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Judges
Corner August – September 2005- from Hunting Retriever magazine by
Tim Gibson As I traditionally do in this issue
of the Judge’s Corner, I’m going to take some time to cover a few items I
hope you’ll find interesting from HRC’s recent 2005 National Meeting in
Memphis. No, I’m not going to
report who may have had one too many Peabody Pleasers, or who led HRC’s
contingency to Beale Street. I’ve
got some important information I want to pass to you about rules, judging, and
testing issues that came out of both the Field Representatives and the Board
of Directors meetings. A few of you, and you know who you are, will no doubt
want to skip the next few paragraphs and go directly to the scenarios I have
for this issue to find out if I’ve written about the last test you judged!
Please don’t skip ahead. It
won’t change what I wrote about your test. Before beginning my National Meeting
report, I want to personally thank Dr. Rod Smith and Diana Peacock, our
outgoing National President and Secretary respectively for their dedication
and service to HRC. All our
membership needs to recognize and appreciate the time and hard work they
voluntarily donated to HRC on our behalf.
I’m very excited about our new Executive Committee. Mark and Carol
have hit the ground running. HRC
is in great hands when you combine their enthusiasm and new ideas with the
steady and experienced leadership of Jim and Lora. The Regional Representatives
Meeting Many of you know that your regional
field representatives meet face to face once a year in Memphis in conjunction
with the HRC National meeting. This
past year saw some changes in the ranks of the reps due to a couple of
retirements, and some additions due to regional splits and expansion.
This resulted in several new faces around the table.
The field rep meeting provided an opportunity for our experienced reps
to share their knowledge with the new reps. The reps reported on hunt tests
and problems in their regions, discussed judging and testing issues, edited
and reviewed Judges/Handlers Seminar material, got up to speed on HRC policy
and administrative issues, and met with both UKC and the HRC Executive
Committee among other things. And
that was before the first coffee break! The field reps were introduced to
the new HRC Rulebook, and the 2005 Judges Test.
In fact they were asked to take the test, to which a couple of them
replied, “Hey – nobody said anything about having to take a test today!”
Seriously, their review and input resulted in several changed questions
that I believe made a vast improvement in the test. The reps role in helping new clubs
form was reviewed. HRC wants each
rep to assist in accessing the need for a new club in their region, as well as
a club’s potential for success. Involvement
of the regional rep will be one of the first steps prospective clubs need to
take to become part of our HRC family. The
reps have also been asked to assist in helping HRC “grow” some new judges.
They’ll be asking your club to recommend qualified folks to enter our
judging pool and will be more than happy to answer any questions on how to
become a judge or maintain a judging license.
A yearly regional seminar schedule was set.
Financial considerations aside, advanced scheduling gives folks more
time to plan to attend a seminar, and makes more efficient use of the
presenters limited time and HRC’s equipment resources.
Check with your field rep for dates for your next regional seminar, or
check the HRC website. One new idea that came from the reps
discussion of testing and evaluation has already come to fruition and I’m
really excited about it. A Handlers Test Briefing Checklist has been
developed. It was felt that many
judges could do a better job giving the required test briefings to the
assembled handlers. A clear and
concise test briefing would let handlers know exactly what was expected of
them and their dog on each portion of the test.
In turn, judges who can clearly explain what they are testing and the
objective of each part of their test would be more likely to set up a test
that was not skewed toward one testing element or fail to adequately test
another. I’ve got some
scenarios for you that I’ve labeled Finished Scenarios 1, 2 and 3 which will
illustrate what I’m talking about. The
revised seminar manuals will carry an appendix with an example of a complete
Started, Seasoned, and Finished test briefing.
These briefings cover everything about gun safety, the purpose of the
test, mechanics and logistics, and test objectives a handler needs to
understand. They also explain
undesirable traits the dog should not demonstrate, which if defined in advance
will perhaps help handlers understand why their dog might not have met the
standard that day. Judges are
encouraged to use these briefings, amend them as necessary, or develop some of
their own, and are free to copy or cut them out of their seminar book.
The test briefings are sized so they can be stapled into a rulebook if
a judge so desires. They will
also be made available on the HRC website by the time you are reading this
article. A large portion of the afternoon
session of the rep meeting was spent in seminar development and revision.
As I explained in my report to the Board of Directors on Saturday, the
Judges/Handlers Seminar is and will most likely always be a work-in-progress.
