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JUDGES CORNER - December 1999 / January 2000 - Hunting Retriever magazine by Tim
Gibson
Everywhere you turn people are talking about the millennium.
It seems the perfect time to look back at the past and think about the
changes that have occurred, and look at the future and its possibilities. I
thought you might find it interesting and informative if I take you back for a
moment to some early days of our HRC hunt tests.
I was (am) an avid goose and duck hunter, and was a beginning dog
trainer/handler (my wife says I still am) who wanted to see what the Hunting
Retriever Club was all about. Kathy
and I joined SIHRC and I found myself running my young lab “Tess” in the
first SIHRC licensed hunt in October 1985. Like a lot of new handlers, I didn’t know what to expect
and I was pretty nervous. I
thought Tess would do fine since she was over a year old, and had a good
hunting season behind her. When
the judges signaled all was ready, I thought I heard the marshal calling us to
the line. I ran back to the
truck, slipped a lead on Tess, and came charging up to the line wondering how
I was elected to run first. After
everyone had a good laugh at my expense, the marshal kindly informed me she
was calling for the “test” dog, not “Tess” dog.
When it was finally our turn, Tess did much better than her handler.
I managed to commit my first handler error on the first mark my dog
ever went for in an HRC test. It
looked like she was going to run past the pigeon thrown in the cut cornfield
by about 5 feet on the upwind side. I
hit the whistle. She stopped and turned, then sat looking at me.
A quick left over and she picked up the bird.
The judges then told me they really expected the dog to get the bird
without my help. If they covered that in the test explanation, I had missed
it. I sheepishly slipped the
whistle back into my pocket. She
did fine on the second bird.
The water test was in a small cove of the lake with some stickups and floating
vegetation. Being a veteran
handler by the afternoon, I calmly waited my turn.
I noticed several of the dogs were having trouble finding the ducks,
and needed some “assistance” from their handlers.
Several of the handlers would pick up rocks from the shoreline and toss
them at the duck. Yes, you heard
me, rocks! Back then it
was perfectly acceptable to throw rocks to aid your dog in getting to the duck
in Started. Our rulebook was soon
amended to ban this practice. Can
you imagine the damage an inept handler could do with a large rock?
Inaccurate throws could possibly bean the dog, or have the poor animal
swimming all over the lake. A “backfire”
could knock a judge out in a heartbeat.
Tess did fine (no rocks needed) and we earned our first Started pass.
I was so excited that a couple of weeks later we drove to Kentucky and I
entered Tess in her first Seasoned test.
She was already delivering to hand, was steady, and from her hunting
experience, would mark doubles. We
didn’t need to worry about blind retrieves since there was no such thing in
Seasoned! That’s right. Early
in HRC the dogs did not see a blind until Finished. Tess earned her HR title without doing a blind! By the way,
we never went to the “bitch check” since there was no such thing.
On the way to her championship, we did see a lot of upland tests
(running one at almost every Finished test), and quite a few shot flyers (she
loved them). I had begun to judge
also. Several times I both judged
Started or Seasoned and ran my dog in Finished (yes, you could do that back
then). At my second Seasoned
test, I remember being handed the shotgun by the test marshal who was sitting
astride a 3-wheeler near the holding blind.
He had the shotgun in one hand and a cold Budweiser in the other (I
guess if you weren’t handling a dog, you could have an adult beverage before
the hunt was over back then). Most
of the birds we used in the early hunt tests were shackled, except for the
blind. I remember many hunts
where we all tied birds so we could get started.
By the way, Tess earned her HRCH without ever seeing a throw from a
winger.
