My nephew (13) started showing last year, and decided to give junior handling a go,  it is a  part of showing with which I have had absolutely no experience, so have struggled a bit to help him, as it soon became obvious that it often bears very little relationshiop to breed showing.  The dog he is showing is his own, a pug.  Had a few problems initially with the "don't get between judge and dog" thing, when they were free standing, but he  has trained dog not to follow him round the judge now!  We are now trying to get to grips with what the judge is looking for, and how on earth you know which judge is likely to want what.  There seems to be 2 distinct schools of thought, the first group of judges seem to want a fairly uniform method of handling, regardless of breed, with the young handler almost "overhandling", the second group of judges wanting the kids to handle as per the breed they are showing, and penalising for  such things as stacking a free standing or baited breed. 

Do any of the experienced Juniors handlers on here have any advise on this?  Any JH/YKC judges out there who would like ot give thougths on the subject?  We now have a pug who is happy to free stand or stack, but trying to 2nd guess what he should go for is a bit like a lottery.  He has now evolved a style where he shows normally, free standing, until the final line up, when he stacks and "presents" the dog.  Any JH tips or advise most welcome from a confused Aunt.

Am new to this too, so sadly can't help you.  there are a few very experienced mothers & ex handlers on this site.  I'm sure Ice Queen will give an answer soon, she's been most helpful to me & dd.  Know that Marina Scott (nee White) does some handling seminars/training days if you do a google for Junior Handling, not sure on the website but it's probably www.juniorhandling.co.uk
Wishing your nephew every success & most of all fun!!!

there's also a post further down from Marina about a training day which has spaces due to the date being changed (which is now a Gundog Ch Show so I assume a couple have dropped out).  If you're in SE England it will be worth it.

we have had the same sort of problem as my eldest daughter, she handels a bullmastiff which is shown head on, leigh-ann used to get really wound up as she never knew which way to stack the dog, so now she does it head on no matter what class shes in, I think they should show the dog in the same way as in the breed ring as this shows the junior know the correct way in which to handel their dog, if leigh-ann gets knocked back for it now she shruggs it off.

>I'm sure Ice Queen will give an answer soon

And how right you are. :)

Hanlding does not have any standard or guildlines of what a judge should judge for.  Therefore a judge will look for the style they have been taught and grown up with and prefer, the only way to know is experiance.

As You say gwen theres the "look at me" handlers and theres the "look at my dog" handlers.  Each judge looks for something different, even myself and my father train/judge/handle slightly differently although very similar and you can tell the handlers who have come though us, we have seen handlers adapt their normal style to show under us as we adapt our style to suit different judges. 

There really is no-way to tell what a judge will do or what they will look for unless you know how they handle themselves.  I know afew handlers from one training all do things the same and infact do some things I don't like (but I do things they don't like too!) 

>now she does it head on no matter what class shes in

Good!  I'm glad she does now :)

The guidlines for YKC handling is to show your dog off to it's best advantage, JHA has nothing at all.

Marina's website is fantatsic wealth of knowledge and any handling training days are worth going on, you know what that person will look for as a judge at least!

Myself and my father ran a training day earlier this year due to lots of intrest we filled the placed before even advertising and one thing we spent alot of time doiing was a straight lines.  Don't bother trying to do more complex patterns untill you can master a triangle and straight u and down with straight lines, tight corners but still keeping the dogs movement flowing so obviously a smaller dog can do sharper corners then a bigger dog but bigger dogs.

Best of luck to any handlers out there, it is hard and sometimes I go into the ring without knowing what the judge will do, sometimes I win, sometimes I loose and the way I normally tell  bad judge?  If myself and my brother are either both placed or bobth chucked out!  The worst judges I've been under have placed one of us highly and not even looked at the other when we both have a similar style, same sized dogs and neither done anything outragously wrong!  9/10 we are close to each other in placings or both chucked!

Would recommend you buy him a copy of Marinas book and let him read through all the case histories on her website.
He will learm from the others who are 'very involved'.
Juniorhandling.co.uk

Karen  (mother of a case history)

Ice Queen i think you would be pleased with how much leigh-ann has come on in the past year with her handeling, she was also having problems with her lines, straight up and down with a nice curve lol, but shes really getting the hang of it now. The school holidays are coming up soon we will have to pop down a few times since we dont have to worry about late nights.

I think if the junior worry too much about doing things wrong it add too much pressure on them, if leigh-ann does not get placed or dont do as well as she thinks she should we have a little chat on the way home about what she thinks she done wrong and she has not got to the point where she knows what she done wrong that time or how she could of improved on herself.

You will have to let me know in plenty of time when you do your next traning day and i will bring both my girls along.

I do adult handling for a laugh sometimes, I don't know much about handling other breeds so I just show my Cav the same way I would in breed, except I am careful to have her standing while the dog the judge is looking at is moving, so if the judge catches sight of us beyond the one she is moving my girl is stood nicely. In breed, at least in my breed, people don't usually do that - imagine trying to keep your dog awake and stood nicely during a class of 25 or 30 which is what some of our Champ class sizes are! I have never judged except novelty classes, but when I judge child handling I would look for the 'look at my dog' handlers rather than the 'look at me' ones.

>The school holidays are coming up soon we will have to pop down a few times since we dont have to worry about late nights.

