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Judges Corner April – May 2005 - from Hunting Retriever magazine by
Tim Gibson I
promised in the February – March issue that
in this one; we’d get back to the familiar scenario format.
We’ll do that with a couple of interesting Started situations and
some discussions about the Upland Hunt test.
Before we get started, no pun intended, I’ve got what you might
classify as a housekeeping announcement.
Lately, I’ve had an inordinate amount of Spam hitting my e-mail’s
Inbox. Who hasn’t?
It takes a bunch of my time to deal with it and it can be dangerous to
one’s computer. I’ve been
forced to set my e-mail filter to HIGH security, which means that anybody
sending me mail that is not already in my address book must click on a
“request to be unblocked” form. It’s
not difficult but it requires an extra manual step to get mail to me that an
automated Spam program can’t perform. To let HRC members avoid this hassle
I’ve acquired an additional e-mail address, which the spammers don’t have.
It requires no unblocking maneuvers: judgescorner@huntingretrieverclub.org.
I enjoy hearing from all of you so don’t hesitate to contact me if
you have a question or comment on anything I’ve written about in this
column. Speaking of that, I received a few pithy comments, as I knew I would about some of the field rep conference call agenda items I discussed in the last issue. I thought you might find a couple interesting. From
the Judges Corner Email bag: Regarding
my comments on appropriate clothing and what our rulebook says about this
subject. One reader said:
“Personally
I do not have a problem with having to dress in camo head to toe, but I
do feel that the wording used to describe the requirement does need work. It
should read exactly what is expected. This rule has essentially been unchanged
for some time and it seems that HRC has a variation in interpretation. Thus it
became necessary for you to write about this.
Your clarification was only good for this month’s issue of the
magazine. What about 3 years from now with new people moving in HRC”?
Regarding
callbacks, a reader responded:
I am so proud of your
article regarding “callbacks”. I almost thought for a while there
that my husband and I were the only ones angry about the callback situations
we faced last year. You’re
right, if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, looks like a duck, then it
must be a duck! I’ll share more reader feedback in future columns. For now, let’s get right to our first scenario, which involves a simple marking test at Started. Scenario: The
judges at the Started land series had set up a very good marking test with
highly visible birds and good separation between the falls.
The dog in question was handled to the area of the fall on each bird.
Remarkably, the dog handled well.
The regional field representative happened to witness the dog’s run
and out of curiosity asked the judges how they graded the dog.
Both said “okay”. Question: Do
you agree that the dog’s performance was acceptable?
Answer: The
field rep involved wrote to me and stated, “We’ve
got to get
our Started judges (mostly the new ones…I could even say this would apply to
all judges) to understand what standard of performance for marking (and memory
in other series) is expected of the dogs they are judging. I think this is an
area we really need to stress in our seminars because it is the very
foundation for how we judge our dogs.”
To
the casual observer who might not understand what is required of a Started dog
at our hunts, it would appear this dog did a fine job retrieving the birds
that were thrown for it. The dog
picked up each bird quickly and efficiently and showed good control while
taking direction from the handler. However,
being more than just casual observers, the judges should have known better.
In fairness, and because I’m always ready to give judges the benefit
of the doubt, I should say this; I suppose it’s possible the judges did not
hear the field rep correctly, and thought he said, “How are you guys doing
today?” If that’s not the case, then they either; a) did not know the dog
didn’t mark either bird, or b) did not know marking is what we are testing
when we throw birds for dogs. What I do know for sure is we can’t claim by
any stretch of the imagination that this dog “marked” either bird, which
would be the reason this would not be a passing performance at Started, nor
any level of testing for that matter. With
the tact and graciousness your dedicated corps of field representatives are
renown for, the judges were given a quick field lesson in what was required of
a Started dog. The first
paragraph of the Guidelines – Judging Started Hunt Tests on page 31
of our rulebook states, “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.” The
rep went on to tell the judges that a Started dog should execute its marks
with the same precision as a Grand dog. He said,
“They really blinked at that one!”
It’s true. When a mark
is thrown at any testing level, a dog must sight the bird, proceed directly to
the area of the fall, and initiate a hunt for the bird in the area of the
fall. The rep explained that the
difference between Started marks and Grand marks were the conditions under
which the marks were thrown such as terrain, cover, distance, number of marks,
etc. Not
only must our judges have a good grasp of evaluating marking and memory,
it’s important that handlers understand what is expected of them and their
dog. In addition to their first
obligation of throwing birds that the dogs can see clearly, judges must at
every testing level, especially at Started, carefully explain the objective of
the marking test. In fact, our rulebook requires it.
