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JUDGES CORNER -  August-September - 2001 from the Hunting Retriever magazine

    As a result of the combined efforts of your HRC field reps and executive committee, and with input from UKC and some of our most experienced judges, I’m very pleased to report that major revisions to both the HRC Judges/Handlers Seminar manual and slideshow presentation have been completed.  Those of you attending the seven seminars scheduled this summer from mid-July on will receive one of the updated handbooks and view the new show.  The new seminar manual was professionally formatted to make it visually more appealing, and easier to read and navigate.  Included in it are expanded judging “recommendations” and highlighted “judging tips”.  These recommendations and tips cover a wide variety of subjects from test set-up to gun safety to evaluation and communication.  New appendices have been added, including a Judging Reference Resource List offering judges assistance in obtaining additional valuable judging information, and an appendix regarding Points Receipts with an update on changes UKC is requiring in their completion. 

  New in the seminar manual are 10 “tables” of information.  These tables combine information on a subject from each level of testing, or different areas of the rulebook to show at a glance what the rulebook says about an issue, or how a rule or guideline might change for each class.  For example, there are two tables covering the differences between being failed or disqualified.  One applies to the dog and the other to the handler. These tables list the issues that might fail or disqualify either the dog or handler, indicate the penalty for the infraction, and provide a rulebook reference should the judge want to read the specific wording. Designed to supplement the HRC Test Rules and Guidelines, we hope the revised manual will be a valuable tool to help judges continue to setup quality tests and make good decisions that fairly evaluate the performance of our retrievers.   

    At our recent HRC national meeting in Memphis, a significant about of time was spent by the field reps discussing and reviewing the seminar presentation.  New video clips have been added, many from actual hunt tests, illustrating concepts such as creeping, controlled breaks, and various test setup scenarios.  The field reps have all received a new seminar instructor’s manual, and a CD of the slideshow that should help enable them to bring an entertaining and effective seminar presentation to you. 

  On another note, entries are still coming in for the Judge’s Corner slogan contest, and no winner has been picked yet.  Have any of you heard of the syndicated radio talk show host Bill Handel?  He is a lawyer who, not surprisingly, discusses legal issues.  The name of his show is “Handel on the Law”.  His slogan is “Marginal legal advice, where I tell you, you have no case whatsoever”.  How about:  “Judges Corner – marginal judging advice, where I tell you, you have no test whatsoever”?  Is that catchy enough? I think we’ll keep our options open.

  Before getting to the scenarios we’ll be discussing in this issue of the Judge’s Corner, there are a couple of issues I’d like to mention.  The first concerns the use of test dogs at licensed hunts.  I was recently asked if it was acceptable (or a common practice) to use a dog entered in the hunt for points as the test dog.  Also, what does a judge do when the club does not have a test dog at the hunt site?  I polled the field reps to get their views, and to find out if this was occurring on a regular basis at our hunt tests.  We all understand the difficulties facing a test dog.  Among these might be the fact that there is little scent on the ground, throws are unproven, test mechanics might not be as smooth as needed, and the test itself may need fine-tuning, or have some pitfalls that are yet undiscovered.   It’s the opinion of the field reps that responded to my inquiry that a dog running for points should not have to face these difficulties, and clubs should understand it is mandatory that they provide a test dog.  The rulebook states on page 24, under Usage of Test Dogs, “Use of test dogs is required at all UKC/HRC events”.  Running a dog in contention as test dog is not mentioned anywhere in the rulebook. The field reps recommend that upon accepting a judging assignment, judges should confirm that the club would indeed provide a test dog, and remind the club of this on setup day if necessary.  It is also now recommended in the seminar that using a dog in contention as test dog violates the spirit of the test dog policy, and should not be allowed.  Understanding this, clubs will hopefully put as much emphasis on finding good test dogs as they do obtaining grounds, equipment, birds, and bird throwers. 

    The second item I wanted to note involves a discussion about poppers during the board of directors meeting at the 2001 HRC national meeting in Memphis recently.  A motion was made (and eventually approved by a narrow margin), and I’m paraphrasing it, “that over the period of the next year, HRC clubs consider the use of primer only loaded poppers, instead of conventional powder loaded poppers at hunt tests, and discuss their feelings and findings at next years annual meeting”.  Before winning approval, the motion generated a heated discussion and some passionate responses from board of director members on both sides of the issue.  In fairness to everyone who made compelling arguments and comments, rather than simply give you my personal opinion about using primer loads, I’m going to report some of what was said, and hopefully provide some food for thought to help you reach your own opinion.  Call it my effort to bring the annual meeting news to you “fair and balanced”.  The Judge’s Corner - we report, you decide.   Hey – not a bad slogan.  I wonder if it’s being used anywhere.

