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JUDGES CORNER
August – September 2004 from the Hunting Retriever magazine by
Tim Gibson As I usually do in this issue of the
magazine, I want to give you a brief report on some items of interest from our
recent national meeting in Memphis. In
their Friday meeting, your HRC field reps stated that for the most part the
judges in their respective regions continue to do an excellent job at setting
up tests and evaluating the retrievers. It
was agreed that we must continue to stress the importance of realism, judging
consistently and to the appropriate standard, and gun safety in our testing
program. Although no rep filed a
“flagging” report on a judge in the past year, a motion was made in the
board of directors meeting under new business to include local hunt committees
in any decision to flag a judge. It
was defeated, which tells me the board has faith in the training and abilities
of our field reps to make good decisions in this area.
I can tell you that if there is a problem in a test or with a judge,
your field reps prefer that the hunt test committee attempt to deal with it
before calling them in. In other
BOD business, a motion was approved which defined a primer popper as “a new,
unfired primed hull”. The Grand
Hunt committee asked that they be allowed to use primer poppers at the Grand.
This was approved. Another motion
was made which would require a judge to run and pass a dog in the highest
category they are licensed to judge, once every three years.
It was defeated after some intense discussion. The board felt this
might add to the burden of maintaining a judging license, and it was pointed
out that we have some outstanding judges, especially at the Started level who
simply don’t have a dog to run any longer.
It is hoped that Judges who are doing a poor job because they don’t
remember what it’s like to train and run a dog, or for any number of other
reasons, will simply not be asked to judge.
The running rules committee presented their report on the portions of
the rulebook that would be considered policy versus running rules.
This will help members wanting to make changes to follow the proper
procedures for submission. Finally, I can report that the Judges/Handlers
seminar continues to improve. The
field reps spent a considerable time discussing presentation skills and on the
nuts and bolts of the seminar. Those
of you attending a recent one will find it’s leaner and cleaner, and has
more illustrations and pictures to help explain judging concepts and
terminology. New and more
entertaining video clips are being added periodically, an example of which,
”The Sports-stand Saga” was played in the board of directors meeting.
The seminar manual is being re-written to more closely follow the slide
presentation. I got a phone call a short while
back from retired Region 5 Field Rep, and honorary lifetime HRC member Bobby
Williams. Bobby said he’d been
rummaging through some old boxes and found a videotape of HRC’s first
licensed hunt test held in Ruston, LA twenty years ago.
He asked if I would be interested in seeing it.
I told him I sure would, so he sent me a copy. Bobby indicated the same
tape also had some footage of our first Grand Hunt test. If I can find a way
to clean up some of the grainy footage and put some clips of this tape in our
judges/handlers seminar, I’m going to do so.
The footage is fascinating, and not because of the funny camo
everyone’s wearing. The tape
contains interviews of many of our founding members talking about this
“new” organization being formed by hunters, for hunters to test retrievers
in realistic hunting scenarios for their hunting abilities.
These retrievers were not to be tested against each other, but against
a well-defined test standard. UKC’s
Andy Johnson explains that for the first time, a retriever organization will
be putting a shotgun in a handler’s hand, and how important gun safety will
be in the testing. Future HRC
President Butch Gandy talks about the hard work and equipment it takes to put
a hunt test together. There is
footage of Butch running his young male lab “Drake”, at the Started water
test. Some of you will remember
Drake as one of the great early Hunting Retriever Champions in our
organization. And of course
there’s HRC’s first President and present National Ambassador, Omar
Driskill, who along with Bill Tarrant (also on the tape) founded our
organization. Omar at one point
says, “If we can get about two more truckloads of brush cut and taken over
to those wingers, we’ll might have it about right”!
To be sure, there on some things on the videotape we’ve moved away
from, such as the shackled ducks being used in every test, but there’s a
whole lot that we can benefit from seeing and remembering.
No effort was spared at hiding the bird throwers, setting the decoys
spreads, and maintaining the realism of the hunt.
It’s something to consider the next time somebody thinks that a
bucket on a bare pond bank with a gun stand next to it is “good enough”. We’ve had some scenarios in the past few issues that had to do with control, such as the diversion and delivery issues we discussed recently. I figured since we’re on a good roll; why not cover some additional control issues. At their Memphis meeting, the field reps expressed some concerns over judges that don’t have a “balanced” view of evaluating control. If I were to ask each of you to respond to the question: “which of these is more important when judging Finished level control”: a) manners and obedience b) steadiness, c) handling, or d) all of them are equally important, which answer would you choose? Hopefully, the following scenarios will help you make a good decision. Scenario: The Finished judges were
discussing the performance of two dogs at the end of the day.
Both of the dogs had a controlled break on the land test, yet they
decided to pass one dog and fail the other.
When the failed handler inquired why their dog did not pass, the judges
said they failed the dog because of the controlled break. Question: Is
it possible that judges can pass one dog and fail another for the same thing,
or did these judges make a mistake? Answer: First,
let’s review what the rulebook says about a controlled break, which we know
is when a dog leaves the retrieving line without being sent and the dog’s
forward motion is stopped by the handler.
The HRC rulebook, page 39, item III says, “The Finished retriever may
be failed for a controlled break”…” Remember, dogs at the Grand
Hunt test are failed for a controlled break.
This tells us the pass or fail decision is the Finished judges call to
make, on a dog-by-dog basis. So
yes, it’s possible one dog at a Finished test can fail and another pass with
a controlled break. What I
didn’t do when I gave you the scenario is give you enough specific
information about what each dog did which would explain how the judges reached
their decisions. Dog
1 came to the line “loose”, i.e. having to be told repeatedly to
“heel”. As the duck calling began, the dog was on its feet immediately,
and began to creep forward when it sighted the first bird. The handler was
going through the “here, heel” routine between shots on each of the first
two marks. When the third
mark came out, the dog left the line on a run and the “break” was stopped
with a loud, “NO, HEEL, HEEL”. Dog
2 walked quietly to the line at heel and sat solidly at the bucket.
