Page 106 - ShowSight - February 2020

Breeder Interview: Jon Kimes
BY ALLAN REZNIK continued
Ch Pluperfect Princess Bride—the most current generation of Pluperfect breeding. Owned by Paula O’Donnell.
Ch Pluperfect Princess Royal—16th generation of Pluperfect breeding. WB & BW CWCCA 2015. Co-owned with Patrick Smith.
won Best of Opposite Sex, Winners Bitch who also won Best of Winners, and Best of Breed. The next year one of those bitches was BOS at the national and her nephew was Best in Sweeps and WD/BOW while his sister was BOS Sweeps and WB.
Ice Anchor was used for a stud fee pup- py. I was having neighbor challenges at the time and gave her to his then co-owner. Her name was Luca and she became the world’s first Best in Show winner. She was a terrific bitch that could still win strongly today.
Please comment positively on your breed’s present condition and what trends might bear watching.
I have been fortunate to judge the Car- digan National Specialty several times, including the Sweepstakes before I was licensed, and then the regular classes three times after that. I judged the national in the spring of 2019 and it was the largest entry of the breed in the world. So I have a pretty hands-on perspective of the breed.
The Cardigan, like the Pembroke, is really a complicated breed and I think it is better judged by breed specialists than all-rounders. Unfortunately, the Cardigan breed doesn’t have the Pembroke infra- structure geared toward specialties. I will say within the breed there are some really exceptional specimens but I don’t think there is good agreement on what constitutes a high-quality animal so they really have to be picked through and found. I don’t feel like the best specimens are necessarily the ones that are campaigned, and it is frustrat- ing to see judges completely miss top class animals in favor of the campaigned one.
Right now, I think we see many that are off type in headpieces, and I know pedi- gree-wise why this has occurred. I just hope breeders will be judicious in being more consistent in this area. The Cardigan breed standard is really well defined so there truly isn’t any reason to ignore type features.
For the most part, Cardigans are nice, true movers, with average to very good side
gait. They have mostly level toplines. Ide- ally, the front should be absolutely pleasing with a slight turnout of front foot. I don’t like straight forelegs but I also greatly dis- like a lot of out-turn; not only is that dis- pleasing but as a working dog, it isn’t sound. Judges always focus far too heavily on tail carriage, which is a superficiality, but people often cite it in an effort to demonstrate their familiarity with the breed.
The sport has changed greatly since you first began participating. What are your thoughts on the state of the fancy and the declining number of breeders? How do we encourage newcomers to join us and remain in the sport?
I hear this all the time. But I’ve been going to dog shows since the late 1960s and I haven’t really noticed a lot of changes. As a teenager in the late 1970s I was interested in becoming a professional handler, and I would say being a handler today would not be very different than it was back then. Cer- tainly, not every breed required a hair dryer as almost all seem to need today, but other than that I find the status quo has remained. The motor homes are bigger.
I also think the dog fancy is highly elas- tic, economically. So when the economy is good, you find a lot of exhibitors, and when it’s bad you find quite a few less. There is a hard- core fancier but most are really just around temporarily. And that has not changed over the decades.
I will give my little soapbox speech here about judging. I really feel no one in a position of influence understands what makes a good judge. From my observation it really boils down to the natural talent to judge. Education is great. Mentoring is great. Experience is great. But only a small percentage of dog people actually possess the talent to judge dogs. It’s a critical eye that knows structure, balance, and type on sight. That is a talent. The dog fancy has always operated on the premise that anyone can be a judge if they meet the experience and educational requirements. The dog
fancy seems to think becoming a great judge is about activities. Not until and unless the dog fancy realizes dog judging is a talent that needs to first be identi- fied, then nurtured, will judging overtly improve. We had a lot of bad judges 50 years ago and we have a lot of bad judges today. Our understanding of what it takes has never changed so the quality of judg- ing has never really changed. The reason advertising and campaigning are so influ- ential in a special’s career is because most of the judging community would rather rely on what others have done than judge the dogs for themselves. Again, it comes down to talent. If you don’t have it, you allow all the other extraneous stuff to influence you.
Where do you see your breeding program in the next decade or two?
As far as Cardigans are concerned, I’m in retirement mode right now. I think the breed is in good enough shape and has enough good specimens that it is not going to fall off a cliff by me not participating. I just have my first Peke and I have a lovely Pem bitch so those probably are the breeds I will concentrate on going forward.
Finally, tell us a little about Jon outside of dogs... your profession, your hobbies.
Professionally, I have an MBA and a PMP certification for project manage- ment, and work in the Project Manage- ment Office of a large corporation. My husband is an attorney and a Spanish and French interpreter. My interests are mainly our animals. Besides dogs, I’ve shown cats and cavies and currently, I am establishing a Netherland Dwarf rabbit breeding pro- gram. We also have a small flock of chick- ens, so between all that I keep myself fairly entertained. Jim loves to travel so I see more of that in my future. I have been licensed to judge three breeds for almost 25 years but I never have actually decided whether I want to judge more or not, so that is still an open question.
104 • ShowSight Magazine, February 2020