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JUDGES CORNER - February / March 2000 - Hunting Retriever magazine by Tim
Gibson
Since I first began
authoring the Judge’s Corner in 1995 we’ve reviewed a lot of judging
scenarios, and discussed a lot of judging questions.
I’ve purposefully tried not to be repetitive with the situations and
questions in this column. I am
amazed that with all the topics we’ve covered, there continues to be more
questions yet to discuss. I want
to thank all of you for making that possible, particularly the judges and
handlers among you who continue to contact me with your scenarios.
Some of our newer HRC members might wonder how I get the answers in this
column. When I get a question
asked, I look at what the rulebook says about the topic, and how we discuss it
in the Judge’s/Handler’s Seminar. I
then go to my “experts”, your HRC field representatives, for their
opinions. I would not feel
comfortable authoring this column without their input. Through the wonders of
e-mail, I’m able to keep in touch with a lot of them most of the time.
These dedicated HRC volunteers keep their fingers on the pulse of our
hunt test and judging program, and I want to thank them for their advice and
input.
One
more item before we get to our first scenario.
Last fall at an HRC hunt test that shall remain nameless, the judges
were asked if they wanted to use some “motion” goose decoys the hunt
committee had obtained for the test. The
judges at that time said no, since they felt most of the retrievers in the
hunt had not seen anything like that and the majority of handlers had never
had the opportunity to train with decoys like that, etc., etc.
My question for you is: “How
soon do you think it will be before a Roboduck makes its first
appearance in one of our hunt tests!” Let’s
get to our first scenario.
Situation:
At the Started land test, the judges had placed 90 degrees of
separation between the wingers when viewed from the retrieving line (which was
not moved). The retrievers were
required to make the usual single marked retrieves (one bird coming from each
winger). However, both wingers
threw the birds toward the same location.
The areas of the falls were within 10 yards of each other.
Question:
Was this a
legal test?
Answer:
The
experienced HRC Finished level judge who sent it to me ran the test as a
handler and questioned the legality at the time. He was told that it was an
acceptable test and would not be changed.
He was correct when he told me he considered it an illegal test. It was
illegal! Do you know why? The
answer is in the HRC rulebook under the Guidelines for Judging Started Hunting
Retrievers, page 24, item IV. The
rulebook states:
“On consecutive singles from the same retrieving line, the line to
the falls should not be less than 90 degrees”.
The key
words in that sentence are the line to the falls.
Merely placing the wingers 90 degrees apart from the retrieving line
does not meet the requirement that the line to the falls (the path the
retriever will take) be 90 degrees. Briefly, the reasoning behind the
90-degree rule is to discourage a young retriever from returning to the
same fall. When they don’t see
a subsequent fall well, or don’t mark it properly, inexperienced retrievers
may attempt to return to where they just successfully picked a bird up.
Sometimes the terrain or wind will cause a dog to do this.
We don’t want our judges encouraging this behavior by throwing
singles in the same area.
We discuss this subject in our Judge’s/Handler’s Seminar, but
perhaps we need to do a better job. Obviously,
the judges who set up this test did not understand the concept of the 90
degrees of separation. I’m
going to review how we explain this in the seminar, and ask that our
presenters spend a few more minutes on the subject.
Our next situation involves marking at a Finished land test.
Situation:
At the Finished land test, the judges tied short lengths (about 12
inches long) of orange marking ribbon to each of the pigeons used in the test
to “make the birds more visible” to the retrievers.
Question:
Is this an
acceptable practice?
Answer:
I’ve not
personally seen this at any hunt test, but I’ve heard that it was done at a
couple of our HRC hunts last year. Maybe
a more appropriate question to answer first is:
Is this legal? Tying “streamers”
on birds is not mentioned anywhere in the rulebook.
There are those who would say that since our rulebook does not
specifically prohibit it, it must be okay.
To them I would argue that the rulebook does not say you can’t do a
lot of things you shouldn’t do. The
rulebook would be two inches thick if it attempted to cover every scenario a
judge could come up with. The
rulebook does state in each category under the heading Hunting Tests,
that: “The hunting tests
must duplicate actual hunting conditions.
Practical hunting distances must be used in all tests.