It’s constantly being fine tuned and new material such as video clips
and charts are added when possible. The
reps would be glad to speak with any of you who have ideas that would enhance
the seminar experience. The HRC Board of Directors
Meeting 2005
being an election year, there was no voting on running rules.
However, the running rules committee met and reported to the Board of
Directors that they had received several new rule change proposals from our
membership. These proposals,
along with a ballot form will be distributed by November 1 to the clubs for
their vote. The clubs will
have until March 1 of 2006 to return their ballots to the running rules
committee who will report the results to the HRC Executive Committee.
If a rule proposal does not pass or fail by a 2/3 majority of
the votes returned at the Club level, the proposal is brought before
the Board of Directors for vote at the 2006 meeting.
No new running rules will become effective until 01-01-2007.
A simple majority vote will determine the outcome of Running Rules
proposals voted on at the National meeting.
I’ve
decided not to discuss the proposals at this time.
We have a lot of time before the votes are due and I think it’s best
to let the clubs read and review and chew on them awhile. I’m sure there
will be considerable discussion of the merits of each proposal at hunt tests
and other functions in the next 6 months.
I do want to report that a vote was taken on a policy matter that may
affect some folks running tests. A motion was made and passed under
new business to address and clear up some confusion, and what some were
calling a “loophole” in the rulebook about running a dog under an
immediate family member. Our
rulebook, page 21, Basic Requirements/Guidelines for Apprentice Judges,
Item 10 and page 26, General Information, Item 2 states:
“No dog in contention for points, owned or co-owned by a member of
the Judge’s or apprentice’s immediate family or cohabitant of a Judge or
apprentice may be entered under the Judge or apprentice.”
There had been some instances of family members of judges
attempting to, or in some cases succeeding in entering dogs under the
aforementioned judges, claiming this was acceptable because they did not own
the dog(s) in question. Logic
says this reasoning defies the spirit and intent of the rulebook and it was
addressed in the motion. The
motion changes the rulebook wording I quoted above to in affect say no Handler
would be allowed to run a dog under an immediate family member.
As I write this, the official minutes of the meeting are not yet
available so I can’t give you the precise wording of the motion.
I apologize for not taking better notes.
I knew I should have taken that shorthand class in prep school!
However, by the time this magazine reaches you, your club president
should have a copy of the board minutes in hand and can provide you with the
exact wording of the motion. I
should note that since this motion fell within the section of the rulebook
that is policy and procedural information, it became effective immediately. One more point of information on
this topic. As I noted above, we
know that a cohabitant of a judge cannot run under the judge, but to fully
understand who can and can’t run under a judge, it’s important that we
understand HRC’s definition of “immediate family”.
It can be found no less than four times in the first 25 pages of our
rulebook and reads, “… immediate family member (spouse, parent,
stepparent, brother, sister, child or stepchild).”
I’ll leave it to you rulebook aficionados to find out exactly where
this sentence can be found. And
finally, I urge everyone to voluntarily comply with both the letter and spirit
of the rulebook and not try to confuse or bamboozle a hunt test secretary who
has no access to your birth or marriage records, or a sample of your DNA!
Let’s get to our first scenario.
It’s a topic the reps asked that I address in this column.
This scenario probably happens at more HRC hunt tests than we realize
and it’s an issue that there has been some confusion about.
This particular situation occurred at one of the test sites at the 2005
Spring Grand and I was there when it happened. Scenario: As instructed the Grand handler
had moved through three successive holding blinds with the dog on lead before
reaching the staging blind. This
is the what Grand judges call the last holding blind where handlers have a
final opportunity to ask questions before taking the lead off their dogs, and
stepping forward under judgment. Someone
noticed the handler had a lead and a choke chain collar on the dog.
Word quickly filtered back to the site program directors, which in
Grand speak are the folks holding the running order sheets and getting
handlers lined up, to keep an eye out and not let this happen again.
There are a couple of questions we can ask about this situation: Question(s): What about choke chain collars at
our HRC hunt tests, and since the handler didn’t try to run the dog with the
choke chain collar on, why would being in the holding blinds with one be a
problem? Answer: I happened to be sitting with the
program directors under a nice waterproof canopy when they were informed about
this. To my knowledge the dog was
allowed to continue the test with no penalty. I assume the judges believed the
handler was never told and did not understand this was not permissible. This
could stem from being allowed to do it at other hunt tests.