     The word “popper” is mentioned several times in our HRC rulebook, but is never defined (like a lot of our terminology).  There is little argument that what we conventionally think of as a popper (a 12 gauge shotgun hull with primer and powder, but no shot) is both loud and potentially very dangerous.   Hence, one of the major reasons we take gun safety so seriously at our hunt tests.  This was the foundation of the argument given by the proponents of the use of primers.  Poppers are much safer (and so are our judges, handlers, and dogs) when the powder charge is eliminated.  Many felt that safety should continue to be our number one concern at the hunts, and we have been lucky that so far, no serious gun safety incident has occurred at any of our events.  Also, manufacturers have shown little to no interest in making factory poppers quieter.  Primer only proponents say these excessively loud factory poppers are having adverse effects on our retriever’s hearing, leading to both loss of hearing, and premature deafness in older dogs. They say homemade poppers are not the answer for at least a couple of reasons - liability, and inconsistency.  The HRC Board of Directors in fact went on record in 1993 as recommending only factory poppers be used at licensed hunts – for liability reasons.  Additionally, proponents of primer only poppers point out that conventional poppers can be quite expensive, and clubs can save a substantial amount of money using them.  

    Opponents of the use of primer poppers talked about the realism we attempt to simulate at our hunt tests.  Someone stated that the factory poppers more closely simulated a real shotgun shell than a primer only could.  This person went on to postulate that condoning eliminating conventional poppers might lead to taking the gun away from the handler, and eventually white coats in the field.  Others questioned whether a relatively quiet primer could generate the excitement of a full shotgun blast, and whether a dog prone to break might not do so with a primer.  After the meeting, I was e-mailed a note from a judge who asked if it would be possible (using primer loads only) to title a dog, up to and including GRHRCH that could be gun shy. 

  What do you think?  How should safety balance out against realism?  With primer only shells the handler is still loading and shooting a shotgun, albeit a quieter one.  Is there evidence that a dog will not get as excited with a primer only popper as with a loud one, or would it really make a difference with most dogs?  Is there any evidence that using poppers leads to hearing loss?  Is it logical, or too great a leap to think going to primer only poppers can lead to the loss of the gun in our tests?  Should we assume that our HRCH and GRHRCH dogs are true hunting dogs (and actually go hunting), and not concern ourselves with a gun-shy dog earning these titles?  Several of our clubs, particularly in Colorado, have been (apparently successfully) using primer only poppers for a number of years.  They reported this at the meeting and seemed generally surprised the issue generated such an intense discussion.  Talk it over with your fellow HRC members this next year, and let me know what you think.  Let’s get to our first scenario.  

Scenario:

             The judges at the Started land test saw the handler was having difficulty bringing the obviously very young and excited retriever to the line to run what was most likely it’s first Started test.  One of the judges asked the dog’s age, and was told it was just under 5 months old.  The dog was having trouble settling down at the line, but the judges were patient and quietly waited for the handler to signal ready.  Using both hands to hold the squirming dog and keep it facing in the general direction of the first mark, the handler managed to nod that they were finally ready.  The dog clearly reacted to the attention-getting call, and saw the bird come up out of the winger.  Rather than follow the throw to the ground, the dog immediately began jerking and trying to go.  When the handler did let go of the dog, it ran in the general direction of the winger, but never reached the area of the fall.  After getting the dog back to the line, the handler knew a re-cast would be fruitless, and instead began to admonish the judges that they should re-throw the mark since the Judges/Handlers Seminar says, “you can’t judge a dog for marking when it does not see the bird”.   

Questions:

             Should the judges have re-thrown the bird in this situation?  Why or why not?

Answer:

    Every Started judge wants the dogs running their test to do well. To that end, most Started judges bend over backwards to set up a test that is fair, and encourages good dog work. It’s difficult for me to tell you the answer to the above question is no, but I’ll explain why. This scenario happened at a recent hunt test.  The age of the dog is not all that significant, except for the obvious fact that the people, sights, sounds, and smells at a hunt test would have a greater effect at distracting a very young and inexperienced dog.  And the handler is correct in that we state in the seminar that you can’t judge marking if the dog does not see the bird.  We also say, (and show a couple of pictures) “don’t throw the bird if the dog is not ready”.  Unfortunately, those are not the pertinent issues in this case. 

