Many thanks from NZ

[Karen Parnell]

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to thank you all for the wonderful hospitality shown to me during my visit to Australia. I enjoyed watching your trials and now have a better insight into what you are talking about on this website! Congratulations to all the placegetters and well done to the club for putting on such a fantastic event.

I intend to do up a calender of trial events here in NZ that may be of benefit to those that are intending to cross the ditch for a holiday or some shooting! (Our duckshooting season opened last weekend and depending on where you are travelling to, will finish around July/August.) If anybody is interested in coming over and attending some trials, let me know and I will endeavour to help make the travel plans easier.

thanks all,
Karen.

[Jason Ferris]

Hi Karen

It was great meeting you at Easter. Glad you found your trip worthwhile!

All the best, Jason.

[Julie Cramond]

Karen,

It was lovely to meet you. I am sure we would all like to hear on how your tests are set up in NZ.

What did yout find were the major differences between our countries trials?

[Karen Parnell]

Hi Julie,

I guess the major differences were:

The length of the retrieves/blinds - our distance is 80-90m, however a max of 100m is allowable if conditions are not suitable for the 80-90m.

Another difference I noted was that handling. We are discouraged from handling our dogs by being penalised if we do it. Blinds are a fairly new concept to our trials and so only a handful of competitors can handle their dog onto a blind with few commands. However blind retrieves are being run in more trials so hopefully competitors will start making an effort with their handling techniques.

Our trials are timed! Usually 4 or 5 minutes to the pickup of the second bird or you are out....

Our judges have a steward to take down the points, thus enabling the judge to watch the dog the whole time. This system also allows newbies to get a better idea of how the sport is run as we generally get novice people to steward so that they can learn where points will come off. Then at the end of the trial the cards are all handed in to a FIELD TRIAL SECRETARY who tallys the card and writes the scores up on a board for everyone to view and see how well they did.

Our dogs all sit in the gallery with us Haven't seen it affect dogs yet!! Sure, the novice dogs get really keen and when its their turn they tend to 'break' and totally mess the trial up but after a few trials and more experience, they seem to tone down their excitement in the gallery - and concentrate at the front peg.

Our walkups are a LOT shorter (thank goodness, my legs are short enuff as it is!) - up to 10 paces....

There are a few more that I just cannot think of at this stage, bottom line is I think Australia has better handlers but we may have dogs that are more tenacious in getting the bird without handling.

I hope these comments are of interest....

Cheers
K.

[K Normanl]

I have always wanted to visit New Zealand!!!!