Handlers need to understand what the dog must do on its own to show it
has properly marked a bird. When
going for a marked retrieve, the dog must go directly to the Area of the Fall
(AOF) of the thrown bird, and establish a hunt in the AOF.
When I use the term “on its own”, I mean without any aid from the
handler. Given our scenario, for
arguments sake let’s say the judges understood this yet did not explain it,
but the handler did not. Now the
dog does fine on the water test that followed.
Expecting their first ribbon, and already receiving congratulations
from his friends who came to watch the dog run, you can imagine how
devastating it would be for this handler to be told at the conclusion of the
hunt that the dog failed. We
spend a good portion of the Judges/Handlers Seminar discussing judging marking
and memory and I’ve written exhaustively about it in this column.
Without question, it’s one of the most difficult aspects of testing
to fully comprehend and evaluate properly, even for judges at the Grand hunt
level. For handlers, it can be as
equally perplexing to try to figure out what to do in the test and what the
judges expect. We’ll spend some time discussing this in a future article.
Our next scenario takes place at another Started test.
We teach judges that marking tests at both the Started and Seasoned
levels should be conducted in the absence of distractions. As this Started
scenario unfolded an unnatural distraction disrupted the test at a most
inopportune time and the judges had to make some quick decisions.
Scenario: The handler brought his
retriever to the line at the Started water test and signaled ready.
The first duck was thrown and the dog was sent.
About 15 ft. out in route to the bird, a car alarm went off in the
parking area behind the retrieving line.
Confused and clearly distracted, the dog turned in the water to look
back at the handler. The handler
looked to the judges for direction, assuming they’d call a no bird.
Although it was apparent they knew what distracted the dog, the judges
remained silent. The handler re-heeled the dog and recast it and it had no
difficulty completing the retrieve this time. Question: Does
this story simply prove the old adage, “All’s well that ends well”,
or is there more of a lesson to be learned here?
Of course there is and some of that lesson involves discussing the
following: 1) should the judges have said anything to the handler? 2) should
the judges have declared a no bird? And 3) what would have happened had the
dog not been successful on the subsequent attempt to pick up the bird… could
or should the judges at that point offer the dog a re-run? Answer: Some
of you will recognize this scenario from a recent post on the HRC message
board. In the interest of space
and with my license to edit, I’ve not re-written it word for word, but I
believe I’ve given you the gist of the post.
After several members responded on the board and offered their opinions
and thoughts on the scenario, the author e-mailed me and asked for mine.
I will admit that on rare occasions the message board has served as a
well I’ve drawn from when I’ve needed a scenario for this column.
Usually when I’m looking for material, all I have to do is attend a
couple of hunt tests, or to be more specific, follow a certain handful of
judges around (you know who you are) and I can get all the scenarios I need!
I’m just kidding of course, but I did hear that a certain young and
upcoming judge was having difficulty gaining his club’s endorsement to move
to the next judging level for the oddest reason.
The club asked him to explain why Tim Gibson happened to show up at
every test he’d judged and asked him if they were expected to believe this
was just by coincidence!” After
reading the threads associated with the post, I found myself agreeing with
what appeared to be the majority of opinions of those folks on the board who
responded to it. I did e-mail the
author my thoughts, which I’ll share with you, and which I hope will help
answer the questions posed above. I
responded with the following: “I
think I understand why the judges handled it like they did. They
probably noted that you had an attentive dog that got a good look at the mark
(and the splash) and was going with enthusiasm when sent. They obviously
felt it was better to simply let you re-send than declare a no-bird and make
you come back to re-run. As a judge, I've often put my faith in a dog in
circumstances where I know the handler was thinking we would or could or
perhaps should be calling a no bird. Where I see signs that a dog is not
going to handle a situation well - for example a Started dog that is
exhibiting poor control at the line and swinging it's head off the mark, etc.,
I'm more likely to make the no-bird call quicker when something happens
that might disrupt the retrieve. Experienced judges that have learned to
make these calls are right far more than they are wrong. The underlying question you
are probably thinking about is what would have happened had the dog not
handled the re-cast? Could the judges have backed up and offered a
re-run to the dog. Yes, it’s my opinion they could. I believe
you said the dog stopped on it's own when the car alarm sounded. Usually
when I think of a re-cast it's because the handler didn't like what the dog
was doing or where it was going and decided to try the retrieve again.
