g a l o d y

Well, I left early.  In fact, I think it’s the only test I’ve ever withdrawn from.  And now I’m sitting here re-thinking thoughts I’ve had before:  Why am I competing in gundog work?  Why do I enter these things when, by everyone’s accounts, they are such flawed forms of assessment?  What about some other dog sport, like working trials?  And so on.

But wait, I will back up…

So my first test was Novice Hunting, with Grey.  The area was very small, brambly, with paths criss-crossing it.  It was hard to get the dog off the paths because the brambly stuff wasn’t pleasant, yet dogs just looked pants if they pootled along on the path.  I was not sure how to approach this, but I struck out across the brambles to encourage Grey off the paths.  It was a very small area and I couldn’t believe 36 dogs were going to hunt this one patch.  By the time it had finished, I felt the dogs were just getting into their stride.  Anyway, we were sort of making a possibly reasonable job of it, when Grey found a dead rabbit carcass.  Well, it was more of a dead rabbit leg with some fur attached to it.

At which point my heart sank; she cantered back towards me with it, proudly prancing about.  She knows I don’t want her to retrieve these rotting things to me.  I told her to ‘Leave’ it, but not in a very authoritative voice, as I was favouring my alternative plan of walking on very rapidly so she abandons it, in order to keep up with me.  At this point, half the rabbit fell off and Grey ran on with only the skull being sickeningly crunched in her mouth.  I thought -well, she can run on and crunch the skull whilst she runs, and when she’s finished it, the rest of the thing will be far back.

After a few metres, Grey spat out the skull and I said ‘Leave’ in my much more authoritative voice (!).  Grey responded to this and chose to leave the skull and we hunted on.  At one point, she looked like she was heading back for it, but I said ‘Leave’ again and she veered away.  Shot and sit to shot were fine.  But I knew that the dead rabbit debacle had lost us points.  I mused on the fact that, had we been the 25th dog to run, it’s unlikely the dead rabbit would still be around causing trouble, and that this is yet another example of a non-equal test for some dogs.

I then popped Grey back in the car and collected Slate.  I got very lost attempting to find Open.  It was hot, Slate was hot, I was thirsty.  It was getting miserable.  Slate and I did a mini-tour of Sussex, by the time I found Open Hunting.  The wait here was very long.  I didn’t look at my watch, but it was perhaps an hour?

Whilst waiting, a conversation, which I observed and didn’t participate in, started up about working tests.  One competitor announced that this would be his last test because they are so corrupt.  There were stories of someone (who shall remain nameless) practising tests at a working test the previous week, on the actual test ground, beforehand and being caught doing so.  Despite being reported, this individual was allowed to gain an award.  It was felt that there is very much an ‘in-group’, who both test and judge, and who award each other prizes.  If you report anything as being unfair, you are ‘blacklisted’ and it doesn’t count in your favour or make things any better for you.

Whether these details are true or not, I’ve no idea.  But we all pass judgement on people without even being aware of it.  I know that, when I approach a judge with a SRHP, deep down they don’t believe that the dog is going to be any good.  Grey would have to be extra-good to counter that prejudice.  (Prejudice = pre-judging.)  Same goes for breeds like a Spinone or a Bracco.  I’m trying to say that prejudice happens, whether conscious and malicious or not.  That doesn’t make it any more acceptable.  There can be measures put in place to prevent it, but until it is considered a problem, they won’t be.

As for Open Hunting:  Conditions were near perfect – the sun went in, the wind picked up, and the field was an open field of long dry grass.  Slate, for some reason, was in a very strange stalky-stalky mood.  Meaning that only very rarely did she break into a run.  Most of the time she stalked about, as if she were roading in for a point.  She did actually firm up on point shortly after I let her off.  It looked very nice, but I didn’t think there was much chance of any game being in this giant field after many dogs had hunted it.  Sure enough, there was nothing there.  End result:  I ended up doing a hell of a lot of zig-zagging myself and it probably looked cack.  Especially as we were preceded by a very stylish GSP who quartered perfectly whilst we all walked up the middle of the field.  I was so embarrassed, I even apologised to the judge.

