Before I jump into the scenarios I want to cover in this issue, I’d appreciate your indulgence in letting me share a story with you.  It’s about a mid-January flooded timber duck hunt I was fortunate to go on.  A friend who I had not hunted with in a long time called one evening and asked if I and another good friend of ours would like to come down to hunt with him in the morning.  We’d be hunting out of his Avery blind equipped boat in a timber hole he said should be good for the south wind that was expected.  He thought there were new ducks in the area and hoped we might have a fair hunt.  Believing the old adage that any day hunting is better than a day working, I jumped at the chance.  I said I’d only come under one condition.  That being that I would leave my dog at home and he would bring his.  No – that’s not a typo.  Although the friend going down with me and I are both proud owners of Hunting Retriever Champions, each a great hunting dog thank you very much, we wanted to see our “guide’s” dog work.  I’ll explain why. 

Our guide, who was long on hunting experience but short on dog training experience, had taken on a “project” dog about a year ago.  It was an almost 4-year-old black lab male that although it had some early obedience training, had literally sat in a pen for the past two years.  He asked Kathy and I if the dog was worth trying to do something with and our reply was if he’d make the effort, we’d help him all we could. Some other club members offered to help as well.  It soon became apparent that this guy and this dog were both very serious about training.  Two things were clear.  Our guide was an excellent pupil who didn’t think he knew more about dog training than the folks he was seeking advice from, and he was determined to succeed.  I’d drive by a field early in the morning and there they’d be running pattern blinds, etc.  Kathy had guided him through water force with the dog and he was never late for a session.  This guy never missed an opportunity to work the dog.  Despite some setbacks as you would expect working with a recovering retriever, the light came on and steady progress was made.  The dog didn’t pass every test it entered, but he and the handler learned from every one and earned their HR title at the last test in our region last fall.  I suspect no handler has ever been as proud of his or her dog as he was at that hunt.  

It turned out to be exactly the morning we’d hoped for - a sunny day in the timber with a light south wind.  We set out our blocks and rigged the jerk decoy.  I then pushed a long piece of conduit into the soft bottom, which would hold Ms. Mojo duck. When about six foot of conduit went under water, I knew there was no wading this hole and hoped the dog was up to the challenge.  Lastly, we tied up to some taller trees on the edge of the hole, popped up the blind and waited for shooting time.  The opening we were in had a lot of heavy buck brush around it and the water temperature was bone chilling.  The dog did not have a vest on since he’d gotten hung up with it on an earlier hunt and I was wondering if that experience or the cold water might dim his enthusiasm.  And our guide was right.  There were a lot of new ducks passing over, and better still, they liked our calls.  Confident this was going to be one of those days, we all agreed to shoot only decoying greenheads.  The dog had hunted a number of times earlier in the season and was scanning the sky like a veteran from his spot on the bow of the boat.  We knocked down nine greenheads in the course of the morning.  And I admit we looked a lot of hens over closely for jewelry!  This HR dog picked up two doubles and made several blind retrieves, most of which were through old falls with lots of floating feathers, etc.  He stayed steady until sent, and handled beautifully through and around the maze of brush and trees to pick up some birds that might have floated away.  This was what he was born to do and he couldn’t get enough of it.  A Hunting Retriever Champion could not have done any better, period.  I had heard good things about the dog from other folks who had hunted with my friend and now I’d seen it for myself.  Over a hot lunch our guide commented that he never had a dog that could do what this one was doing and all the hard work was worth it.   

While this is certainly a great success story, it’s much more than a story about one man and his dog.  I think it’s about the Hunting Retriever Club and the vision Omar and our founders had that the average duck hunter could have a better trained dog. It’s a story of club members willing to help one another to have dogs that are a joy to hunt with and will pick up game that might otherwise be lost.  I watched the dog run several tests and I was proud of the judges who evaluated it.  Pass or fail, all the judges were encouraging and positive, and assured the handler that success would come.  This story is not unique because I know it’s been repeated countless times since HRC was formed many years ago, and I’m most proud of that.  

A couple of issues ago we had a marking scenario at a Started test where the dog did not get the bird on its first attempt.  We discussed judging this dog on the subsequent re-cast.  In our first scenario, a Started dog does something on its first cast that our rulebook says it may be failed for.  We’ll look at the performance and try to determine if it should get a re-cast.  

---

Scenario: 

The Started mark was floating high in the water and the retriever swam directly to it.  The dog nudged the duck a couple of times and swam away without picking it up.  The handler attempted to get the dog back to the duck and finally gave up and called the retriever in.  Obviously frustrated, the handler looked at the judges and asked the following question:  

Question: 

“Do I get a re-cast?”  

Answer: 

In the marking test discussion a few weeks ago that I noted earlier, I said two important things about re-casts; 1) re-casts are not to be considered two equal chances to make a retrieve and 2) a dog is still judged on its initial effort.  In that scenario, although the dog gets a re-cast, it should have been marked down for it’s poor marking on the first attempt. Now we have a dog in our current scenario that won’t pick up the bird. Under Hunting Desire on page 29 of our HRC rulebook, it clearly states that a “test may be failed if a retriever shows no interest in hunting a bird or picking it up.” If we are to judge initial casts, has this dog not failed?  What about a re-cast?  

