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Distractions... from the April - May, 2005 Judges Corner in Hunting Retriever magazine - by Tim Gibson A Started dog is distracted by a car alarm in the parking lot.
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. |
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The Judges Corner - copyright
2006 All Rights Reserved Last modified: February 18, 2008 |