The New and Aspiring Judge’s Journey with Channing Sheets

“How you treat people is everything.”

Host Laura Reeves is joined by German Shepherd Dog breeder and recently minted AKC judge Channing Sheets for a conversation about breeding dogs, the sport, judging and the honor of his first Westminster Kennel Club judging assignment.

[caption id="attachment_14493" align="alignleft" width="550"] Channing Sheets with one of his GSD.[/caption]

Sheets recounts his journey in dogs, starting with his dad’s bird dogs and hounds, through Keeshond and finally landing with his passion, the GSD.

A member of the GSDCA Judges Education Committee, Sheets said the breed “has to be able to tend stock. You gotta do it all day long. You have to have good heart and lung function and then the secondary job is bite work. So you need to have a good bite, you need to have all your teeth and you need to have good occlusion. Now a button first premolar is a fault just because it's not a gripping tooth. Anything else I'm pretty much death on for that reason.”

Like so many fanciers who are much more than just their dogs, Sheets works in high level occupational safety for the state of California. “I got recruited away to go to Cal OSHA and I was writing ebola guidelines and pandemic influenza guidelines. I do a lot of outbreak investigations, but I also specialize in workplace violence. So I deal with high profile active shooter cases.”

“How you treat new people makes or breaks whether you get assignments, whether they want to show to you, or whether those individuals will continue to participate.

“I really focus on puppy because I don't want them to have a bad experience,” Sheets said “and I don't want a new person to have a bad experience. Those are the two that we want to keep coming back. And if you do that, and they bring their friend, you'll grow exponentially, but you have to make positive experiences. Yeah. No one wants to go somewhere where they're going to have a negative experience."