I can’t begin this article without mentioning the recent 2006 Spring International Grand Hunt, held in Louisiana, and hosted by Amite River Hunting Retriever Club.  This Grand was superbly organized and ran like a fine Swiss watch. The only glitch all week was weather related when severe thunderstorms swept into the area on the last day and delayed the Upland Test.  The members of Amite River should be extremely proud of the job they did hosting a record number of Grand entries.  Since I was one, on behalf of all handlers, let me express a heartfelt thank you to Amite River HRC. Theirs will be a hard act to follow. The Grand Committee is to be commended for their continuing hard work in keeping this growing event on the right course. I must mention the judges and the judging.  The judges set up quality, straightforward tests.  They weren’t easy, but the judges made the handlers feel at ease, and I know they sincerely wished us all well. I appreciate these exceptional HRC judges who took time out of busy lives to evaluate our dogs.  

The long drive home was a little easier than the last two Grand Hunts.  Dusty managed to get me through the hunt and we earned our first Grand pass.  I was feeling pretty good about it all until somebody mentioned that the first pass was the easy one!  I don’t think anyone who has ever passed a Grand much less obtained a GRHRCH title can say they did it alone.  I have to thank the members of my training group, including the “water tower boys” for their help and encouragement. I’m looking forward to the Fall Grand in Georgia and I hope to see many of you there.  In this issue of the Judges Corner, we’re going to focus on marking and some basic principles of setting up marking tests and judging marking ability.  Let’s get to our first scenario. 

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Scenario: 

The Finished land test had a working dog on the left and an honor dog on the right.  Triple marks were thrown left to right. The first two birds were at 70 and 80 yards respectively.  The last bird came from a closer winger and landed in front of the honor dog at about 40 yards.  The working dog was instructed to shoot at all three birds while the honor dog was told to shoot only at the last bird.  The blind was directly behind the area of the fall of the last bird, at 80 yards.  The judges advised the handlers that the honor dog would pick up the go bird and after it was delivered the working dog was to pick up the remaining two marks then run the blind.  

Question: 

Is this a good, solid Finished test scenario?   

Answer:  

At least two HRC Finished level judges thought so when they set it up a while back and ran a flight of dogs through it.  I hope that even casual readers of this column would recognize that there are a few problems with this scenario, and I believe the faithful will already have a good idea of what they are.  Judges, if you immediately thought of at least two problems, good for you.  Take a few seconds and re-read the scenario.  If you can think of three or more things wrong with this test setup, let me know where you’ll be judging, as I’d love to come run my dog on your next test.  I’ll tell you what I think about this scenario shortly.  First, let me assure you my purpose is not to disparage or point a finger at any set of judges.  Full disclosure, and the fact that too many old timers in my region still remember some of my early judging, requires that I tell you that as an inexperienced Finished judge, I used to set up very similar tests.  At some point along the way, I figured out some of my tests weren’t doing the best job of properly evaluating the dogs.  A good solid test shows judges which retrievers have met the standard for the category.  This test falls a little short of that goal and I hope the following discussion will help these judges and others understand why.   

Let’s start with the fact that this is not really a good Finished marking test.  Why would the judges toss away an opportunity to evaluate the dogs on their ability to mark a triple retrieve?  They threw a nice triple for the working dog then didn’t let the dog pick it up.  But you say hey, a double is allowed at Finished.  All right then, it was not even a good set of double marks to evaluate a dog’s marking skills on.  Tell me, what happened to the notion of testing marking by throwing the birds and letting the dog go for them?  Allow me to explain.  In this scenario, the judges threw a triple, but the working dog, who I assumed they were evaluating for marking, was not released to retrieve any birds until the honor dog picked up the go bird. Testing memory is fine, but the working dog was essentially getting two memory birds.  Is that enough to assess marking ability? I think not.  How was the working dog to be judged if it handled to the area of the fall on one of these marks? 

There’s another problem with this marking test.  How well the working dog picked up the memory birds in part depended on how quickly and efficiently the honor dog picked up the go bird.  Remember, a blind that the honor dog had already been to was sitting just behind the bird.  What if the honor dog had an extended hunt, was handled to the go bird, or worse yet, handled poorly with cast and whistle refusals?  The working dog and handler would have to sit through all that, and then still pick up the memory marks.  Where an honor dog had problems, was the working dog getting the same test as when an honor dog picked up the go bird quickly?  I think not.  Would that mean this working dog would be judged differently than other working dogs? If so, how?  I’m sure if asked that question, the judges would give the classic response,  “we’ll judge that accordingly”.  There will be things that happen as you judge that you truly have to judge accordingly.  A problem that is easily remedied should not be one of those things.  If you take away nothing else from this scenario, remember this when you have an honor situation:  Never allow one dogs performance to affect another dog’s outcome.  One of our field reps put it more bluntly when he said, “Anytime you have an honor dog involved in the working dog’s marking test, only bad things can happen”!  

While I’ve got this scenario under the microscope, I might as well mention one more concern, that being gun safety.  Human nature, and sometimes nerves on the retrieving line make it difficult for a handler not to shoot at the first, or even second bird they see thrown.  When you ask an honor handler to wait to fire until a third bird comes out to shoot, you’re asking a lot.  You’re depending on them to follow instructions.  If shooting at one of the first two marks would put the working dog or handler in jeopardy, you must be extra vigilant.  A smart judge would remind every honor handler when to shoot.  The bottom line with this scenario is the judges could have done better.  Our next scenario involves a poison bird.  Some of you new folks might be wondering what a poison bird is.  It’s simply a bird thrown for a dog, usually in plain sight, that the dog must not pick up until it retrieves some other bird.  Leaving a bird like this is a test of control.  Poison birds are mostly thrown as diversions before a blind retrieve.  Shoot at the diversion thrown close to the retrieving line, leave it and run the blind.  The justification from a hunting standpoint is the close bird is going nowhere while the cripple that has sailed off is getting away. In our next scenario, the poison bird is one of the marks.  Let’s see how this affects the marking test. 

