Jody’s Thoughts on Juniors - Leveling the Playing Field: Rethinking Junior Showmanship Rankings and Finals Qualifications

I love rankings, the quantifiable knowledge of where I stand against my competition. Monthly, I pore over the new dog show stats, reviewing my dog’s current position, then calculating what he and his competition might have won more recently. As a teacher/coach to Junior Handlers around the country, the monthly Junior Showmanship rankings are a regular starting point for discussions, a time to review/modify goals, set strategies, and plan upcoming show schedules.

Lately though, I’ve been questioning whether the cut-and-dried numbers of monthly statistics and qualifying requirements for the Junior Showmanship Finals are constructively designed to identify the Top Juniors in the country.

Before we start though, I want to state emphatically, my intention with this discussion is NOT to take anything away from the exceptionally talented and gifted young handlers currently or previously competing! I offer my thoughts solely in the hopes of initiating a discussion examining the status quo and hoping, perhaps, to establish if there might be a more effective path to determining the nation’s leading Junior Handlers.

I’ve mixed feelings about the current point rankings and qualifying criteria in Junior Showmanship. On the one hand, it’s a fantastic way to keep kids motivated and involved. When making it to Florida or Westminster are not realistic options, the rankings permit Juniors who may not be able to show extensively different achievable goals to work towards. For some of my students, just making it into the Top Ten in their breed is their highest annual goal. Raising oneself in the rankings also provides a reason to keep already qualified elite level Junior Handlers out in the show ring, enjoying time with their dog and their friends. I like this.

What I like less is the trend in recent years for Juniors to devote all their time and energies to earning the highest possible end-of-the-year ranking. This can mean flying weekly to dog shows around the country to where the Junior has the greatest potential for winning. It can mean living out of a motorhome for weeks at a time, traveling with family or working every weekend as an assistant for a professional handler. This “Junior Showmanship Campaigning,” I feel, creates a playing field with a decided “slant.”

To provide some perspective: In 2013, the No. 1 Junior Handler in the country defeated 552 kids to capture the position in the rankings. Fast forward to 2023, when the No. 1 Junior in the country earned an amazing 1,882 points. This means they defeated nearly 1,900 kids over the 12 months, a truly stunning accomplishment and a testimony to proficiency and talent.

Consider this… assume four shows a circuit (not counting specialties, etc.) over 52 weeks. It means we have roughly 208 shows a year. If you figure the average Junior entry at a normal dog show at 30 Juniors, many shows have entries substantially lower. Thus, to amass that number, even winning Best Junior Handler every time you went into the ring—a virtual impossibility—you’d have shown at least 60 times. However, since no one wins every time, the actual number of shows attended would realistically have been closer to 120-140! By the way, the No. 1 Juniors in the country in 2024 and 2025 earned 1,522 and 1,182 points.

Perhaps I am overly sensitive to the dichotomy currently at play in the Junior’s world. Many of my kids come from middle-class families who are financially comfortable. Their dog show budgets can generally cover one or two show circuits a month. On average, most of my students attend about 8 to 12 circuits a year, offering 30-50 opportunities to earn points. Still, I also have kids from households on much more limited budgets (but with no less lofty goals!). By necessity, these kids may be limited to five or six local circuits in a year yet are no less motivated, dedicated, or talented than my other students.

Moreover, attendance requirements of schools with strict absentee policies prohibit many Juniors’ show schedules, limiting competition opportunities. A large number of actively showing Juniors have moved to remote learning for this reason. Also to be considered are those kids who live in parts of the US with a minimal number of annual shows, and Juniors in areas with extreme weather which makes travel challenging during certain months.

How then can we create greater parity within the Junior Showmanship ranks?

My daughter was a “horse kid.” As in the dog world, equestrian competitions have prestigious shows at the end of every season, known as “Indoors,” including The Pennsylvania National Horse Show, the Washington International Horse Show, and the National Horse Show.

For some of my daughter’s friends/fellow competitors, their horse show budgets were limitless. The children of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Bruce Springsteen, Steven Spielberg, and Michael Bloomberg all achieved great success in the show ring and rightfully so. True, at the end of the day, no rider can simply buy their way into the sport with the best horses, equipment, home-schooling tutors, and coaching. The kid has to put in the work to develop their skills. Money can’t buy success… but it sure doesn’t hurt!

Believe me when I say that our bank accounts didn’t match those above! Still, my daughter was able to qualify multiple times for Indoors, shows which take only the top 25-30 riders nationally in each division.

So, how could my kid compete on an even footing with a Gates or Bloomberg?

It had to do with the qualifying criteria.

Indoor shows only count the points won by a rider from their 15 best shows. That’s it. Fifteen shows, 15 weeks from a whole year of competition. Qualifying shows were determined by the largest number of kids defeated at each of the shows in which you competed. That was your total for the year. Certainly, wealthy kids who could afford to spend 30-45 weeks every year on show circuits increased their odds of having 15 great shows. At the same time though, a less affluent youngster could match or surpass them in points with wins at larger entry competitions. This approach allowed a middle-class kid to compete with heirs to multi-million /billion-dollar fortunes.

If we were to do something similar in dogs, say, only count the points a Junior earns in their best 25 or so shows, it could, I believe, help bring about greater equality between kids who can be out every weekend and those kids with more limited showing options. Counting only a Junior’s best 25 shows wouldn’t preclude anyone from showing more often. A win at a larger show with more Juniors defeated would simply drop a lesser show from your average.

Taking this idea one step further… Beyond creating greater fairness in the statistics, imagine this methodology as a means to determining qualifiers for the AKC National Championship and Westminster Junior Showmanship Finals. In an average year, approximately 100 Juniors qualify for Westminster. To do so, they must win seven Best Junior Handler awards against competition not in their class. Qualifying for the AKC National requires five Open class wins against competition in their class. These Finals also require Juniors to have a B average in school, a stipulation I would not want to see removed. The Finals in Orlando usually plays host to 150-180 qualifiers.

The format I propose is to tabulate every Junior’s 25 best shows, then rank competitors in numerical order. In other words, the Junior with the most kids defeated in 25 shows would be No. 1, the second most No. 2, and so on. For Westminster, this would be the Top 100 Junior Handlers for that year’s qualifying period. For the AKC Finals, the Top 150 who also met the academic requirement would receive an invitation. Juniors below the cut-off who wanted could be placed on a waiting list. If a qualified Junior opted not to compete, the next Junior on the list would receive an invitation.

I believe this assessment process would help diminish some of the “loopholes” seen in the current qualifying procedure. For example, earning the requisite seven Best Junior Handler awards required for Westminster in some parts of the country with deep competition is difficult. So, many Juniors opt for the Specialty route to earn the required Bests. Specialties often have only a handful of entries. I knew a Junior who qualified for Westminster with the requisite number of BJHs having defeated only 13 kids in the process! Are these BJH wins a more accurate gauge of expertise than a kid with 18 Reserve Best Junior Handler awards having defeated over 200 Juniors?

As I tell all my students, at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how you qualify if qualifying is all that matters. Remember though: To win at Finals, you’re still going to have to defeat those kids at the top of the rankings. Be brave enough to test yourself against the toughest competition you can find. It’ll make you a better handler and No. 1 in my book.