by 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.