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Scenario: 

At the Finished test the first bird is thrown in front of the dog at about 15 yards.  The second and third birds are thrown at approximately 60 and 80 yards respectively.  The judges instruct the handlers that the first bird is dead and the other two are cripples that must be picked up first.  The dog picks up the two long birds with no difficulty.  When sent for the poison bird, the dog runs past it and has to be stopped and handled back to it. 

Question: 

Would the dog’s performance be considered handling on a mark, or is the poison bird no longer a mark and it is judged like a diversion? 

Answer: 

I’m curious about how many Finished judges reading this scenario will say the first bird is still a mark, and how many will say it is not.  I’m sure there will be some judges on both sides. In our seminars, we state that handling to the area of the fall on two or more birds in a marking test may be grounds for failure.  If the dog in this scenario had already handled to the area on a mark in the other series, how it is judged on the poison bird may determine whether it passes or fails. If I were a handler in this test, and the purpose of this bird was not clearly stated in the handlers briefing, I’d ask the judges about it.  Hopefully they’ll understand what they are doing and come up with the proper response.  One of our illustrious field reps recently spoke with a handler about this very scenario.  I’m grateful to the rep for sharing their conversation with me and allowing me to share some of it with you.    

The field rep had the right answer and explained it well to the handler.  We would all do well to remember what he said.   “Anytime judges set-up a marking test that involves selection, it is no longer clean and they must allow for dogs to make mistakes and thus handle”.  He went on to note that every dog should be allowed to demonstrate their marking abilities without being affected by influences or distractions such as poison birds, in-line falls, wipe-out birds and a host of other tricks that might detract from a dogs ability to mark. What this rep is saying is the best way to test marking is with a clean marking scenario.  When you think about it, most tricks or distractions require special training and are often deployed to, or at least have the affect of elevating the difficulty of the test.  What they usually accomplish is to weed out those dogs that haven't been trained thoroughly on the aforementioned element. This sort of test might be fine when used to separate a field of contestants into a final winner.  However, when a judge brings a trick or special element into an HRC marking test, they are in effect testing to their own standard, not ours.  HRC tests should be conducted under the rules and guidelines spelled out in our rulebook and the standards for each class should not change in different regions of the country or under different judges.   

The judges in our scenario opted to eliminate straightforward marking in favor of designating a selection order on the marks. They must judge the test with latitude and understand handling on the poison mark is to be expected and should be considered reasonable.  Our final scenario came to me by the miracle of cellular phone service.  I was judging a hunt test and got a call from a field rep in another state at another hunt asking about the situation below. 

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Scenario: 

The judges at the Finished test decided to throw a double marked retrieve.  They told the handlers that after their dog picked up the go bird, a diversion would be thrown.  The handlers were instructed to pick up the diversion bird, then the remaining mark.  

Question: 

The question I was asked was is this test legal?  

Answer: 

It seems the concern among hunt participants about legality came up because some felt the dog was really only getting a single mark.  The HRC Finished rules say that testing will consist of double or triple marks for both land and water.  But the rulebook gives no specific definition of a double, triple, or for that matter, a quad, which is allowed at the Grand level.  You would think it would be easy to say what a set of marks is, but the scenario above is a good example that things aren’t always as clear as they seem.  If all this sounds familiar to you it’s because I’ve written about this marking conundrum before.  We had a Finished scenario a few years ago where the judges threw three birds for the working dog and another for the honor dog to pick up.  They said the working dog was getting a triple and honor dog a single.  Sounds reasonable until you think about the fact that each dog saw four birds thrown from the line and each was trying to mark a quad.   

After much discussion among experienced judges and the field reps, a working definition for marking was reached that seems to suit almost everyone and makes good sense.  We have adopted it for our seminars and it goes something like this.  If a dog sees two birds thrown before it is sent to retrieve any bird, a double-marked retrieve has been thrown.  If three birds are thrown before a dog is sent, a triple has been thrown.  Ditto for a quad.  The definition does not change if an honor is involved nor does it matter which dog is supposed to make what retrieve.  It’s clean, simple and sensible.  In the scenario in question, it is clear to me that a double was thrown, making it a legal test.  Now, as Paul Harvey says, here’s the rest of the story. 

If you’ve paid careful attention to what I said in the first two scenarios, you’ll have to agree that merely throwing the proper number of birds is no guarantee that you have a good marking test.  The judges in our third scenario were actually only testing clean marking on the go bird, which in effect means they really only were testing marking skills on a single.  Remember what I said about a marking test that involves selection.  Triple marked retrieves without distractions should be the standard Finished judges strive for in their test setups. I didn’t ask the caller why the judges decided to throw a double.  I can’t really think of a good reason judges would do it, except perhaps if unexpected inclement weather were fast approaching or the test was conducted in extreme heat.  To be fair to these judges, they might have had a legitimate reason.  I have also seen Finished marking tests shortened to a double for the wrong reasons.  In my opinion, wrong reasons would include the club taking too many entries, starting the test late, poor planning, and the worst – wanting to get done early on Sunday.   

If you’d like to learn more about setting up good marking tests that properly evaluate retrievers, you can attend an HRC Judges Handlers Seminar near you, or speak with your friendly regional field representative.  In the next issue of the Judges Corner, I’ll give you the full scoop on the 2006 HRC National meeting.  Thanks for reading this column and for your support. 

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