Guidance on the procedure for judging...

[beechessam]

The primary role of a spaniel is to hunt, that's exactly what they should do. If you could have bumped it or kicked it up yourself then why have the dog?

They need hunt quest range within gunshot not within arms reach. Could those with dogs that hunt freely out wide be brought back in? Given the way things are going we probably won't find out as there is no need to do so.

However can a dog that is hunting under your feet where theres little opportunity for it to go wrong remain steady to flush shot and fall if it were hunted at greater range?

[manorfarm]

This is a really interessting thread. I think it sums up the problems in judging trials. One mans trash is another mans treasure. If a man is asked to judge than it should be because his opinoun is valued and its repected enough to judge. His opinoun will be shaped by experience and situation. Our dogs are surely shaped in the same process. My dogs will probley never see yorkshire white grass and rabbits. But they know about bramble and pheasants and much as they know flight ponds and duck. I expect them hold their own in trials or a shoot down here in hampshire, but would be at a disadvantage on a moor.

what im saying is the shoe shiners and wild rangers arent as simple as good and bad. A good dog is a good dog, just make sure you know what your looking at. If its your dog train it as you think it should be.

[David]

This is a really interessting thread. I think it sums up the problems in judging trials. One mans trash is another mans treasure. If a man is asked to judge than it should be because his opinoun is valued and its repected enough to judge. His opinoun will be shaped by experience and situation. Our dogs are surely shaped in the same process. My dogs will probley never see yorkshire white grass and rabbits. But they know about bramble and pheasants and much as they know flight ponds and duck. I expect them hold their own in trials or a shoot down here in hampshire, but would be at a disadvantage on a moor.

what im saying is the shoe shiners and wild rangers arent as simple as good and bad. A good dog is a good dog, just make sure you know what your looking at. If its your dog train it as you think it should be.

But remember this thread is about applying the J Regs correctly with regards to the treatment and of wind a ground. A dog that is hunted on a back wind but hunts just in front of the handler should not be getting credit over a dog that gets out and works back in to the wind. This hasn't always been happening it would appear!

[trekmoor]

A couple of years ago I had a run off for a place in a test with Eddie Scott. The judges placed me and Eddie so close together for the deciding hunt that I wondered where his dog and mines were supposed to hunt on that leg of their beat.
I don't think that caused Eddie any problems but it did for me as my spaniels habitually hunt out to 15 yards a side or further . My dog was interfering with Eddies dogs' beat.
Does this also happen in trials ?

Wullie

[trekmoor]

P.S. to the previous post ..... I also had a problem in tests with my spaniels taking larger forward bites of the ground than other folks dogs were doing . I don't mind my dogs doing good sized forward bites at all as long as they are not missing game in fact I think it is less wasteful of a dogs energy than tight shoe wiping patterns are.

What I found a bit irritating was to be told by the judges to stop my dog in order to let the other dog catch up. That happened three times in just one test run. I do not like stopping a dog that is hunting well just when it has a good flow of movement going. I can see sense in stopping one of the dogs if the degree of cover for one dog is pretty high but in the tests I competed in the degree of cover for each dog was about the same. How much of this also happens in trials ?

Wullie

[manorfarm]

This is a really interessting thread. I think it sums up the problems in judging trials. One mans trash is another mans treasure. If a man is asked to judge than it should be because his opinoun is valued and its repected enough to judge. His opinoun will be shaped by experience and situation. Our dogs are surely shaped in the same process. My dogs will probley never see yorkshire white grass and rabbits. But they know about bramble and pheasants and much as they know flight ponds and duck. I expect them hold their own in trials or a shoot down here in hampshire, but would be at a disadvantage on a moor.

what im saying is the shoe shiners and wild rangers arent as simple as good and bad. A good dog is a good dog, just make sure you know what your looking at. If its your dog train it as you think it should be.

But remember this thread is about applying the J Regs correctly with regards to the treatment and of wind a ground. A dog that is hunted on a back wind but hunts just in front of the handler should not be getting credit over a dog that gets out and works back in to the wind. This hasn't always been happening it would appear!

yes sorry your correct

[Judy]

But which would you put up, the fast stylish dog which hunts windscreen wiper patterns regardless of wind or the somewhat slower more methodical dog which hunts ground correctly? The people who were teaching me to work my dog wiper fashion were trialling folk so at that time I guess that was the desired method of hunting in Trials regardless of wind. I have even had trainers tell me the dogs should be hunting in figures of eight, on its side in relation to the handler, a cosine pattern which must, by definition lead to the dog covering the same ground twice. If you leave the dog to get on with it and just set the boundaries it will take up all kinds of patterns and run according to the wind at its level.

If you extend the idea on to HPRs then you wouldn't expect them to hunt backwards and forwards across the front of you without using the wind would you, so why a Spaniel which is doing the same thing but on smaller scale?

I think the KC did the right thing defining the correct pattern for a dog. We are in danger of losing sight of the real object of the exercise, finding the best dog to shoot over if the dog who hunts very close and trips over stuff is continually rewarded.

[fusey]

No good if there plodders

[Naj]

Have you ever seen a plodder get into the running in any stake?

I'd agree, Judy, with the proviso that there's no reason why a dog can't be equally fast & stylish while still working a wind to best advantage.

Naj

[Nickheref]

I particularly hate seeing a dog constantly turning back on itself when being hunted into a headwind, Judy , I like the description - cosine pattern - sums it up so well, all it tells me is that the dog has no nose and is not using the wind. I suppose if you managed to get one to do the ultimate cosine pattern you would stand in one place all day as it ran around in a figure of eight. still you would not miss anything.