A lot has changed since our early days. I believe judges give better test explanations now. With the development of our licensing procedures, Judges/Handlers Seminar, and the field rep structure, our judges certainly have the help they need to become good judges. The HRC Rulebook has been refined and fine tuned, and I think for the most part our standards are where they need to be. Believe it or not, our tests are more consistent across the country than in the past. Our handlers handle better and train smarter. We have a lot more clubs, which allows a handler to attend more tests and drive less distance to do so. We have gotten away from shackled birds for the most part, which I believe is good. We use a lot of “wingers” and other types of bird launchers, which enable us to attain some tremendous throws at long distances (sometimes I’m not so sure this is good, but it would be hard now to imagine a test without wingers). Mirroring the pace we live at now, everyone seems in a hurry to title his or her dog (I’m not sure this is good sometimes either). Large hunt entries mean lots of work and little time to do it. While we work smarter, we haven’t managed to get the sun to stay up any longer. One thing that has not changed is the great people that make up our organization. Most of your families are like ours. The dogs are not something we do, but they’re something we are. You know what I mean. Think of how fortunate we are to belong to an organization that gives us the opportunity to have such fun, develop a better-trained dog, and build such lasting friendships. By the way, Tess is still with us. She’s 15 ½ now and retired from hunting. She can’t take the cold any longer. Her eyes are cloudy and her hearing has gone. The legs that used to let her jump over four foot fence with a goose in her mouth can barely get her up the steps, but she has a strong heart and an indomitable spirit. I look at her and see where I began and remember where HRC once was. Speaking of the “test” dog, let’s look at our first scenario. Scenario:
I received a letter a short time ago from a handler who wrote:
“I was recently at a hunt test running my Seasoned dog.
The test dog was owned by one of the judges and we were told the dog
had one Seasoned pass. The test
dog could not pass the land marks, failing to find either bird, and did not
pass the water test, failing to retrieve the blind.
The judges proceeded to run the tests anyway”.
Question:
The handler continues, and asks: “My
question is should the test have been changed or were the judges correct in
running the test as is”?
Answer:
To help answer this question, let’s look at what the HRC Rulebook says about
“test” dogs. On page 20 under
Usage of Test Dogs, the rulebook states:
“Use of test dogs is required at all U.K.C./HRC events.
This will enable Judges to see how smoothly the mechanics of the tests
will be executed, to give the Handlers a view of the test, so that drag back
scent will be on the ground for all dogs and to verify the usefulness of the
test”. The rulebook does
not say anything about the performance of the test dog other than the fact
that it must be of the same level as the test.
This means that a dog with Finished points can’t come back and run
test dog in Seasoned or Started. The
exception is a dog that has passed a Grand may be used as a test dog at
Finished since the dog can still earn Finished points (see the February-March,
1998 Judge’s Corner).
The letter I received did not indicate why the test dog did not find either
mark, or retrieve the blind. Did the dog swing with the gun and mark the birds?
Were the throws visible or hard to see?
Did the dog take a good line to the blind, or was it meandering about
and out of control? As a judge,
given a choice, I don’t think I’d volunteer my dog as a test dog if I didn’t
think it would do at least okay on my test.
In fairness, the judge might not have been planning to use the dog, but
his/her dog might have been the only one available. I’m sure that when the
test was built and approved, it was checked for all the required elements and
legality. The set up dog must
have done okay or the test would have most likely already been changed.
The letter does not mention how the other dogs in the flight faired. As a judge, I have continued with my test when the test dog
did poorly. I did this because my
co-judge and I knew we had a good test, just a weak test dog. Do you think we need to advise judges to change their tests
if the test dog does poorly? I’m
not so sure I do. We could be
asking them to water down the test to meet the abilities of the weakest dog in
the hunt. Conversely, I must
admit I’ve also not changed a test where the test dog “smoked” it.
Should I have made it more difficult?
I don’t think so. Again,
I knew I had a solid test, which the well-prepared dogs would pass and the
others would not.
On balance, I believe a good test dog does a better job of “verifying the
usefulness of the test” than a poor one.
As I stated in an earlier Judge’s Corner column, as a judge, I like
to see a good performance from the test dog since it instills confidence in my
test. I think perhaps however,
the best test dog is one who’s performance while not perfect, is solid.
Both judges and handlers generally learn more from a test dog that can
show them some area’s of the test where the going is difficult.
Let’s look at another scenario that was sent to me recently.
Scenario:
At the Seasoned land test, after delivering the first bird to hand, the
retriever took off after its second bird of the double.
It did not appear that the dog was sent for the second bird.
It was not stopped by the handler, and completed the second retrieve
successfully.
Question:
The question I was asked was: “Can you have a “break”
on the memory bird in Seasoned”?
Answer:
There are two issues here. How do we judge a dog leaving on its own on a subsequent
mark, and are we going to call this a “break”? I covered a similar
situation in the February-March, 1998 Judge’s Corner.
