in this year's Westminster thread in Best of Breed. The situation was known in advance - and even discussed in advance - by the owner, the handler, the judge, and the television crew. The announcers, in the heat of the moment , did a poor job of clarifying the situation , which as I understand it boils down to the involved dogs practically living in the judge's household (slightly oversimplified, but close enough).

The Cairn was invited to compete at Westminster (the top dogs nationally are - unlike the entries who must compete in the first-come first-serve entry scramble) and has won BOB before at Westminster. BOB is and remains a prestigious win that any breeder would want and be grateful for. The television company erred in not giving equal screen time to the Airedale and Cairn as part of the "television spectacle" that is Westminster, regardless of the dogs' inability to fairly compete in the Group judging.

It was an unfortunate and unusual intersection of rules and fairness, where even though everyone did the right thing, we viewers were left with a poor understanding of what we were looking at. No doubt the TV people are under immense time-pressure during this type of event, so they may have just underestimated how hard it would be to sufficiently explicate the situation to the satisfaction of us diehard Cairn (and/or Airedale) fans! Or it may have been a case where as show people they were so familiar with the ins-and-outs of the situation that they assumed what they said made sense. (Sort of like when an expert in some field tries to explain something to me and they think they succeeded and I'm standing there thinking, "Whuh?")

[kayharley]

Thank you, Brad, for clarifying.

I think I understand but don't quite know why I'm still scratching my blond head and saying "Whuh?"