Our rulebook does not specifically mention choke chain collars
anywhere, hence some of the confusion about the issue by both handlers and
judges. To find the answers to
our questions, we need to look at rulebook wording that might be relative to
the topic. Common sense says we should also consider the intent behind the
wording. I believe there are four areas in
the rulebook that are germane to any discussion of choke chain collars.
The first that I hope comes to your mind is safety.
The second would be the prohibition of training aids or training
equipment by the handler. Third
is what the rulebook says about intimidation of the retriever, and fourth are
the rules about collar use in general. Let’s
take a close look at all four. Safety:
Rulebook page 58, Item 6 of the
Guidelines For Judges & Conducting Hunts says, “Safety should be the
judges main concern..” If
you’ve ever seen a dog hung up on something by their collar in the water,
the thought that it might be wearing a choke chain collar and the more the dog
struggled the more it choked is pretty horrific.
I don’t think judges need any other reason to prohibit choke chain
collars on Started dogs. Ditto
when Seasoned dogs were allowed to wear collars.
Safety issues really don’t apply to our scenario where the dog had
the choke chain collar on in the holding blind, but if these few sentences
might save a dog at a Started test sometime, they are worth including in our
discussion. Training Aid:
Under Sportsmanship on page 31,
Item 1 of things that “should result in either failure or major
markdown” is carrying exposed training equipment to the line or
threatening the retriever. Let’s
be honest. A choke chain type
collar, like it’s cousin the pinch collar, is widely recognized and used as
a training device, period. If
you’ll concede that point, the rulebook wording under Sportsmanship I
noted above answers our question about having a choke chain on only in the
holding blinds. In the process of
moving from one holding blind to another, was the dog not “coming to the
line” for all practical purposes? Intimidation:
Under Handlers at each testing
level of our rulebook, we read that: “Handlers shall not have any
training aid to intimidate the hunting retriever, i.e. whip, prod, cane,
quirt, dummy, weighted or shock collars or other similar equipment at the
retrieving line.” Just for
grins, I looked up the word intimidation on dictionary.com.
They say this word means: “To frighten into submission, compliance,
or acquiescence. Intimidate implies the presence or operation of a
fear-inspiring force.” They
gave the following synonyms for intimidation:
browbeat, bulldoze, cow, bully. Interestingly,
they noted that the word cow “implies bringing out an abject state of
timorousness and often demoralization”.
Ironically, the example they used was:
a dog that was cowed by abuse!
Now that you’ve had today’s dictionary lesson, I’ll get to
the point. Judges have no way of
determining if a handler has used this type collar in training to intimidate
the retriever. So it’s not the
use of choke chain collars, i.e. tugging and jerking and restraint, but the
threat of use by their presence that makes them unacceptable at our hunts. Speaking about intimidation, I have
a good story for you. It seems
there was a pro trainer at a big retriever event waiting in a holding blind
near the gallery with a young, high rolling dog who was getting ready to run
the most difficult test of it’s life. Of course the dog was getting more
wound up by the second. A little
old lady was walking by and stopped near the holding blind.
She knew nothing about retrievers or tests.
She walked up to the handler and said, “My that’s a pretty dog.
May I pet him?” The old
pro looked at her, looked at the dog, looked out over the bear of a test, then
turned to her and said, “No lady, but feel free to kick the crud out of
him”! Use of collars at HRC hunt tests:
The majority of handlers at our hunts use
a simple slip lead in lieu of a collar with lead attached, the Started level
perhaps being the exception, and there are a couple of reasons why.
A slip lead is easy to remove and easy to put in a pocket.
We all know a Started dog can run with a collar. In all other test
levels, dogs will not run with a collar, however, they are to be brought to
the holding blind on lead, and in Seasoned they walk to the line on lead.
It’s obvious, but worth re-stating that in the case of the Seasoned
walk-up test, the retrieving line is the point where the walk-up begins.
Many don’t think about this, but a Seasoned dog is being judged from
the holding blind to the line. Our
rulebook states on page 40, Item IV: “The
Judges should look for the dog that walks obediently to the line….” I
can make the case that like our Finished and Grand levels, the Seasoned test
begins when the dog leaves the holding blind.
The dog is to be brought to the line on lead, yet Seasoned dogs can’t
run the test with a collar, ergo the slip lead.