It will be great to see you both again :)  And at least Leigh-ann has the right attitude :)  some you win and some you loose :) 

But then I'm sure we have told you I was told by a staffy owner/breeder/judge to stand my bulldog profile on at a show!  I was alot younger then and couldn't understand why he wanted the bulldog stood incorrectly to the show procedure of it's breed!  And this judge knew me and knew my normal breed....

Handling is such a gamble at it's the same for adult and juniors, YKC/JHA (or AHA)

One judge last year I had no idea if he was judging the dog or the handler because my dog wasn't the best quality in that class, he only asked for a straight up and down and watched you stack your dogs, I won the class but the competition was tough and there no way he could have split us on just straight lines and stacking procedure as I'm sure some of my competitors would have been straight and stacked dogs well, all of us who made the split where ex juniors doing it for years with well schooled dogs.  To this day, nearly a year on I still don't know but very greatful for the win! :-D

Thanks for the words of wisdom, everyone.  Max has had lots of help from a former Junior Handler who shows poodles, and we have bought every JH book we can find, which he has studied from cover to cover.  He is very philosophical when he does not get placed, as I have drummed into him the need to be "a good sportsman",  and not bratish, at all times (hang up from days showing horses/ponies).  It does frustrate me to death, perhaps because I do come from a Horse showing background where there are distinct and clear right and wrong ways, that I cannot point out what went wrong/right in a particular class - seems wierd that so much is down to personal taste.  He qualified for YKC at Crufts out of a class of 17, and was stacking the pug, he has qualified twice for Richmond using the free standing then stacking method, with firm "telling off" from one judge (friend of mine) for stacking the pug at all, with admonisment that that is why he was only 3rd in the class.  HE has a bit of a personal dilema coming up, as his American Cocker puppy when ready for handling classes will cut out the style of handling decisions, as he is obviously stacked, but Max's heart is with Pipsqueak pug, who has done so well with him so far.

Wish we could make a JH day somewhere  but the South is pretty much out of the question (live in the North East), so will look roudn and see if we can find something which does not require overnight stays.

My daughter is now 31 and so her junior handling days are now a long time ago but although she would win at breed shows with our free standing dogs, she would always do better at Champ Shows when she borrowed a stacked breed.  It 'looks' as though the handler is doing more!  When the Richmond semi final pastoral day fell on the 2nd day of her new secondary school, she plumped for borrowing an afghan so that she could go on hound day at the weekend.  She won the semi final and got through to the final.
So whilst it's nice that he's showing his own Pug, it may be worth remembering the American Cocker option as he improves and gets more serious! :)

There is always something extra with a top and tailed breed.  Maybe it's the way your facing the judge rather then being side on and the straight arms you can really give that "here we are look at my dog" whereas with a freestood breed your watching you dog hoping it stands out on it's own.  However one judge prefers a handler who can show a free stood dog over a handler who shows a stacked dog as they are harder and if given two handlers of equal quality she will place the freestood dog (however doesn't mean she won't give it to a  stacked dog if thats the best in the class!  I won under her with a setter and got a 3rd at another show with a free stood malamute (prior to the holding tail up days when you didn't touch them!)

Many, many, many years ago (oh God I'm now feeling so old!!) I used to be a fairly successful Junior Handler & the breed I preferred to show was Beagles.............. they were an excellent breed to show off your handling skills with.  You were able to make them stand out and they move at a controlled speed which made them look pretty flashy and made you look competent as a handler and also minimised errors.  Towards the end of my handling career judges started to do very strange things which I personally did not feel was necessary such as figure of 8's and other strange manoevres.  Do they still do that sort of thing?
In my opinion Junior Handling is about getting the best out of your dog, standing it up in a way that the judge can see it's qualities and moving it at the correct pace to show the judge the soundness of the dog from the rear, the side & the front.  Being able to see the dog at all times too.  I used to monitor the handlers to make sure they weren't just standing about chatting, I did like to see them being attentive to their dogs even when I wasn't going over them.  I don't mean standing them up for hours on end but I wanted them to focus on their charge & I always tried to keep them on their toes.  When I judged I always discounted the actual dog, for example if it was a poor specimen that was irrelevant, I was only interested in the handler being able to get the best out of it but not to overshadow it.  I judged a JHA Hound Semi-final at Richmond, must have been in the 80's, my winner was a girl called Rebecca Gilbert, she was handling a PBGV & went on to win the competition overall.  This type of breed was ideal for junior handling & I guess that youngster's handling other not so flashy breeds can sometimes find it tough to win, it's not dissimilar to group judging.

Very interesting to read all the views. I does seem strange, especially as these classes are actually FOR juniors, that there is so much discretion given to the judge to decide on what is asked and what is looked for. It would seem to give a much more even playing field for the youngsters if there were clear guidelines (eg all dogs to be shown as is usual for the breed, or  all dogs to shown in either a or b way, etc etc) and for a clear idea of patterns - after all, in the breed ring you don't have to do different shapes other than up and down or triangle, so why do juniors have to do shapes - oddest so far has been a "reverse T"!  I feel bad not being able to give him more guidance, and with Richmond coming up I want him to have a great day without worrying too much.  However, I am stressing much more than either my nephew or his dog, so as long as they are both enjoying themselves I will carry on providing the transport!  As the pair of them have only been showing for 13 months, and the first anniversary of their first handling class is not till August, they have done so well to qualify and get all the placings they have.