December 2006 - January,
2007
I’ve
got a couple of interesting scenarios for you in this issue of the Judges
Corner. I don’t think many judges in our
program set up tests to promote poor dog work or fail dogs. At least I hope not. Often a test simply does not go as planned
and the dogs just don’t do well. In our
first scenario the judges did not have the marking test they thought they
had. I’ll tell you what happened and
what went wrong and what lessons I think we can learn from the scenario. And in our second scenario, a handler picked
his dog up on a water blind, believing it had already failed due to what he
believed was a mixed message sent by the judges.
Scenario:
The Finished land test consisted of
three marks and a blind. The marks were
thrown right, middle, left. The blind
was placed about 30 yards behind the area of the fall of the first bird. When someone asked how their test went, the
judges indicated the majority of the dogs marked poorly, with many handling on
both memory birds, despite being thrown what the judged believed to be visible marks that should have
been picked up without difficulty.
Question:
Is it reasonable to assume
that all dogs that handled on both memory birds would fail this test? Why or why not?
Answer:
I
happened to be at the hunt where this occurred and watched about 10 dogs run
the test. Most of those handled on two
marks, including a Grand Champion and some others that I know to be very good
marking dogs. I later heard that only two dogs in the flight
picked up all three marks cleanly. Before
I get any deeper into my answer, let me first say a couple of things. The judges obviously put some serious thought
into the test and there was nothing wrong with any one of the marks. Individually, they were all excellent Finished level marks.
The birds were visible, good use was made of the terrain and cover and
the throws were at appropriate distances.
Here is the first lesson I want
you to take from this scenario: Three
nice marks does not necessarily mean you have a nice triple. I can explain what I mean by that by telling
you what I believed was causing the dogs difficulty.
Several
things struck me as I carefully studied the dogs working to complete the
triple. The first was inadequate time
between the throws. I counted under my
breath and for many the second throw came about a second and a half after the
first bird was thrown. This quick throw
had the handlers pulling their dogs off the first mark almost as soon as it hit
the ground to try to find the second throw.
The dogs had to swing left and look at the other side of field at the
long second bird. Although the throw was
high enough, the bird was often falling when the dogs picked it up. The third throw came just as fast and
although it was the closest bird, the quick throw pulled the dogs off number
two. When judges rely on bird boys to
time the throws, either off another visible bird, or a shot, they are putting
the fate of the dogs in the bird boy’s hands.
Dogs must be given adequate time between marks to both lock a bird’s
flight and fall area into memory, and to then pick up the subsequent
throw. Further, when handlers swing
quickly off a bird to go to another, often the dogs will over swing and have
difficulty finding the next mark. When they
figure out bird boys are throwing off the sound of the shots, you’ll see some
savvy handlers shooting as the birds are falling, not at the top of the arc.
Who can blame them for trying to give their dogs as much time to watch the fall
as possible? The next thing that struck
me about this test was the short third bird.
This test simulated a goose hunt, complete with field decoys. I’ve shot a lot of geese in fields and it’s
extremely rare to shoot the last bird closest.
A lot of judges must have been working from the same play book this past
fall because I saw this multiple times.
I’d like someone to give me a good reason for a short third fall in an
HRC hunt test, and yes, I understand about wiping out memory. These judges had excellent marks that were
plenty meaty without needing to further challenge the dog’s memory with a short
third bird if that was their intent. Finally,
the placement of the blind directly behind the area of the fall of the first
bird thrown was causing some major problems for the dogs. I’m sure the judges were thinking the mark
would set the blind up nicely in that dogs would have to push through the old
fall area to get to the blind. And to be
fair to the judges, I’m sure there was more physical separation between this
mark and the blind than what there appeared to be. However, while it might not have been in the
area of the fall, in my personal opinion, the blind was within the hunt area of
the memory bird. Most of the dogs agreed
with me, especially the hard charging ones.
To exacerbate the problem, the blind was marked by a small, short orange
ribbon so depth perception was a concern for a lot of handlers. If I have not yet convinced you that the
blind placement was a real problem on this bird, perhaps the following
will. After only a few dogs had run the
test, the judges began to admonish every handler that, “the blind is hot”,
before their dog had even left the retrieving line for the bird! Lesson number two from this scenario is if
you have to remind handlers that a blind is hot even before seeing their dog attempt
to pick up a mark, you might consider the fact that you’ve got the blind a
little too close to the mark.
All
that said, there was still a lot I liked about this
test. The marks were excellent and it
might surprise you to hear me say I liked the blind location. The problem with the test was in the timing
and sequencing. But for a little fine
tuning it would have been a very good test.
