I too enjoy your diaries, it shows how much committment there is to the training and maintaining dogs at an efficient working and competitive level. Is Jump the only dog you will be trialling this season or will Misty and Breeze be entered for runs. Or is Breeze going on the transfer list.
Some questions:
Do you have to train your dogs to back another's point [if so how] or is it something that occurs naturally. Also when running in a trial and one dog goes on point is the other dog expected to automatically back the point.
Do you train/encourage your dogs to retrieve and are they ever required to do so in P & S trials.
Jump is the main dog. Breeze is now three years old and may be transfer listed because if, as I suspect, I do have to reduce the kennel he is younger and would be of more use to a prospective purchaser. He, Breeze, is also very bidable and easy to handle.
I haven't got back the results of all my entries but with fifty dogs, fully qualified, entered for most of the open stakes, and the maximum is forty, there isn't much chance of a run in the opens for Breeze. The maximum for a novice stake is 45 so Breeze may be unlucky in the draw for even the novice stakes.(likewise Jump for the Opens )
Misty is one of my great hopes. She won't compete in Scotland this year as she isn't ready yet but by the time we have had a run at grouse in Scotland she may be ready for some of the later Trials in Ireland. Misty's progress was delayed as she broke her jaw trying to open the kennel door and then her immune system rejected the wire. She only got on a grouse moor in March and did really well. I can’t say how much I am looking forward to training her in Scotland.
I must say you know how to pick your subjects.
Backing is one of the most controversial subjects in my view.
I.K.C. have their own ideas but even if you keep the discussion to Kennel Club Rules & Regulations there is plenty of room for divergence of opinion. Failure to back is not an eliminating fault but stealing the point is. Natural backing is a credit point. There are some judges who appear to give credit to a dog that is instructed to back. (Whistle, hand signal, voice command) Along with the credit for the actual back, there is also credit for being steady to the flush, and the shot. Obviously if the dog dropped behind the pointing dog on the whistle you wouldn’t eliminate him but you couldn’t give any of the extra credit.
Most of the lines of Pointers I know will back naturally especially on the mainland where during training they have plenty of opportunity to come across other dogs on point. You can teach it by running an old dog into birds, walking the youngster in behind on a lead. It will tend to feather up. You stroke the young’n, hold his tail up, and gently talk to him. He will soon learn to point/back. It is vital that when you are teaching this you bring the young dog in from the side so you can be sure he is sight backing, and he is not actually pointing the bird in a “ Joint Find “ situation.
You can of course buy yourself an electronically controlled Life Size Pointer Cut out, painted in you choice of colours. Put it in the heather, run the dog towards it, press the button, up pops the “Pointer” and your dog backs. I shit you not. Where it becomes a bit more of a challenge is in somewhere like Northern Ireland where a find is a once a fortnight occurrence and you have a fast dog, just like Jump, who is virtually never beaten to birds. You can almost bet that when you want another dog to find so that you can teach the manoeuvre all the other dogs will have blank runs and your student will have all the finds. I suppose you call it Sod’s Law.
It is only because traditionally Pointers weren’t used to retrieve in the U.K. that they aren’t required to do so in trials. I presume that as originally most Pointer Triallers shot over their dogs they wished to avoid inducing unsteadiness by allowing their dogs to retrieve when shooting. I have seen videos of Retrieving on the continent and it leaves a lot to be desired. I did have an Irish Setter, Ardoon Daniel (Danny) who used to assist me with bagging game. He would lie on a wounded bird, or tow a duck to the shore using his teeth, with his lips rolled back so as not to touch the bird. It was quite handy as you could see the teeth coming in the dark. I also had and Irish Setter bitch, Pride of Kentoo, Gaye, who retrieved almost to hand with a nice soft mouth. The Italian and Brazilian parents of my Roi dog were very efficient shooting dogs that retrieved naturally, if somewhat slowly.
Thanks for that, it is really interesting. The electronic cut out must be a US import?
Presumably Jump is qualified for the open stakes so forty places out of fifty entries should give you a fairly good chance of a run. How many trials will you be sending in entries for between now and the August champoinship.
Open stakes for retrievers very often reach 150-200 entries for just 24 places in a two day or 12-16 in a one day.
Backing: I assume a brace of pointers will be working/quartering the same area so if the dogs are a long way apart when one goes on point would you always try to handle the other dog onto backing the point or just drop the dog until after the flush.
Following on from there how important is the handling in training, would you go through a similar routine of whistles and hand signals as in training retrievers.
This was a trial day but obviously will contribute towards the dogs' fitness.
17-21C depending on if it was raining or not. Wind steady and about force 1-2.
Jump:- three runs totaling about 25 mins. Third run a full 15mins, full pelt, handled a dream. Judge said afterwords was just about one of the best runs he had ever seen. Really pleased. I should never have doubted him.
Breeze:- Three runs, about 30mins in total. Just not quite as fast as his dad, but handled a dream and ran nice and flat. Breeze came of age today as Slieveanorra is a bugger of a hill for both man and beast.
