In the beginning, before the advent of today's American Schutzhund organizations, Schutzhund trials in America were typically conducted by Germans with primarily commercial motivation. The judge was selected and came to America as the guest of the person giving the trial. We were the backwater, with very little in the way of knowledge, sophistication or pull, to use a Chicago expression. The objective of the judge, as often as not, was to please the man paying for the ticket and get another free vacation in America.
Incredible things went on at trials. I remember one Illinois trial where the host of the judge, the "owner" of the Schutzhund club, served as decoy. Two dogs from this man's breeding passed Schutzhund one with their breeder as helper, on the farm on which they were born, without the stick ever coming out from behind the back of the owner, breeder, decoy, promoter, money maker. The judge just did not seem to notice, and passed both dogs. Ask anyone who has been around for much more than twenty years and you can hear some amazing stories.
Later they became more inventive and created professional handling. Under this ingenious system, judges can train and show dogs to their colleagues, who also perhaps see the advantage of the system, sometimes at secret Wednesday morning trials. Course, nobody in America would ever suspect that Mr. Judge A and Mr. Judge B might be tempted to exchange favors, right?
The advent of Schutzhund USA brought a fundamental change. I have been and continue to be critical of USA in a number of area's. For one thing, they have played the all breed / German Shepherd thing both ends against the middle for more than twenty years. They really do need to change their name to something with "German Shepherd" in it and get it over with.
But in the big picture, the most important thing is that the USA Judge's program has brought integrity to the Schutzhund fields of America. They have a rigid code of ethics precluding commercial activity and have worked tirelessly at training, education and weeding out to bring the quality as well as the honesty up to a very high level. Everybody in the sport should be grateful for these efforts.
At the creation of the AWDF, a set of Judge's regulations were created and enacted to ensure that integrity in judging would be extended to all trials under the AWDF umbrella. Quite frankly, this was intended to put a stake in the ground, something the DVG would have to accept as proof of good faith and true concern for working dogs in order to gain AWDF acceptance. This would have excluded a number of their judges, and as a result they did not become associated with the AWDF.
I believe that these rules state in black and white the things we all believe about the integrity of our sport and our working breeds. I believe in them totally. But now we hear that some officers in the Doberman Club want to open the doors to the DVG judges.
One argument in favor is the claim that order to gain FCI acceptance we need to accept FCI rules and valid FCI judges. I agree that this is true. But I also say there is a point at which the price of FCI acceptance is too high.
This need not be a problem. The current rules permit FCI licensed judges in good standing to officiate at all AWDF trials. But they do not allow such judges to reside in the United States, but rather in the country granting the license. We should all accept DVG judges residing in the United States on the basis of their DVG license, just as soon as any resident of Germany is eligible to judge any Schutzhund or IPO trial in Germany on the presentation of a license granted by the American AWDF affiliated Giant Schnauzer club.
This is of course not going to happen, because the Germans are not going to accept a license signed by Ed Weiss, would think it absurd that he could grant licenses to people beyond this country. And they would of course be right. But the DVG is in no fundamental way different from the UDC, USA or the Schnauzer club. They are a German organization, and have no more right to grant a license to an American than Illinois has a right to grant a driver's license to a resident of Utah who has never been east of the Mississippi.
Furthermore, the DVG judges are blatant professionals. Tom Rose is a friend, and I think he can set aside his professional life and judge. But Tom is very stable in a financial sense, and I don't think he has handled a dog for another person since becoming a judge. Others are subject to, and give in to, temptation.
Right now, DVG judge A can show a dog he is being paid to title to DVG judge B, perhaps at one of the famous Tuesday morning trials, and then judge B can show a client's dog to judge A the next week, or even on Wednesday morning. I don't think DVG judges do that in Germany, but it can and does happen in America.
So in my opinion we should look at our rules very closely. I believe that they are compatible with FCI rules, at least in spirit, but that if they are not we should make very restrictive modifications to come into compliance with international practice. Once we do this, there is still simply no way that DVG judges residing in America can be eligible, because the DVG can not have the authority to grant such a license. DVG has gotten away with this because nobody has wanted to rock the boat, and that's fine.
The time has come to stand up for principle, and the principle that only Americans have the ultimate authority to grant judging licenses to American residents must be respected. Anything less would be second class status, and I believe that we are better to stand alone rather than in subservience to petty German bureaucrats such as Christa Bremmer.
Jim Engel, July 2001