If I were to make a few suggestions to the judges, I would have said to
slow the throws down. Lesson three: nothing is gained, yet everything is
compromised in a multiple marking test by quick throws. I would have thrown the short bird first,
then either of the long ones. I might
have left the blind exactly where it was, but if I did, I would have run it
before the marks as a cold blind. That
way, the blind would have set the memory mark up nicely. Lesson four:
let the dogs’ own performance, not test mechanics pass or fail the
dogs.
I’m
sure the judges thought long and hard about this test at the end of the day,
and they obviously reached some of the same conclusions I shared with you. They passed several dogs that handled on both
memory birds, which was the right thing to do.
Our Judges-Handlers Seminar says retrievers that demonstrate lack of
marking and memory on two or more birds in a test may be failed. But that recommendation comes with the
following caveat: The recommendations
given assume that the marks are visible, no delays or distractions have been
placed in the test, and there is adequate time between throws to allow dogs to
mark the birds! A lot of handlers at the test were relieved to find out the
judges understood that. Let’s look at our next scenario.
Scenario:
The judges at the Finished water test had set up a long double marked retrieve and a blind. It was a very hot day and the water was warm. The judges told the handlers they wanted the dogs to run straight at the blind. The dog in question took a good line but began to tire and fall victim to the siren call of the inviting shoreline that ran somewhat parallel to the blind. It took the casts given but did not carry them and after three casts where the dog attempted to cut into the shore, the handler called the dog in believing the performance did not meet the judges expectations. Only a few dogs in the flight stayed on line and in the water and picked up the blind per the judges explanation. At the end of the day, several more got ribbons, which included some whose handlers allowed them to cheat to the shoreline and run the bank down to the blind. The handler felt robbed of a pass in that the judges did not judge the test as they explained they would do.
Question:
Was
this a case of a handler misunderstanding the judges or just making a wrong
assumption about what they meant and how they would evaluate dogs on the blind? Or did the judges in fact change their minds
about what they wanted on the blind after their test briefing?
Answer:
This
scenario came to me recently by e-mail from a young man who described himself
as a novice test participant running a young, energetic dog that just turned
two. The handler said that he ran his
first Finished test this past spring at the Colorado
River HRC anniversary hunt under
For
those of you who read the Judges Corner in the last issue, you might remember that
we had a similar scenario in that a handler picked their dog up on a water
blind, thinking they had already failed for lack of control. Don’t worry; you’re not having an attack of
déjà vu! I’m not going to rehash that discussion,
which was about offering dogs a re-run, but in the course of the discussion on
this scenario, I do have a couple of more things to say about picking up a dog
in a test. And I’m not going to use this
scenario to discuss how to judge blind retrieves. I think there is something to be learned from
this handler’s experience about test explanations, objectives, and expectations
which is the reason we’re looking at this scenario. If we assembled a roomful
of experienced HRC handlers and asked everyone to raise their hand that had
never seen more dogs pass a blind than expected, how many hands would go
up? I suspect very few to none. I hope this scenario will help explain why
that might be to the young man who sent this to me and others who might have
the same questions.
In
my last article, I made the statement that the best advice I can give
inexperienced handlers is to simply run your dog the best you can until the
judges say they’ve seen enough. Perhaps
I should have put that another way.
There are some very good reasons for picking up your dog during a test,
chief among them is the dog’s performance does not meet your personal
expectations or you know you have lost control of the dog. But, and please remember this if you take
nothing else from this discussion: trying
to second guess the judges, and thinking you have already failed the test is
not a good reason to call your dog in! I’ll
give you some examples to help explain what I’m talking about. This fall I had the opportunity to run a
young, highly energetic lab in her first few Finished
tests. She has a lot of talent, is a great
marking dog and is quite capable of running Finished
blinds. But like a lot of young, high
rolling dogs, she has some maturing to do.
If she were a human student she’d probably be quickly diagnosed with something
like oppositional defiance disorder, making it difficult for her to process
authoritative actions. She’d almost
certainly be given some pills to make her a nice quiet student that didn’t
disrupt the class and everybody would be happy.
What she needs to learn is to just sit still on the line and work 100%
for her handler on blinds. More
training, learning to communicate more effectively with her, and age will take
care of most of those issues. At one
particular hunt, she ran a great set of marks and a nice blind, but stood up on
the honor and started to creep about. I put
her on lead immediately. I don’t know if
the judges had her failed at the honor bucket before I roped her up or not but
she did not meet my expectations so how they had her scored was not relevant to
me. How can I be disappointed if other
dogs that did essentially the same thing yet were not picked up passed? In
another test she gave me a cast refusal on a point while running a pretty
simple water blind. When she turned away
from me to go where she wanted to, I knew I’d lost control at that point and
called her in. Was I out before I called
her in? I don’t know but it did not
factor into my decision to pick her up.
