FCT Training Day and Trial

[Kate Eltringham]

'morning all,

As you will have seen Noel has posted the results of the Flatcoat trial on the site which, despite the weather conditions was an extremely successful trial, the concept of which could be taken up by other states.

On the Saturday we had a training day held at a local obedience club, commencing at 8.30. Trialers came from all over Melbourne so distance was not an issue. We broke the group up into absolute raw beginners who had never trialed, the dogs in this group were over 12 months of age, previously where we have had puppies attend we have had two groups, puppies and older dogs. Next group was Beginners, dogs who had some idea of what to do but needed a bit more direction. Novice - dogs that were trialing and had concepts and the last group was the Novice/Restricted. Each group had two experienced trialers to assist with the training. The training session went for approximately 3 hours with a sausage sizzle to complete the morning.

Entries for the Beginners test did not close until the completion of the training day so in addition to the 7 entries already received an additional 5 trialers entered the trial. It is also arranged that if needed i.e. new handler without a gun licence, that the game steward would fire for the trialer, which takes a lot of pressure off the newbies. Entries for the Novice were 19 and what was pleasing to see was the different breeds, we had Labs, Goldens, Flatcoats, Springers, GSP’s and Viszla’s.

The trial was run in initially very cold and then very, very windy conditions. We had the first run of Novice followed by the Beginners runs 1 & 2 with the second run of Novice starting at the completion of Beginners first run, a break for lunch and then the third run of Novice. After an 8 a.m. start proceedings were finished by 2.30 p.m.

This concept of a training day followed by the trial has now successfully been run by the Flatcoat Club for four years and after each trial we have mananged to pick up at least one new trialer. The organization does take time, making sure that we have enough trainers for the training day and then having dedicated stewards already organized for the trial but the effort organising the event has certainly been worth it.

As I said at the start some states that are having difficulties with low numbers may like to consider this concept.

Cheers

Kate