A moment after the second mark hit the ground, the dog started to leave
the line, but almost as soon as it got up and was moving, the handler said
firmly, but without yelling, “no - heel”.
The dog responded immediately and was in fact sitting back at heel
before the third bird even appeared. It
stayed until released to retrieve the go bird.
The
question the judges had to ask themselves is which dog demonstrated adequate
Finished level control? I think they made the correct call. Rulebook page 26,
Item 4, Control – Manners and Obedience says: “Failure may result from…
a retriever out of control”. If
you don’t remember anything else I ever write in this column about judging
control, remember this: If at
any point in the test you determine a retriever is out of control, the dog has
failed. This goes for coming
to the line, line manners, or handling. Despite the controlled break, dog 2 showed it was a pretty steady dog. When it got the message that it was not “cleared to retrieve” it came back to the line promptly. It deserved to pass. Dog 1 was certainly bleeding after the poor line manners and creeping and it might have failed for those alone. The controlled break was certainly the straw that broke the camels back for this dog. If I can fault the judges for anything, it was telling the failed dog’s handler that the controlled break failed the dog. They should have used the words “lack of control”, because that’s really what failed it. Now let’s look at a Finished dog with some problems coming to the retrieving line. Scenario: The
Finished dog came out of the holding blind and would not walk with the handler
despite repeated commands to heel. These verbal commands, which the dog was
oblivious to, increased in both volume and frequency as the dog got further
away from the handler and closer to the line.
After the handler joined the dog at the line, it continued to respond
poorly to commands to sit and stay while the handler got seated and got the
gun loaded. Question: How would you judge this? Answer: So
okay, it’s probably about time I threw you one down the center of the plate.
You won’t often get a better one to take a swing at in this column.
I’m confident the majority of you will knock it out of the park!
Regardless, by law, I think I’m still required to ask the following
questions: 1) Does anyone believe this dog is not out of control?
2) Do any of you want to see what the dog does with the marks or how it
runs the blind before deciding to pass or fail it?
Let’s
look at what the rulebook says about coming to the retrieving line.
Item IV of the rulebook Guidelines at Seasoned, Finished, and Grand
testing levels on pages 36, 40 and 46 respectively states; “The Judge should
look for the dog that walks obediently to the line, sits obediently and
exhibits an attentive attitude”. The
difference in how we judge these levels is the leeway we allow the handlers in
maintaining control. For example,
we require the Seasoned dog to come to the line on lead, which gives a tool to
Seasoned handlers to help the dog walk obediently to the line.
Finished dogs should be able to get from the holding blind to the line
without excessive verbal commands or intimidation and needless to say, arrive
there with the handler. Grand
dogs should of course be the most obedient of all levels, needing far fewer
commands to get to the line, and responding to those given promptly and with
precision. I’d
like to offer the following recommendations to Finished judges.
Remind handlers in your briefing that the first portion of the test
they need to pass is “coming to the retrieving line”.
Advise them that the dog must walk with them obediently to the line
while exhibiting adequate Finished level control. For the benefit of our newer
Finished judges, I’ll categorize some of the behavior you might observe from
both dogs and handlers. 1) The “hacker” is not hard to recognize. This
handler can’t stop reminding the dog to heel, over and over.
2) The “dancing duo”. This
team moves two steps up, one back, with some sidestepping every few paces.
The handler is doing their best to keep the dog with them.
3) The “power walker”. This
handler is moving as fast as possible to catch the dog while trying not to
give the impression of running. 4) The “I forgot my dog” handler.
This handler conveniently leaves the dog on a sit command next to the
holding blind and of course is very apologetic when you remind them the dog
must come with them to the line. 5)
And my personal favorite, the “Stop and Go”. This handler stops so many
times on the way to the line you could have fed lunch to the bird throwers.
Of course it’s not to keep control of the dog, this handler merely
wants to make sure you’re ready for them – yeah, right.
To
be serious, when you see a problem such as a handler verbally intimidating the
dog to perform, or the retriever ignoring commands and perhaps getting too far
in front of the handler, it’s time to speak up.
Advise the handler to stop and get control of the dog before proceeding
and note this on your judge’s sheet. This
tells the handler that this behavior is not what is expected of a Finished
dog. If the problem continues,
you and your co-judge will have to make a determination if the line was
crossed, i.e. whether the dog was out of control or not, and a failure is
warranted. I recommend that if
judges have made that decision, they politely advise the handler of the
failure before proceeding. To say
nothing gives the impression that the behavior is being accepted.
While you can give the Finished handler the option of continuing the
test if they so desire, it does not really matter how the dog runs from that
point on. The smart handlers will put a lead on their dog and leave the line,
not wanting to reward poor behavior or take a chance that it will continue.
I’ve been promising for some time now to devote some space in this column to judging blind retrieves. In the spirit of continuing our discussions on control, I’ll do that in my next article. We’ll take a look at a Seasoned scenario to answer the question of how many casts and whistle refusals are acceptable or not, and another where the judges fail a dog for winding the blind. I’ll present a Finished scenario where we’ll discuss how to recognize and judge cast and whistle refusals, and how many are allowed, which should help judges determine when to fail a dog for lack of control. We’ll also talk about suction and recovery while running a Finished blind. Until then, good training to you. We hope the “Judge’s Corner” will both entertain and inform you. |
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The Judges Corner - copyright
2006 All Rights Reserved Last modified: February 18, 2008 |