By the way, the very next day we had to run a more difficult water blind
that was giving many dogs fits. She made
a good effort to stay with me and did well and she passed. I’ll give you one more example of a handler
trying to outguess the judges and then we’ll move on. Don’t ask me who the handler was because I
won’t say, but this actually happened at the Louisiana Spring 2006 Grand Hunt
in the fourth series. The land test was
a triple, followed by a diversion and blind.
The dog picked up two birds and was sent for the difficult middle memory
bird. Like a number of dogs on the test,
it set up a hunt to the right of the fall area and was handled to the
bird. Instead of picking up the gun to
load and shoot the diversion, the handler turned to the judges and told them
not to bother throwing the diversion. The
dog was put on lead after delivering the mark and the handler left the line. This handler had received a markdown in an
earlier test and just knew the judges would give the dog a marginal score on
the middle mark so elected to pick up the dog.
At the callbacks it became apparent that due to severe test conditions
the judges were using some discretion and good judgment in determining whether
dogs had reached the area of the fall before handling on the middle mark. The handler will never know if having not been
picked up, the dog would have received a markdown anyway, or carried to the
fifth series.
As
respects our current scenario, I can’t say if the judges made the right call in
passing other dogs that used the bank to reach the bird. They must have thought they did. This brings us to the topic of test
explanation and objectives. If I had to
say I was disappointed in one thing in the tests I saw this fall, it was with
the lack of good explanations of test objectives, and in many cases, no
explanation of them whatsoever. Our
rulebook requires that judges explain test objectives to handlers. What many judges seem to be afraid of is if
they explain the test objectives, they are telling handlers how they are going
to judge the dogs. There is a
distinction between those two things that we need to do a better job of
explaining to our judges. Let me give an
example or two to illustrate what I mean.
A good judge will explain that the objective of the marking test is to
see if the dog will proceed directly to the area of the fall, initiate a hunt
in the area of the fall, stay in the hunt area and pick up the bird. The judge will not attempt to define the
physical properties of the area of the fall or hunt area as they are really
unknown before seeing a number of dogs perform on the test. When a judge says the dog should show steadiness
at the line by not leaving before being sent, and if it does, the handler
should immediately stop the dog and call it back to heel, this control
objective is clear and well-defined. The
judge should not say if the dog puts its foot in the water, or falls off a tree
stand it will be failed. That is saying
how performance will be judged before seeing dogs run the test. As respects blinds, specifically shoreline
water blinds since that is the blind in our scenario, this is basically what I would
say in my explanation of the test objective:
The objective of this portion of the test is for the dog to demonstrate
it can take an initial line and be controlled to a bird it has not seen
fall. Handlers should cast their dogs
directly toward the blind and make every effort to keep the dog going toward
it. Since the line to the blind is
obviously through the water, those handlers who elect to let their dogs run
down the bank to the bird are telling the judges they either wish to avoid the
line to the blind or don’t have control of the dog. There are factors along the route to every
blind that might cause the dogs difficulties and we are looking for effort and progress
toward the blind and recovery when trouble spots are encountered. We expect handlers to maintain adequate
control of their dogs at all times. That
explanation sets no boundaries as to where the dog can and can’t go, it does
not define a pre-determined route to the blind, and I believe it makes it clear
that we expect that handlers try to run at the blind, not avoid it. It leaves the issue of adequate control up in
the air, which is where it should be until sufficient dogs have run the test so
that the judges understand the factors and conditions that are affecting the dogs’
performance.
If
you don’t hear a good, clear explanation of the test objectives at your next
handlers briefing, ask for one. And I
would not pick up my dog in a test because I believed it could not pass because
it didn’t run the test as I thought the judges explained they wanted it
run. I can tell you from experience that
judges can change their minds about what they think they want from the dogs
after watching the test run and seeing the factors that affect
performance. In our scenario, a couple
of those factors were obviously heat and fatigue and the judges obviously
considered those after seeing a number of dog turn into the bank at some point
along the route to the blind. For the
most part, I believe our HRC judges give the benefit to the dogs on control
issues when the going is tough.
We
have a new rule book coming out shortly, which means another judges test to
take for our licensed judges. The test
should be available to take on-line on the HRC website around the time this
magazine goes to print. There are a few new rule changes that will become
effective on
We hope the “Judge’s
Corner” will both entertain and inform you.
Please send your questions and scenarios to Tim at:
judgescorner@huntingretrieverclub.org