Any good videos of a downwind pattern?

[Nickheref]

To the quetion can you teach a good downwind pattern, the answer seems on here to be no. I agree with this completely, some dogs get it others never will. However, I think you can encourage/allow a dog to use the wind (if it has a brain) by not being too strict on the early work on pattern. I believe some trainers work too hard on a strict pattern and do not let the dog use its brain and work things out for themselves (I have a similar view on handling onto retrieves). Once a young dog has learnt the range I require I give them a bit of leeway and do not use the whistle very much and then watch what they do and how they handle things. I would be interested on other peoples views on this.

[Naj]

I agree. You can teach a dog a 'pattern' but you can't teach any dog how to use its nose. And given the opportunity they will naturally cut a wind at right angles, which, unfortunately, doesn't always fit in with how 'we' think they should 'pattern'. I also get pups used to hunting any wind right from the get-go, rather than sticking to a head wind for weeks/months & months. It is much easier to contain a pup & teach it the bounds of 'its' beat on, say, a downwind, than when on an upwind beat where scent is continually pulling them forward. They will also be far more likely to be working anything but an upwind beat when in the shooting field so I like them to get used to this right from the start.

Because of the distances involved & the fact that Spaniels flush on contact, it's easier to ensure that a spaniel covers all its ground when quartering, even when it breaks pattern to investigate a scent, but where the pointing breeds are concerned the textbook examples of how to handle a wind are plain wrong, in my experience. The classic downwind treatment in particular. A far more efficient way to work a downwind beat with a pointing dog is to walk diagonally across (down) the wind so the wind is, say, coming in over your left shoulder as a reversed cheek wind, the dog will naturally take the diagonal line away from you as it cuts square to the wind & will push ahead for a good distance, covering a swathe of ground upwind of it on one cast. Then you turn right & repeat diagonally down the wind on the other cheek, the dog will turn & hunt across on a parallel diagonal covering the swathe of ground upwind of it, then you turn again etc. Pretty soon the dog will be casting & turning automatically when it sees you turn. This is a great way of covering ground for the roughshooter but, unfortunately, not very convenient if working a dog on an organised form of shooting where you need to keep position in a 'line'.

Naj

[trekmoor]

It doesn't go down too well in HPR trials either Naj. The judges would be likely to say it is the dog that should do the quartering while you walk as straight a line as possible. I know what you mean though and a well trained dog can learn to turn just by a movement of your shoulders ---or even just a twitch of your head if it is a bit nearer to you.

The dog I mentioned earlier, the Brittany with a near perfect "by the book" downwind pattern was my first ever pointing dog. She was trained to hunt according to what I had read in books and so she was always hunted into the wind for the first several months of her life. In her case doing that worked very well, she was used to always having the wind in her favour so when cast off on tail winds she deliberately sought the favour of the wind.

I had the quantity of game (partridges) on grasslands and stubbles and spring plantings to train her on back then , that may have helped a lot. She got "success" in the form of a find about once every 2-4 minutes. I have not had that quantity of game to train pups on since then and I haven't had a good downwind pattern dog since then either.
Probably coincidence but I do often wonder.....???

Wullie

[Naj]

Luckily, I don't need to worry about what a trial judge might or might not think, and the dog is still doing the hunting, pushing out 100 yards or more beyond you while your 'quartering' is minimal in comparison. And I know that I can cover a far bigger area of ground in this way than I ever could by sticking to a textbook pattern & walking in straight lines from A - B. I seem to have got it wrong but I always thought that in an HPR trial you were given an area to hunt & it was down to the handler to choose how best to do it in the most efficient manner, which this method would suit. As a matter of interest, do they have downwind beats in HPR trials? I've been to a fair number of Pointer/Setter trials & they were all run into the wind.