So why not a choke chain collar and lead?
Training aid issues aside, don’t they both work the same way in that
when you pull on them they tighten around the dog’s neck?
The answer is really quite simple.
A slip lead is a lead whereas a choke chain collar/lead combo is
exactly that: a collar with a
lead attached. So take your pick from any of the
four reasons I’ve given, but let’s all agree to leave our choke chain
collars in the truck at the next hunt test. And don’t make your poor grandma
come to the hunt unless she really wants to.
Now we’ll take a look at some tests I mentioned earlier that I hope
you’ll find interesting. Finished
Test 1: This
water series consisted of a mark thrown 20 yards down from the line and about
10 yards upwind from the line to the blind.
Handlers were told to leave the mark and run the blind which was past a
scented point about 50 yards out then down the shoreline another 50 yards.
After the dog returned with the blind the handlers shot a double and
picked up all three marks. Finished
Test 2: The
land series consisted of a single mark thrown on the right that handlers were
told to leave and run the blind. After
the blind the handlers sat back down on the bucket and got a mark on the left.
The dogs were required to pick up the left mark and got a diversion on
the return. They could then pick
up the right mark. Finished
Test 3: This
Finished land series saw a mark coming from the left that a “bubba” gunner
shot. Another mark then came from
the right and again a second “bubba” shot it.
The handlers did not shoot at these marks.
They were told to send their dogs for either mark, and they would get a
diversion on the return of the first retrieve.
They were to leave the second mark and pick up the blind.
After the blind they were free to pick up the remaining mark.
Question: Boy, do I have several, but the
foremost is; what were these judges thinking? Answer: These scenarios are typical of many I receive. I have more but these three will do for the purpose I’m using them for. When I told you about the new Test Briefings earlier, I mentioned tests that were skewed toward one testing element or failed to adequately test another. I want you to consider the sequencing and presentation of the elements of these tests, and the required order of the retrieves. A good way to do this is to look at what I’ll call a flowchart of the test. What we have is the following: Test 1: Sequence: Single mark - blind - double mark
Retrieves:
Blind – mark, mark, and mark Analysis: This test is heavy on control given the poison bird, running past the scented point, and dealing with the shoreline. Although the dogs pick up three marks in a row, they are really getting a single and a double mark thrown for them. No triple marked retrieve. Test
2:
Sequence: Single mark -
blind - single – diversion
Retrieves:
Blind – mark – diversion – mark Analysis: These judges blew the marking test. Not even a double mark thrown. All singles. This would not be a legal Finished test. Test
3:
Sequence: Double mark
Retrieves:
Mark – diversion – blind – mark Analysis:
Very poor marking test. Of
all three pairs of judges, these let the dogs see a double mark before being
cast from the line. Of course why
let the handler shoot at the marks or pick them up clean when you can tell
them they have to pick up a diversion and blind before retrieving the last
mark. None
of these judges did an adequate job setting up a Finished level marking test.
No triples, and enough “distractions” in either the sequencing of
the throws or the pick up order that it would be nearly impossible to make a
good evaluation of marking skills. I’m
curious about how they would decide if it was okay to handle to one of the
marked retrieves? Were they going
to only pass dogs that did not handle to any mark?
Perhaps they had a curve of some sort in mind.
My
point is judges need to understand exactly what they are required to test.
They must understand the need to set up a solid test to do so.
Our rulebook stresses this point early on when it talks about Tests
on page 28: “Merely throwing
a few birds in the field and sending a dog out after them will not serve the
purpose of the tests and most likely will not allow the Judge the opportunity
to judge a true hunting retriever. The
test must be designed, laid out, and executed in such a manner as to enable
the Judge to evaluate certain hunting qualities; e.g., marking, nose,
desire.” Take a look at the
new Handlers Test Briefings and let me know if you think they will help some
of these judges. I want to close with a note of
congratulations. HRC recently
awarded Honorary Lifetime Membership to Bill Rath, Don Ley, and Roger Davis.
It has been my pleasure to know each personally and an honor to call
each of them my friend. If
you’ve never believed anything else I’ve ever written in this column,
believe this: HRC could not have
found three more deserving members for this honor.
They truly have, to paraphrase our Judges Code of Ethics, set an
example for which future HRC members and participants will seek to aspire. 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 |