Stewards Manual

Top 10 facts you must commit to memory for any dog show

At no time will a steward refer to a dog being judged by that dog’s name or call the handler by his/her name. On-deck stewards should also instruct handlers to remove any name badges or other ID while preparing their dogs to enter the ring.
No judging may start before the time listed in the official program. It may start later, but CANNOT start earlier. Classes will be judged in the order in which they are listed in the program. However, there are NO posted ring times for each class. The show starts and moves along at its own pace, so participants need to be aware of the classes going on before them to make sure they don’t miss their time in the ring.
Puppy classes will be judged before any Adult classes. This does not include Non- Regular classes, which will be completed 2 days prior to regular class judging.
The winners of each adult male and female class AND the best youth male and youth female puppy will compete for Winner’s Male and Winner’s Female respectively.
Only the dog named Winner’s Dog will earn championship points.
Only the female named Winner’s Female will earn championship points.
The finals will consist of Winner’s Male, Winner’s Female, Veteran Male, Veteran Female and the male and female winners from the Champion class.
The dog that finishes 2nd in the Winner’s Male and Winner’s Female classes is named Reserve Winner. Reserve winners become significant only if it is determined that the original class winner is not qualified to continue in competition.
When BISS is named, the best male or female of the opposite sex of the BISS is named Best of Opposite (BOS)
The better of the Winner’s Male and Winner’s Female is named Best of Winners. Should Winner’s Male or Winner’s Female be named BISS, by definition, they must also be declared Best of Winners.

Items a Steward should have on hand when reporting for their assignment:

2 copies of the official show program
Extra armbands, markers and rubber bands
A fully functioning PA system
A walkie talkie system
A Judge’s Book listing all entries by class and number
A courtesy kit for each judge
A supply of poop bags and waste removal equipment
A copy of the Stewards Manual
Bring lots of enthusiasm and a large coffee cup

Actions a Steward should be prepared to do during a shift:

Report at least 30 minutes prior to the first event of the day.
Bring a copy of the show program.
Keep 2 copies of the official program at the steward’s table. It is the Responsibility of the table steward to make sure the placements in each class are properly recorded in both copies of the program. Both copies must be turned over to the Chief Steward at the end of each day.
Wear your steward’s ID badge at all times while you are on duty.
Make sure that the ring is kept clean at all times. All of us are on “poop” patrol.
No one is to be allowed in the ring except the judge, the scribe, the table steward and the exhibitors.

Specialty stewarding includes several different jobs

Certainly, the most well known part of the job is the recording of the names and numbers of the winning dogs at the completion of each of the individual classes. I mentioned earlier that the Leonberger Specialty differs significantly from an AKC run Specialty event.

The two most notable variations in our club are:

Each dog is entailed to a written evaluation from the judge. This is sometimes referred to as European style judging. Because of this, we provide one steward in each ring whose job it is to transcribe the judge’s written or verbal evaluations onto the standard club evaluation form using a PC as the data entry device. The club gets a copy of the evaluation as does the owner and the judge. Each form must be printed out for the judge’s signature.
The champion class competes separately and places a winner in the champion male and champion female classes to compete against the other winners for BISS. In AKC shows, the Winner’s Male and Winner’s Female are placed in the ring with all champions and BISS is chosen from all of those entries.

We try to improve the quality of our shows every year at National. As we work ours way toward acceptance into the Working Group, we have begun inviting credentialed AKC Judges to attend our show. We will construct an AKC Judge’s Box beside each ring for regular conformation on Saturday. Included in that box will be a large LCD type monitor on a table. That monitor will be connected to a PC which in turn is networked to the PC being used by the scribe to record the judge’s comments on the official evaluation form. By connecting the 2 computers and using a special software application, AKC judges in the booth will be able to read all of the comments being typed by the scribe as a dog is being evaluated in the ring by the judge. It will offer the judges the chance to compare their own evaluations to those of the judges in real time during the show. And, or course, it will help to educate AKC judges on our Leonbergers and the AKC Leonberger standard.

Here is a list of the different jobs which are available:

1) Scribe:: Handles the transcription of the judges comments onto the official evaluation form. The scribe will be transcribing the judge’s verbal evaluations of each dog electronically. Each table will have a laptop PC equipped with Microsoft Word and a serially connected printer. Copies of the pre-numbered evaluation forms will be filled in using the Word program prior to the show date. One copy of the judge’s evaluation will be printed out and made available to the owner/handler through the Information Steward and one copy is retained by the club for its Specialty records. The scribe must have solid PC skills, knowledge in the use of the Microsoft File System Explorer and Microsoft Word application program.
2) Table steward:: Marks official show program with dogs placed 1, 2, 3 & 4 in each class. Responsible for moving the placement blocks into the center of the ring for the award ceremony upon final placement of each class and providing appropriate ribbons and trophies for that class to the judge. Table steward is also responsible for bringing the owner/handler’s copy of the evaluation to the Information Steward table for pickup by the contestants.
Supervises any ring photographers who may enter only following the completion of a class.
Again this year, the 2 ring stewards will be positioned inside the ring. We made this decision 3 years ago to avoid situations which seem to have continually occurred in the past. People seem to always want to either “help” or overhear what the judges are saying about the dogs. This is very disruptive to the stewards and at times is intrusive enough to cause stewards to lose track of their record keeping. This takes care of the problems detailed above, but will make it doubly important that we use our walkie-talkies to communicate with the Information Stewards, the Show Announcer, and the Ondeck Stewards.
3) Information Steward: The Information Steward will answer questions for the attendees as well as keeping a running tally of winners in both rings using a PC which will project the class winner’s on an electronic leader board done with an Excel spreadsheet. The I.S. will also hand out copies of completed and signed evaluations to owner/handlers.
4) Ondeck Steward:: Assembles the next classes for entry into the ring.
There will always be one class being judged in the ring. We have turned that class over to the judge and must be more concerned with making sure that the dogs entered in the next class are ready to move expeditiously into the ring upon completion of the group currently in the ring.
The On-deck Steward must have have a copy of the official show catalog and must mark each dog who has checked in and report unchecked dogs via walkie-talkie to the announcer’s booth for paging over the PA system.
5) Announcer:: The show announcer is responsible for:
- Announcing upcoming classes
- Making additional announcements for late or missing entries
- Disseminating general show information (i.e. items lost & found, lunch breaks, show schedule, upcoming meetings etc)

While the announcer will handle the PA system and page the classes which should be getting ready, it is important to remember that we, as stewards, have NO formal responsibility to make extraordinary efforts to find exhibitors who have not shown up as their ring time approaches. That said, entries which have not yet checked in with the ondeck steward should, of course, be reported to the PA announcer so the their entry numbers can be called again. There’s a good chance they might be just across the ring chatting it up with their friends and didn’t realize they were due in the ring.