Naj

[Miff]

To the quetion can you teach a good downwind pattern, the answer seems on here to be no. I agree with this completely, some dogs get it others never will. However, I think you can encourage/allow a dog to use the wind (if it has a brain) by not being too strict on the early work on pattern. I believe some trainers work too hard on a strict pattern and do not let the dog use its brain and work things out for themselves (I have a similar view on handling onto retrieves). Once a young dog has learnt the range I require I give them a bit of leeway and do not use the whistle very much and then watch what they do and how they handle things. I would be interested on other peoples views on this.

I agree with this completely. I worked too hard with my first cocker to try and get a set pattern but I have learned the error of my ways and now let my next cocker work the wind/find out about the wind for herself. Its much better this way. They work it out for themselves and its lovely to see them progress as they do so.

[trekmoor]

Yes Naj, downwind beats do happen in HPR trials. I had downwind beats a few times and saw other people have them too. Quite often HPR trials were roughly square in shape to bring the trial back to it's starting place. Any wind direction was hunted in order to do that.

I didn't zig to make my dogs zag in trials . That was frowned on but I quite often worked a completely one sided beat if by doing so I could keep to high ground as the dog hunted below. It gave me a better view of the dog and since my dogs were used to hunting wide they still covered all the ground I had been allowed.....instead of doing maybe 100 yards on both sides my dogs did 200 yards to the one side.
I began HPR trials by always walking the centre line of the beat until Lord Joicey judged one day. He advised me to go to the high ground to hunt a one sided beat. He was a very highly respected HPR judge .....one of the few I had a lot of respect for. It depends on whether or not a dog will hunt a long way out to one side I suppose ?

Wullie

[Naj]

If you enter trials then you have to accept whatever requirements are set down but it's good to hear that a handler has some sensible lee-way on how they work their allotted ground. As a matter of interest, what happens if a dog bumps a bird?

Naj

[Springfield Pointers]

As a matter of interest, what happens if a dog bumps a bird?

Naj

What should happen and what actually happens are what all the fun and excitement is about

[trekmoor]

If a dog bumps a bird during an Hpr trial it is out unless there are extenuating circumstances. Dogs should not be eliminated for a bump on a downwind beat if the dog bumps the bird during it's outrun prior to hunting back into the wind.
As one old judge said ...." The f-ing dog has got to run somewhere !" I think he was 100% correct.

I saw one dog get eliminated as it did it's first cast . I felt it's elimination was unjust. The dog was to work directly into the wind on a grouse moor and it was the first dog to run that day. As soon as we got over a fenceline the judges wanted the dog cast off. It went off to the right as close to the fence as it could have got but a small covey of grouse jumped from the heather just 10 feet from the dog. The dog had next to no chance to point them but it was eliminated. I felt very sorry for it's handler , he had travelled all the way from Ireland to compete in that trial.

I got almost eliminated just 15 minutes later. My Brittany pointed and produced a single grouse. The gun shot a hole in it from close range and the bird fell less than 30 feet in front of us. I was instructed to send my bitch to retrieve it and I did .....but I already had a good idea of what she would find. Normally she picked grouse with no hesitation but she didn't want to touch that one . I saw her nose wrinkle up in distaste and I had to order her again to retrieve it.

She brought it back holding it by a wing tip from the tips of her teeth . I gave this bird which was steaming from it's split open guts to the judge and he actually had a quick feel at it, pronounced her to be hard mouthed and told me she was eliminated. We had "words" ....I pointed out the close range the bird had been shot at, I asked at what point in the retrieve my dog had actually taken the birds body into her mouth .....he backed off and kept my dog in the trial ..... I was going to kennel club him if he had insisted she was hard mouthed. It is not an easy label to lose once a dog has it.

She didn't find a grouse during her second run and was not in among the awards. I saw two other instances of what I thought was very poor judging during that trial . Those two judges couldn't have judged a kettle boiling competition .

Wullie

[Cynic]

Were they KC Panel judges?
If so, who were they?
Did you report your opinion to the FT Secretary of the club holding the trial ?