The long-suffering readers of this poor little blog hear me talk about Lacey’s ranking, both in breed and all-breed competition. Why is that important and how is it determined?
Rankings are the brass ring that all specials are chasing, either in their breed, in their variety group, or for all breeds. How are these determined? There are two basic categories of rankings: rankings based on breed competition only and rankings based on all-breed competition.
After a show, the superintendent collects all the judge’s books and records the results against the show catalogue, then sends the results to the AKC. The results are printed in AKC Awards and usually appear on the superintendent’s web site. These correspond the arm band number and placement as recorded in the judge’s book with the name of the dog. The absence of a particular dog is also noted.
From those results, it is possible to determine the number of dogs defeated, the basis of all rankings. For example, if Lacey goes to a show where 25 Borzoi are entered, of whom 23 actually show (are present and aren’t excused or disqualified) and she goes Best of Breed, she picks up 22 points in the Breed rankings, the total number of exhibits less herself.
Now she shows in the Hound Group and gets a Group 2nd, behind the Basset Hound. She is considered to have defeated every hound showing that day except for the Basset Hounds. So if a total of 123 hounds show that day, including 10 Basset Hounds, Lacey gets 112 points in the all-breed rankings.
Of course, when Lacey gets a Group 1, she is considered to have defeated all hounds showing that day. When she got her Best in Show, she was considered to have defeated all dogs of all breeds shown that day. At November’s Danville KC show, the total entry was 441, so Lacey defeated 440 dogs that day.
What rankings do, obviously, is rank dogs according to how many dogs they’ve defeated. In Breed rankings, it’s the cumulative number of dogs of that breed. This is important for Westminster entries, since the top five dogs of each breed based on breed rankings get automatic invitations to that most exclusive of shows.
All-breed rankings can be handled according to a number of systems. Dog News uses only dogs defeated in variety group and Best in Show competition, while Canine Chronicle uses a combination of dogs defeated in breed and dogs defeated in the group and Best in Show. For example, let’s assume Lacey has been to five shows in which she went Best of Breed. In three of them, she picks up group placements. Dog News would calculate all-breed statistics based only on the sum of the number of dogs Lacey defeated in the Hound Group. Canine Chronicle would calculate their all-breed statistics based on the number of dogs Lacey defeated in the Hound Group plus the number of Borzoi she defeated in the two shows she didn’t get a group placement.
This leads to different all-breed numbers for the two publications and can even lead to different rankings. The dog might be advertised as Number 1 based on one publication or the other, or Number 1 “all systems.”
Rankings are rather controversial. Some say that they just lead to too much showing and judge-chasing. My view is that someone is going to do it anyway and that at least when a dog is touted as the Number 1 dog of its breed, there is some quantification for the claim.
The statistics have an Everest-like quality when looking at how your dog is doing. After an exhausting year, Lacey finished as the Number 1 Borzoi in all-breed competition with 3706 dogs defeated (Canine Chronicle). That wasn’t even enough to crack the top 20 hounds; Number 20 – the Ibizan Hound Ch. Luxor’s Playmate of the Year – had 7232 points. And the Number 1 dog in the country – the German Shepherd Dog Ch. Kismet’s Sight for Sore Eyes – had a remarkable 86782 points. How the top dogs get there is the subject of the next installment.