Ringside Mentoring
By Roseann Fucillo
Published in March 2006 AKC GAZETTE

Having been an educator and breeder for nearly 30 years, I volunteered to be part of The Papillon Club of America’s ringside mentoring program, which has been a rewarding experience. This program has been very successful and effective teaching tool since its inception in 2004, all due to its chair, Jan Paulk. 

Jan, a breeder-judge, established criteria for PCA breeder-mentor volunteers: having at least 12 years of experience in the breed, and having bred and raised a minimum of five litters that produced at least 4 champions. Jan believes that ringside mentoring is an integral part of teaching judges about the breed.  “As in all things, you get out of it what you put into it,” she says. “While we Pap breeders may know when they walk into the ring what we like or do not like, mentoring forces us to crystallize and verbalize our thoughts. That is a good mental exercise.” 

Jan’s philosophy is to be “inclusive rather than exclusive,” as she feels that no one has all the answers or has the exact same interpretation of the breed standard.  And stress the breed standard she does, just like a drill sergeant!  Jan’s mantra is a repetition of phrases that are emphasized in the standard: fine-boned, dainty, elegant, light, friendly and lively. We, as mentors, stress this to all prospective Papillon judges as we view the exhibits and emphasize their positive attributes.

With regard to size, Jan feels those exhibits from bottom and top of the size scale should be judged equally with those in the middle of the range. She believes that an 8-inch dog can be heavy boned and an 11-inch one can be fine-boned. The Papillon and Phalene should also be judged equally, since they are identical except for the ears.

Jan’s own experiences attending other breed seminars and mentoring ringside, helped her to incorporate new ideas. Traditionally, mentors work one-on-one with judges. But at our 2005 national specialty, Jan introduced a rotating system, where the mentors switched places after mentoring one class.  This gave the judges several different breeders’ perspectives, which brought rave reviews and positive feedback. Jan always factors in judges’ feedback when planning her future mentoring programs. “They spend a lot of time and money to come to the show and I want it to be well spent.”

Jan also instructs mentors on what to avoid. “One should avoid critiquing any individual dog, telling cute stories about one’s own dogs, promoting one’s own dogs, and running down those of anyone else.”  She emphasizes that one should never repeat gossip or to make personal comments about other breeders or owners, including identifying any particular breeder-handler who had major specialty wins or who bred top winners at any particular show. We, as mentors, are there to point out the positive features of exhibits, all according to our breed standard, and not to promote or destroy others.

Judges who are going for their Papillon breed license, and those breeders who meet the criteria and plan to attend specialty shows, please join us in a most rewarding ringside mentoring experience. Contact Jan Paulk at Janpaulk@aol.com for more information.

Published with permission from the AKC GAZETTE.  This article is not to be copied, whole or in part, without written permission form the author.