what your opinion?? how to judge handling on marks

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Postby Peter Betteridge » Mon 11 Sep 2006 5:36 pm

gareth
thanks for sharing your opinion.Like you I dont wont our judges to become robotic however my oinion is that you either handle or you mark. one or the other.if you need to handle pick up the bird as expeditiously as possible.As soon as you handle it is no longer a marking test it is a test of control.yes you will probably have to use a hunt command but as soon as the dog begins to head in the wrong direction, whistle and caste.In my opinion once you have blown the whistle you have forfeited the right to showcase your dogs natural hunting ability.
score this one for me gareth
dog A takes a great line to AOF but is pushed slightly upwind by the terrain and blasts into the AOF at 60kph as dog A draws level with the bird(3 meters upwind). tooot and handle
dog B takes a great line to the AOF but is pushed slightly upwind by the terrain.dog b checksdown in the AOF but misses the bird and runs through another 50 meters(120 meter run) At 170 meters tooot and handle in.3 more whstles to get back to AOF then a small tight hunt with one slipped whistle
who gets your vote???
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Postby Gareth Tawton » Mon 11 Sep 2006 7:59 pm

Peter for me Dog A in that scenario. However, I would have given Dog B plenty of latitude because he attempted to hunt the area. Dog A never even attempted to hunt the area and without the command may well have also ended up 50 meters deep. This is where you have to decide each case on its merit. If Dog B hunted the area for a while with no luck then had 2 or 3 commands to stay in the area he would have outscored dog a whos handler never attempted to let him hunt the area, for all we know without the command he may have ended up 200 meters beyond the bird.

You and I will have to agree to disagree I don't think just because you have handle you have forfieted any rights. We should always be looking for a dogs natural hunting ability. That is one if the core reasons we breed prue bred dogs. To maintain a level of natural hunting ability. I also don't believe if you handle on a mark the bird is no longer a marking test. The test has never changed, a mark always was and is a marking test and not a test of control. If you fail the test you as the handler have to decide how you will try to recover, that may well be by using control and once again you as the handler must decide how much control is required.

Gareth
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Postby FOM - Lainee » Thu 21 Sep 2006 6:52 am

The simple answer "It depends."

Keep in mind I come from the perspective of US trials. Here a handle is the kiss of death, where as over there a handle is sometimes unavoidable and desirable as compared to a lengthy hunt.

You have to look at ALL the factors - sometimes a handle will beat a long hunt and others a long hunt is better regardless of the handle.

Without being there and judging it is hard to say vis the internet which is better.

Lainee, Flash and Bullet
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Postby Peter Betteridge » Sun 01 Oct 2006 11:46 am

Peter for me Dog A in that scenario. However, I would have given Dog B plenty of latitude because he attempted to hunt the area. Dog A never even attempted to hunt the area and without the command may well have also ended up 50 meters deep. This is where you have to decide each case on its merit. If Dog B hunted the area for a while with no luck then had 2 or 3 commands to stay in the area he would have outscored dog a whos handler never attempted to let him hunt the area, for all we know without the command he may have ended up 200 meters beyond the bird.

thanks for sharing your opinion gareth.My take on the situation is that dog B was way out in front from the time it checked down into the area of the fall.Dog A went thru the AOF like a tornado and I can only assume that since it was stopped and handled, the handler believed that his dog was going to keep going.dog A therefore has failed the primary objective of the exercise or at least his handler has.Dog B checked down in the AOF and failed in its hunt.its handler allowed it to drift long and still have the opportunity to dig back to the AOF.I dont find 3 come in whistles to be excessive given that dogs generally hate coming in and associate it with being called in( out of trial) Being allowed to drift 50 meters long on a 120 meter mark is in my opinion to far and I would penalize dog B accordingly.
My decision would rest on how well dog b handled back to the mark
just my opinion
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How to judge handling on marks

Postby Bill Bailey » Mon 09 Oct 2006 10:26 pm

To my way of thinking a dog can only be judged for either doing a mark or doing a blind.
What are the demonstrable differences between the two.
On a mark the dog is expected to know its destination before it leaves its handler. It demonstrates this by going to the area of the fall, more quickly than it would on a blind find. It then shows its recognition of the area of the fall by substantially reducing its speed as it reaches the area of the fall. Even if it apparently pinpoints the fall it should have taken a line to put itself downwind of the fall. Of course if it sights the game, by all means pick it up on the run. If it is necessary to work the area because it has not pinpointed the fall, I would leave it to find the game by itself provided it was working downwind of the fall. As to the area of the fall to be worked, I would think a top effort would put a dog within a distance from the game of 10% of the length of the run. If a dog either pinpoints the fall or closely and succesfully worked the area of the fall it has done a satisfactory mark.
In my opinion while it is fine for a dog to get quickly to the area of the fall, it is pointless if the dog cannot find the game by itself, once it reaches the area of the fall.
If the handler gives assistance, the dog would retain his score up to that point but would not gain any further points as he would no longer be doing a marked retrieve.
There can no doubt be endless debate, options, pros and cons when things "go wrong" but at the end of the day a succesfull marked retrieve is one where the dog locates the game from its sighting of it, not as a blind with the handlers help.
We are supposed to be looking for important qualities found in "shooting dogs". I believe that as far as possible a Retrieving Champion should be a dog that has demonstrated at least some of the important qualities that distinguish a Champion Retriever in the field.
In a trial when a dog is downwind of the fall, he is usually downwind of a steward or two, a thrower, a bag of pigeons which inevitably has to be opened and scent released every time the thrower is loaded. As time goes by more birds are cast. The only real problem for the dog, if it fails to pinpoint the fall is that it has to quickly find the source of the freshest scent. Say on a 150 metre retrieve I would leave it alone if it was within a 15 metre radius of the fall.
We all know that dogs are creatures of habit and we are probably little different. So when a dog is sent to retrieve I think it is reasonable for the dog to anticipate what he is going to find. Let us assume the game he is seeking is only a few metres upwind of him when he enters the area of the fall, time after time, after time. Let us call that a situation where he finds 90% of relevant scent stream. What do you think will happen if he is concentrating more on his expectation of his handler's next command than on using his nose and finds himself in a situation where scent stream is only 10% of what he expected. Do you think he would stay and find the source or keep going looking for his next command or a 90% source of scent.
I think judges have an impossible task if they try to place a score value on every move. I subscribe to Peter Halford's opinion that if you want to win a trial you have to do it before you run your dog.
As a handler you can use obedience to just make the job easier for your dog and he then becomes more and more dependent on you. My preference was to give my dog a genuine opportunity to show what he could do, especially when things are difficult.
In high jumping terms you have either cleared the bar or you did not. The matter of tied, untied or matching shoelaces is really irrelevant.
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