Misty,Lexi,Jilad,Jet:- Five minutes up the hill in a bunch. It never fail to amaze me that even a head banger like Jet, once put in the correct context will calm down ( a bit ) and at least attempt to do his work, not acting like the complete air head I see at home chasing swallows.
Misty and Jilad:- Another five minutes for Misty just to see how she would go on her own. Jilad was just pottering about as today was his first time on heather. Misty isn't handling properly yet but she turns to windward most times, quarters naturally if not evenly, and is hunting like mad. And yes, she goes like buggery. Oooooooooooh, I feel a F.T.Ch. coming on.
Work is the curse of the trialling classes so I have only one IKC trial next Tuesday before I go to Scotland on 31st July. I have two days training and then there are Four open, Four Novice and the Champ Stake. Sometimes there is a puppy on the same day as a novice but I don’t have a puppy. As the Champ Stake is in Scotland this year the Scottish Field Trial Association’s Puppy Stake is the Derby Stake for Pointers & Setters. It’s the high profile event for pups and apart from the beautiful trophy the winner of the Derby Stake is qualified to run in the Champ Stake the next day.
The ideal situation for the backing dog is to back the minute it sees the pointing dog. Be they ten or two hundred yards apart. Ideally the dog should back naturally, i.e. Of its own accord but you can encourage your dog to back. The REAL ideal situation, of course, is for the backing dog in fact to be the pointing dog. If you blow your dog down and it stays down you are safe, but you have removed your dog from the position of being able to gain extra credit from the back and the subsequent flush and shot.
We do have a routine for whistles and hand signals. But they are really simple.
Hand Signals.
1 Stop. Just like a Peeler. Hand up in the air, palm towards dog to make it look bigger.
2 Right and left turn. Like a Drivers turn signal. Also used to encourage the dog to continue in the desired direction.
3 Down on one knee arms outstretched, as if you are going to embrace Pamela Anderson. The recall.
Whistles.
1 The turn , say the 212 pipped until the dog turns.
2 The drop. Sometime using the same whistle as at one, but often a Thunderer. Blown with attitude, Get down you bastard.
3 On the continent they sometimes use a whistle, different to any other used by that handler. It is for the recall. It is used for two situations only. To call the dog from labour to refreshment ( and maybe on again to labour. Sorry Brothers ), ie to get fed, and for the recall at the end of a run. No other times.
Seems really simple written down.
Quote:
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Judge said afterwords was just about one of the best runs he had ever seen
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Does this mean Jump figured well in the results?
More questions:
1. Presumably the dogs are scored as in retriever trials A, B or C, [+ or -], but how is a dog not having the opportunity to point assessed against a dog that does, or is that just down to luck like a retriever having a runner or eye-wipe being in a potentially better position than one that doesn't, or is the dog run on until it does have a pointing opportunity.
2. What is the position when one dog out of a running brace has an eliminating fault, is another dog brought forward to replace it.
3. How is the amount of time given to each run determined.
No. Jump got nothing as he had no opportunity to Point.
It is unlikely that a brace of dogs will last more than 15Mins if uninterrupted. The guidelines for judges encourage judges to make best use of their ground by not giving undue time to dogs with little merit so if one dog commits an eliminating fault the brace is terminated and the faulty dog set aside. In addition if a dog just wasn't doing it he would be set aside as well. It depends on how long the surviving dog has run what will happen to it. Another dog in a similar situation may be brought forward to run right away or the surviving dog may be asked to hang around until a situation occurs that would require it to make up another brace.
At the end of each brace the dogs are graded like you said,A,B,C, or- . Its a bit like the Open Golf, the overall standard will determine what level gets through. In Northern Ireland usually all the A dogs will get through whether they have had a find or not where as on the Mainland the second round will be made up of all the clean dogs with finds of, whatever grade, and only the very best will survive on their running alone. It is not a situation that one dog wins through to the next round. Both may go forward, both may go out.
In Northern Ireland our stakes are seldom full so for most first rounds the time allotted is 15mins and it really just depends on
how the day goes what will be available in subsequent rounds.
A friend of mine who judges a lot told me that one Summer in Scotland he timed the first rounds in the Open stakes. The average was 4mins due to the weight of game present.
One of the most aggravating statements by a judge is that you couldn't be place any higher because you hadn't done enough running. I ran Black Cher for Shaun McCormack in the Gordon Setter Open Stake at Grinton and was told this after having eleven finds in the body of the stake. This was a fair enough comment, but the answer would have been to run her on until she had enough running. By the way Cher was second.
Its like all judging, an art form rather than a science.
I know a bit about the congestion for Spaniel and Labrador trial entries.
My third level qualification is in statistics. I don't have access to all the data but from what I hear the chances of the eventual running card for any type of trial falling into the pattern for what we call random selection, is likely to be slight.
Some people seem to have more chance of having all three of their qualified dogs in the stake than some folk have of getting one entry.
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