In your case, you recalled the dog after it stopped because of the alarm. I
could not in good conscious count that as a legitimate attempt to make the
retrieve. If the dog had problems on the subsequent attempt, I believe
good judges would have said this is not working because of the unnatural
distraction and interference, and invited you back in three dogs. I
think your judges would likely have done this.” Regular
readers know I’ll usually quote some part of our rulebook when covering a
scenario. I didn’t do that in
my response above because quite frankly there is not much in it that we can
specifically point to that covers this scenario and the questions around it.
When that happens, we’ve got to drop back and rely on common sense
and fairness to the dog and handler, and look at the intent behind our rules
and what we’re trying to accomplish with our testing.
This is not the same think as making up rules because something is not
covered in our rulebook or because the rulebook does not say we can’t do it.
I was pleased and proud that most of the messages on the thread
regarding this scenario did just that. Let’s
change gears now and take a look at a question that came up at a recent Upland
Hunt test. Scenario: At the Upland Hunt test, the
judges inserted a land blind retrieve into their test.
Their rationale was
that since the Upland was run "under Finished rules” anything allowed
in a Finished test was fair game in an Upland test - that the rules
allowed multiple marks and blinds as part of the Upland test. Question: Were
the judges correct and can they do this? Answer: This
happened at a recent Upland Hunt test, and almost occurred at a couple of
others that I’m aware of. One
field rep had to explain to some judges that,
“Yes, in real Upland hunting somebody might shoot a bird the dog does
not flush nor see shot and fall, but blind retrieves are not what we’re here
to test today”. The judges were
correct on one point… The first sentence of the first paragraph under Test
Rules in the Upland Hunt portion of our rulebook says, “The Upland Hunt Test
will be conducted according to the rules already established in this rulebook
for the Finished Hunting Retriever.” They were wrong that this wording
allowed them to put any element of a Finished test into their Upland series.
The
Upland rules sentence referenced above is there for basically two reasons.
The first is it tells us that the Upland dog should perform, and will
be evaluated to, the same standards as a Finished dog in some areas of
testing. An “AA” Finished,
licensed Upland Hunt Test judge who I recently discussed this with nailed it
when he said the sentence refers to standards of performance expected in
a Finished dog, i.e. controlled breaks, creeping, response, delivery,
hunt desire, perseverance, etc. Secondly,
this sentence is a way to avoid duplication of portions of the rulebook.
A couple of examples of the above come to mind:
1)
Under "Handlers", page 47, we see that "voice or whistle
commands may be used to encourage the hunting retriever".
This reads the same as in Finished.
But the Finished rules and guidelines expand on this by saying on page
40, "... however, should excessive handling or noise occur, which in the
opinion of the Judges would disturb the hunt, the Judges may declare failure
of the test". The Upland is
not that specific, but we can also conclude that the Upland dog should
demonstrate a prompt and precise response to all voice, whistle, and
directional commands because the Finished dog must do so (page 39, item II). 2)
Page 49 of the Upland rules, Quartering, does a nice job of explaining what to
look for when the flush occurs and what the dog is supposed to do.
It indicates the dog should stop within a reasonable distance after a
flush and should be accessed a refusal if it does not.
It also explains what a controlled break is, i.e., a dog that stops,
then leaves before being sent. What
it does not do is set a standard for how to judge controlled breaks.
For that, we can look at Finished that says a controlled break may
result in failure. While we’re
discussing the Upland, let’s take a quick look at one more Upland scenario. Scenario: The
club was discussing their upcoming Upland Hunt test.
Some folks had contacted the club about entering the hunt with pointing
dogs. The discussion turned to
whether it was acceptable in the Upland for a pointer (or pointing lab for
that matter) to hold point while its handler flushed the bird.
A portion of the club members felt this might be okay as long as the
dog remained steady to the flush and shot. Question: Can
the handler flush the bird in our Upland tests while the dog is on
“point”? Answer: I’ll
make this short and sweet. NO.
The HRC Upland Hunt test program was designed for flushing breeds of
dogs. Our rulebook is clear.
The Upland Test Rules, page 49, item II, Quartering – says, “The
Upland Hunting dog is expected to flush the bird”.
The sentence that immediately follows this states, “After the flush
is made the dog should come to a stop on its own or on the command of the
Handler”. It’s pretty clear
to me that the intent is for a dog to be moving toward the bird, or in the
event a trap or release is used because conditions prohibit the use of natural
flushes, toward said devices. I
would submit to you that it’s much more difficult for a dog to be steady to
flush while moving into the scent of a planted bird or one in a launching
device than for a dog to show steady that is already stopped.
A handler whose dog stops, or points the bird in our Upland test would
need to find a way to get the dog to release point on command and attempt to
flush the bird. 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 |