    When discussing “no-birds” in the last issue of the magazine, I stated that judges had an obligation to present throws that met a minimum level of visibility, timeliness, accuracy and consistency.  There was no problem with the attention-getting device, or the visibility of the mark itself in this scenario.  The bird came out when it was supposed to, and fell where it was intended. The judges were more than fair in waiting to throw the bird until the dog settled down.  The retriever had the opportunity to see the throw, and was looking in the direction of the winger when the handler signaled ready and the judges called for the bird.  A re-throw might still be warranted, if at the moment the bird was thrown, some sort of extraneous distraction disrupted the dog’s concentration and caused it to turn it’s head from the mark.  Examples might be a shot from another test, a dog barking in the parking lot, a door slamming, someone in the gallery yelling loudly, or any number of things.  The judges would have to make a decision that the distraction played a significant role in undermining their ability to adequately evaluate the retriever’s marking abilities.  What caused the difficulty, and the reason the dog did not mark the bird in this scenario was the dog’s own lack of control, specifically steadiness. 

    The Started Guidelines on page 27, item II say, “A dog is not required to be steady at the Retrieving line…” The Started Rules say the same thing (page 26, item II).  If this is true, why do you suppose the rest of that same sentence reads:  “however, it may have a collar, leash or line around its neck or may be hand-held to assist in achieving steadiness”.  Also, “A controlled break shall not fail a dog, but shall be marked down”.  In the seminar, we explain this by saying the rulebook does not expect the Started retriever to be steady on it’s own, but it still must be steady enough to perform Started work, thus, it may be assisted in being steady.  The work the Started dog must do is explained in the first paragraph of the Started Guidelines on page 27.  “This is a test designed to assess the ability of the dog to follow the flight of the shot bird to the area of the fall, and its ability to go directly to the area of the fall, retrieve the bird and return it to the Handler”.  Unfortunately, in this scenario, the young and excited dog simply would not hold still long enough to follow the flight of the bird completely.  The handler has no case whatsoever. Our next scenario occurs with regularity at many of our hunts, but a creative judge found a new reason to try to fail a dog for it.  

Scenario:

    The Finished land series consisted of a left to right triple, with no pick-up order required.  The retriever intently watched all three marks fall, and picked up the go bird on the far right cleanly.  The handler elected to attempt to get the difficult center bird picked up next, and lined the dog toward it.  The dog took the initial line, but on the way, winded the left bird and picked it up.  It then went back and picked up the center bird with no problem.  One of the judges wanted to fail the dog for being “re-cast” on the center bird.

Question:

    Should a dog fail for this?

Answer:

    First, let’s establish that this scenario is not about marking, or control.  The dog did not reach the area of the fall of the middle bird, nor had it established a hunt for the bird. It merely winded the left bird on the way to the center bird.  The handler wisely did not attempt to handle the dog away from the left bird and ask it to ignore its nose.  I’ve written about this before and indicated this performance should not be penalized.  We say in the seminar that using a hand to send the dog toward a mark should not be considered aid from the handler as respects marking (in other words, handling the dog to the bird), but should be considered as merely “casting” the dog from the retrieving line.  Perhaps this is where the judge got confused.

    If this happened in a Seasoned test, it would not matter how this particular judge looked at it since the retriever can be cast from the retrieving line two (2) times on a bird in a Seasoned test. This applies to Started as well, but hopefully there should be no other birds in the test a Started dog could wind on the way to its single marked retrieves.  In this scenario, it’s true, the handler “cast” the dog toward the center bird twice, but does this meet the definition of a recast that would fail a Finished dog?  No. 

    The Test Rules for Finished on page 36 of our rulebook, item VII state:  “The Finished Hunting Retriever can be cast from the retrieving line only once.  If the Finished Hunting Retriever is unproductive after the single attempt, the Judge will instruct the Handler to pick up the hunting retriever and that the test is failed”.  The word “unproductive” in the second sentence of item VII is the key to the answer.  In this scenario, the retriever was not unproductive.  It was cast, and brought back a bird.  We explain this further in the seminar manual when discussing multiple casts.  We say a re-cast is when the retriever is called back to the retrieving line and re-sent on the same bird.  The majority of our HRC judges understand that when a dog is called back, it usually does not have a bird in its mouth. 

    We hope the “Judge’s Corner” will both entertain and inform you. 

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