I talked about a dog leaving on its own when being lined up for a
blind, calling this activity “self-casting” by the dog, for lack of a
better term. The dog leaves
before the handler is really ready to release it.
We didn’t talk in terms of marks.
In this scenario, the seasoned dog has learned to do doubles, and
rightfully assumes that every bird in the test is his/hers.
In their excitement to retrieve the memory bird, the dog does not wait
for the handlers command to retrieve.
We generally refer to a dog “breaking” (leaving its assigned spot without
being told to do so) when a bird is thrown.
A dog can however “break” on the honor in Finished, leaving when
another dog is sent to retrieve. In
our Seasoned scenario, the dog does not meet our definition of “break”,
and it was the opinion of the field reps I talked with that the judges should
not fail this dog for leaving on its own.
It was also their opinion that this is a very bad habit for the dog to
get into. When the dog moves to Finished, it may find itself working
with another retriever in the field who is designated to get the second bird
(honor situation). The problems a
dog with this habit could make for itself are obvious and will surface
eventually. Also, remember what I
said last year in the Judge’s Corner. What
if a handler who’s dog left on its own elected to stop their dog and call it
back to heel to be properly sent? Don’t call this a re-cast since the “handler
“ never cast the dog. One more reason the field reps mentioned for not
penalizing the dog in our scenario is the fact that the judge may not be sure
the handler didn’t send the dog. A
confident dog, sure of its memory bird may not need much verbal encouragement
or a strong signal from the handler to be released.
A whisper, or simple gesture may be all the “release” the dog
requires. Let’s look at our
last scenario.
Scenario:
A reader writes: “At a recent
Finished test I observed a situation which is kind of a follow up to the
incident written about in the December 1998-January 1999 Judge’s Corner
(handler grabs dog on honor in Finished test).
The honor dog watched the three marks go down and the working dog was
sent. The honor dog was then
excused. The honor dog handler
grabbed the dog by the scruff of the neck and holds him this way while putting
the collar and leash on, then leads the dog off the line.
The feeling of those observing in the gallery was that the handler was
not harming the dog, but intimidation was a possibility.”
Question:
The reader goes on to ask:
“Who deals with this situation?
The judges, marshal, or hunt committee?”
Answer:
I think the situation described is quite common.
It’s my opinion that the judges should control what goes on in their
test and on their retrieving line. A
lot of what we should consider in this scenario would depend on the judge’s
test explanation to the handlers. If
they said something like, “When the working dog goes for its first bird,
your test is over”, they may be implying that it is okay to touch the dog,
hold it, and put the lead on the dog before leaving the line.
They may have been less specific and simply said, “When the working
dog is sent, you can leave.” This
would leave the door open for honor dog handlers to grab the dog and slip on
the lead.
Good judges will advise the handlers exactly where their test begins and where
it ends. In the Rules for
Finished on page 31 of our HRC Rulebook, it states, “The Handler should
bring the hunting retriever to and from the retrieving line off lead.”
I’ve noticed with increasing frequency Finished judges who let
handlers put their dogs on lead when leaving the line.
As a judge, especially in an honor situation, I want to see if the dog
can turn and leave the line under control with another dog still working.
As far as discussing “intimidation”, once the test was over, any
intimidation (usually used to get a dog to perform or behave) would be after
the fact. I do have to wonder
however, about a finished handler who needs to hold their retriever by the
scruff of the neck to get the lead on it.
Would this dog have walked off the line quietly and under control off
lead? By allowing the lead to go
on the dog before leaving the line, the judges lost their opportunity to find
this out.
I want to offer a couple more thoughts for the new millennium before I
conclude. If you’re not a
member of the NRA, Ducks Unlimited, NWTF, Pheasants Forever, Rocky Mountain
Elk Foundation, etc., please consider joining one or more of those
organizations. I think it will be especially important in the near future for
all of us to work together if we expect to continue to enjoy the sporting
traditions.
We hope the “Judge’s Corner” will both entertain and inform you.
Answers to your questions will come from the UKC/HRC Rulebook, the
Judges/Handlers Seminar and the consensus of your Regional Field
Representatives.
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The Judges Corner - copyright
2006 All Rights Reserved Last modified: February 18, 2008 |