The rulebook says the dog “may” be failed for not picking up a bird, thereby giving the judges some discretion in the matter. It’s been my experience that Started dogs might not pick up a bird for any number of reasons, including rotten birds, ants or bugs on the bird, the bird coming apart on impact, etc.  Started dogs are often nervous and also easily distracted. On water tests they might leave a duck to check out debris, stumps, sticks, etc.  Generally, if a dog has problems picking up birds it will be apparent on more than one retrieve.  If this is the first bird of the day for the dog, can the judges really say they have properly evaluated this retriever by looking at one attempt? Let’s see what it will do on a re-cast.  If it is unproductive on the second attempt at the bird the rulebook is clear in stating, “the Judge will instruct the Handler to pick up their dog and that the test is failed”.   And remember, as with the dog in our marking scenario, this retriever is still judged on the first retrieve.  The dog should have been marked down for initially refusing to pick up the duck.    Any subsequent unwarranted refusal to pick up other marks in the tests might then be grounds to declare failure.  Then the judges could confidently say they gave the dog every opportunity but it has a problem.  Now just for fun, what if we changed the scenario to make it a Seasoned test?  Should a Seasoned dog be able to swim up to duck and just leave it yet expect a re-cast?  Remember what it says on page 29.  Let’s continue this discussion in another issue.  If you have any thoughts on the topic, please e-mail me.  Our next scenario didn’t happen at a recent hunt test.  It has actually happened at several.  

---

Scenario: 

The club decided they would have two flights of Finished dogs and take the maximum of 30 dogs in each flight.  The Finished water site was a large shallow pond with lots of running water.  Finished land was nearby.  The club was confident the judges would get through all the dogs.  On Saturday, everything went smoothly on the land series and the judges Finished well before lunch.  A lot of dogs had done well on this test.  The water was a different story!  The pond had deep mud in places, with lots of snags and stick-ups and logs to go over which proved physically exhausting for the dogs.  There were some problems with the new bird boys the club was using which resulted in several no-birds. Wingers were pulling loose in the soft shoreline.  Birds were sinking and dogs were having extended hunts on a couple of the marks.  The test was very technical and proved difficult for some younger dogs.  Several handlers elected to call their dogs in which necessitated getting a pick up dog out to clean up the marks.  The series was not completed until 2:00 p.m.!  Having finished their flight hours before, the morning land judges had spent the last two hours watching the water series drone on, wondering how they could possibly get through the considerable number of dogs they had to run.   

Question:

 What advice would you give the land judges?  

Answer: 

First let me say that I hope this discussion will help both clubs and judges that find themselves in a similar predicament.   Secondly, this scenario is not about callbacks so I won’t discuss them at this time. This scenario is about meeting the goal of setting up tests to run in a timely manner such that every dog entered gets an opportunity to run and it’s not necessary to resort to our callback procedures. It’s a composite of a lot of things many of our field reps have told me they’ve seen occur on what were supposed to be test sites where the judges could easily complete the flight.  Let’s look at what went wrong and how this fiasco might have been prevented, and then we’ll give some advice to our anxious afternoon judges. 

I think the first misconception we need to address is that if a club has a shallow water site everything is copasetic. For you young folks, that means, cool.  Running water in and of itself does not necessarily guarantee a large group of dogs can be run in a timely manner on a test. A lot of the problems with the scenario above could have been solved before the test began.  This water site gave the judges a false sense that they had plenty of time but proper planning and preparation on Friday would have shown them otherwise.  The club and judges should have considered the muddy conditions and run a couple of set up dogs through the areas of the pond they were going to use.  They would have observed that the dogs were fighting the mud and obstacles and noted the actual time it took to run the test.  They should have considered the difficulty in finding ducks that might sit low in muddy water.  Perhaps a shorter bird or one hitting on shore would have been in order.  If the club had wingers that needed to be staked on a wet shoreline, the judges should have considered that they might wiggle loose and need re-anchoring.  The might have found different wingers or moved them to firmer ground.  Even if a bird boy had hip boots or waders, it should be obvious they’d tire quickly trying to pick up ducks.  A good pick up dog at the ready can be as important in certain shallow water areas as deep ones.  Thinking they had plenty of time, if these judges didn’t get the test started in a timely manner, I’m sure they soon realized their mistake.  A very experienced hunt test chairman once told me, “If you’ve got daylight, you’d better be running dogs”.  Hindsight being 20/20, we’re still facing a big problem.  So what sage advice can we offer our judges in waiting? 

First, don’t sit around for a couple of hours waiting to see when the first flight will finish before starting on a solution to a problem you know you’ll have, i.e.; getting your own flight done.  It might be necessary in extreme circumstances for these judges go set up another water series somewhere else and start running their flight on it.  Hopefully another site is available. Wingers or other needed equipment, perhaps even bird boys, can be scrounged from another test that has already finished.  If there is no option but to stay at the current site there are still things that can be done.  The new judges can look hard at logistics and choke points and perhaps find some areas where time can be saved.  Examples might be in re-birding, moving holding blinds, changing where and when dogs enter or exit the test or how or when the blind is planted.  The hunt marshal should be alerted to have enough help standing by when the flights are switched so time is not lost changing birds, getting some food to the bird boys, etc.  In some circumstances it’s possible that some minor changes to the test itself might yield some dramatic timesavings without compromising the quality of the test or the judges ability to evaluate the retrievers. Of course the hunt committee should have already been alerted to the fact that the test was running late and be available and ready to work with the judges on a solution and to approve changes.  You’ve heard the old saying, “he didn’t see the forest for all the trees”.  I would have hoped that before this test got so far behind, somebody would perhaps have noticed the problem or a major bottleneck and offered the struggling judges some help to speed the test along.  Often stopping to take a few minutes to fix logistics problems early can pay big dividends later on.  

By the time you read this, the hunt test season will be getting under way.  I hope to see many of you at a hunt this spring.  

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

---