Critiques within the dog showing community form a vital part of the show scene and are avidly read by exhibitors, breeders and enthusiasts to determine why a judge placed dogs entered under them for assessment, in the way that they did. It allows the judge to outline the virtues and weaknesses of the entry individually and as a whole. Over the course of a show season it allows readers to gain a picture of the winning dogs. It can be a helpful tool to breeders and newcomers.

Regulations require judges to provide written critiques on 1st and 2nd placed dogs in each breed class at all championship and open shows.

The Kennel Club will investigate any judge not submitting a critique within a reasonable amount of time following the appointment, which may result in disciplinary action.

Judges are strongly advised to keep up to date with current regulations regarding critiques which are listed in the F regulations and alongside the learning resources on The Kennel Club Academy.

The Kennel Club Academy contains a Critique Writing Seminar and associated quiz which gives the necessary information to construct meaningful critiques to compliment your judging. For those judges who do not currently award Challenge Certificates this is a requirement for judges to progress to Level 2 of the Judges Education Programme (Breed Shows).

Useful guidelines for submitting critiques to the Judges Critiques Website

• We advise you to follow the Critique Writing Seminar available on The Kennel Club Academy and take the corresponding quiz to assist you in how to construct a critique
• All Kennel Club licensed breed shows are listed on the website
• The name you have used to register on the website will automatically populate this field
• If you share your email address with other judges who are registered on the website you will need to set up a separate (unique) email address to ensure the correct judge’s name (account) appears assigned to your critiques
• For championship shows – judges should select the date of the show and then select the name of the show from a drop down menu, together with the breed
• For open and limited shows – judges may include all breeds they have judged within the free flow ‘Critique Form’. For this level of show there will be no drop down box to select a breed
• Judges have the option to include the total number of entries (minus repeat entries) and absentees
• Judges can either type their critique directly into the ‘Critique Form’ or are able to ‘cut and paste’ from other documents into the form, so if you have submitted the critique to another outlet there is no need to retype it
• Judges are able to make use of tools such as bold, underline, italic and bullet points
• The ‘Critique Form’ will automatically save a draft of your critique until you are ready to publish
• Once submitted, a PDF copy of your submission will be emailed to the email address you have used to register for your information and can be used to assit with the mentoring stages of the Judges Education Programme (Breed Shows)
• Once the critique is published there is no opportunity to make any amendments

• The Kennel Club reserves the right to remove any potentially libellous material which may arise within the critique without explanation. This is part of the Terms and Conditions to use the Judges Critiques website

• Critiques will remain on the Judges Critique website and form an archive

A guide can be found here which talks you through how to copy and paste onto our website.

Please complete our online form.

The search facility allows you to search for a critique via

• Date of show
• Name of show
• Keywords such as breed, dog’s name/Kennel Name, judge’s surname

You can use one or all of the above options to narrow down the search

Please use the contact box at the top of each published critique on the Find a Critique page to contact a judge regarding content of a critique published.

First check it has not been published in the weekly UK canine journal Our Dogs, or on The Kennel Club critique website as per the current regulations. If not published please complete our online form. 

It is not normally possible for a complaint regarding the non-submission of a critique to be made later than six months following the show concerned. This allows three months for the judge to write and publish the critique, and a further three months for any missing critiques to be reported.