Live or dead pheasants, pigeons, ducks or other game girds must be used
for all hunting tests to gain Championship points”.
The
field reps that I talked with felt that tying a ribbon on the birds should be
discouraged. More than the
legality of the issue, we should approach it from a common sense standpoint. The judges said they tied the streamers on the pigeons to
make them more visible. Perhaps
they got this idea from training bumpers, which are commercially available
with streamers attached to teach dogs to see and follow the flight of the
bumpers. This might be fine for
teaching a retriever to mark, but it is a poor substitute for setting up a
good marking test.
If
you consider “duplicating” actual hunting conditions, I’ve never shot a
bird with an orange streamer attached, although on a couple of occasions I was
happy to shoot a goose with an orange collar on.
More than that, if the dogs could not adequately see the pigeons
without the streamers, I would conclude that there was a problem with the
visibility of the marks to start with. If
pigeons are thrown at “practical hunting distances”, they are generally
visible to the retrievers under most test conditions.
If the visibility is impaired, it should be corrected in other ways.
If the background color is poor, the distance too long, the timing
between throws too short, the dog has been placed in a poor position, or the
handler is not being allowed to adequately aim and shoot at the marks, the
judges should make the necessary corrections in the test to give the dog a
fair chance to mark the birds. One of the field reps indicated that the streamers were
probably attached to allow the judges to throw a smaller bird (pigeon) at a
longer distance. Is this
necessary in our hunt tests? Does
it make sense to you? The same
field rep had a point when he said that if streamers were allowed, we would
then have to legislate the length and color of the streamers, and distances
they were required! Let’s hope
that we can discourage this poor practice, and not let it become acceptable in
our “hunting” tests. Let’s
look at our final scenario.
Scenario:
At the Finished land test, the retriever 4 whistled a tough blind
retrieve. The dog did not “sit” on the whistles, but stopped and looked to
the handler for directions. The
dog took its casts without any refusals.
The dog was failed. When
asked why at the conclusion of the hunt, the judges explained to the handler
that they considered the whistle a “sit” command, and since the dog did
not sit when the whistles were blown, they failed the dog for multiple whistle
“refusals” on the blind.
Question:
Were the
judges correct in failing the retriever for not sitting on the whistle?
Answer:
I was told
that this situation actually happened at one of our licensed hunt tests.
While I could not verify it, I would have no trouble believing it might
occur. Like a forensic
pathologist, I have steeled myself to look at a lot of “grisly” situations
without flinching. I can believe
that somewhere in our organization there would be two judges that fate would
bring together who would agree to do this. Have I become too calloused?
Again,
we find ourselves discussing something that is not specifically spelled out in
our rulebook. Nowhere in the
rulebook does it mention what a dog must do when the handler blows his/her
whistle. The rulebook does make the point in several places that a
retriever must be under adequate control.
Less control for a Started dog, more for the Seasoned, Finished, etc.
The handler can use voice, whistle or hand signals to control the
retriever. Since the rulebook does not specifically address the situation, we
talk about this in the Judge’s/Handler’s Seminar. We say that one of the
parameters for deeming a retriever under adequate “whistle” control, is
the judge looking for the retriever to acknowledge the handlers whistle by at
minimum stopping, then looking to the handler for further instructions.
If the dog is running when the whistle is blown, the stopping response
should begin immediately when the dog hears the whistle.
Most
retrievers are taught that the proper response when they hear the handlers
whistle is to sit. I suppose a
handler could teach their dog that it should just stop on the whistle and look
for directions. Since the
rulebook merely talks about “adequate control”, and in no way, shape, or
form requires a dog to sit on a whistle, the judges should not have failed
this retriever. These judges let
their personal prejudices or preferences influence them into making a poor
decision. I’ll tell you a true
story that might make my point. We
had a gentleman in our club who trained his retriever with a shepherds
whistle. This whistle looks more like a turkey diaphragm call than a
conventional whistle. It made
several noises as funny as it looked. I
never did figure out what whistle command meant what, but the dog knew, and
responded beautifully. Just as a
dog can learn to respond to commands in a foreign language, it knew what its
master wanted when he blew his funny little whistle.
Again, I want to thank all of you who continue to send your questions and comments to the Judge’s Corner.
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 |