Posted: Wed 10 Mar 2004 9:42 pm
Thank you all for the congratulations sent our way! We spent a day (Monday) enjoying our success, but now it's back to work. We have some issues to deal with, namely line manners and bird handling skills.
Due to my new found knowledge of Austaliian geography, I have discovered that Australia's population is only about 20 million, or so. This slighty changes my postion that I stated earlier. I don't think Australia field trials will support more than one national organizaton that sanctions events just due to the lack of numbers. Nor do I think there are enough dogs for a trainer to make a living training dogs for trials. So it does not appear that professionas will come to dominate the sport there, as they have in America. Am I correct in assuming the challenge for trialing in Australia is to keep the sport unified? If so, than the use of the collar could be something that could challenge unification, and possibley participaton in the sport. If you buy into the belief that collar trained dogs perfrom better, on the whole, than non-collar trained dogs, then that would make for a competitive imbalance. What complicates the issue further is that apparently some states allow collar training, while others do not. If collar trained dogs come to dominate the sport in Australia, then trainers in non-collar states would have to defy the law, develope a separte non-collar organization, compete with not much hoping of winning, or find another hobby.
It will be interesting to see how this developes over the years. I've heard that sometime this summer there will be a competition between the best field trial dogs from the US, Canada, and the UK. This will be interesting because I don't think they allow collars in the UK.
Brian
Due to my new found knowledge of Austaliian geography, I have discovered that Australia's population is only about 20 million, or so. This slighty changes my postion that I stated earlier. I don't think Australia field trials will support more than one national organizaton that sanctions events just due to the lack of numbers. Nor do I think there are enough dogs for a trainer to make a living training dogs for trials. So it does not appear that professionas will come to dominate the sport there, as they have in America. Am I correct in assuming the challenge for trialing in Australia is to keep the sport unified? If so, than the use of the collar could be something that could challenge unification, and possibley participaton in the sport. If you buy into the belief that collar trained dogs perfrom better, on the whole, than non-collar trained dogs, then that would make for a competitive imbalance. What complicates the issue further is that apparently some states allow collar training, while others do not. If collar trained dogs come to dominate the sport in Australia, then trainers in non-collar states would have to defy the law, develope a separte non-collar organization, compete with not much hoping of winning, or find another hobby.
It will be interesting to see how this developes over the years. I've heard that sometime this summer there will be a competition between the best field trial dogs from the US, Canada, and the UK. This will be interesting because I don't think they allow collars in the UK.
Brian