We then did the Open Split retrieve.  This was in an open grass field.  There was a dummy thrown on the right, followed by a shot and a blind far off on the left.  It was a very long distance, for a blind, and the blind had to be retrieved first.  Slate set out well, heading out for the blind and ignoring the seen.  However, she then reached a certain distance and it was hard to get her back further.  She swung around to the right, towards the seen, and I stopped her and cast her left.  The first cast she got wrong, and continued right, so I stopped her again and this time she took the left.  After that, it was just about pushing her back.  With a lot of Backs, she got into the area and spent some time hunting for the dummy.  (We ran last, out of a good many dogs, so the whole area was littered with dummy scent.)  After that, I sent her for the Seen.  She got into the area well, and again took a long time hunting.  The judge told me that I should be more stationery when I handle.  (I moved myself so that my ‘Back’ would really be a Back, and not an angle-back.)  But apart from that, he said it was good – it was a tough test.  However, it was easy to handle Slate because the field was an open field and she could see me to take casts, plus there was no terrain or obstacles taking her off line and affecting casts.

By now, it was lunch time.  I kept an eye out for the conformation assessment which was supposed to take place during lunch, because I wanted to enter Grey.  As SRHPs can only be entered in Import classes at shows, these conformation assessments at working tests are (I think) important opportunities to get someone’s opinion on your dog.  However, the conformation assessment didn’t happen.  No one seemed to know who was doing it or when it would be, and it just never was.

Some people in Novice had done no tests by lunch time because they were still waiting for hunting to finish (36 in Novice – why are so many entries accepted?).

After lunch I took Grey to the Novice Split retrieve.  As typical for working tests, the Novice Split was actually harder than the Open.  The principle was the same:  Dummy thrower on the right throwing the seen, but blind on the left to be retrieved first.  However, the terrain was essentially that of multiple mounds of earth, a bit like a BMX bike track – very hilly.  These mounds were covered by trees, obscuring casts.  There was a ditch with water in it, which ran along the edge of the moundy area, then there was a thick hedge and on the other side of this hedge was a small clearing (allegedly – not that you could see it, but were told that).

The dummy thrower was standing behind the thick hedge, throwing the Seen dummy into a small clearing, also on the far side of the hedge.  So it wasn’t really a Seen, because you couldn’t see it, but you could see the thrower and hear the slap slap of the dummy!  The Blind dummy was positioned in such a way that it was impossible to line the dog straight to it, because several trees and hillocks were slap bang in the middle of the line the dog would need to take.  You couldn’t even see the blind dummy, unless you looked through specific trees in a specific way.

Well, Grey did her best.  We are still working on holding lines even on flat terrain, and there’s no way I could expect her to hold them with all these obstacles and ‘features’ sucking her every which way.  She sat to every sit whistle, and although she was sticky on a few casts, she got the general gist of most of them and made an effort to respond in the way she thought I wanted.  That’s all I can ask of her.  I can’t quite explain the way in which the hills sucked the dog this way and that, combined with the impossibility of seeing the dog due to trees and hills, in order to be able to handle.    She did, after a hell of a lot of handling, eventually get the blind dummy.  She also saw there was a PILE of blind dummies there!  What role does a pile of dummies on the ground have, in a working test??

Unfortunately, when sent for the seen, the judge started to give me ‘advice’.  It was well-meaning advice, telling me that there was an entry-way through to the seen along the bank (so implicitly I should let my dog get sucked away from the seen some distance).  However, when I followed his ‘advice’, Grey ended up out of my sight (so unhandle-able) and heading straight back for the PILE of dummies she had seen before.  By the time I had realised what was happening, and given my recall whistle to stop her picking another dummy, she had already picked one and was on her way back with it.

I then sent her again for the Seen, and this time I did what I would have done last time, left to my own devices, and pushed her back into the hedge with a lot of Backs, then a Lost when out of sight.

Once I had finished, the judge said ‘I will be marking you down for that second dummy picked from the pile’.

Well…  Cheers.  I’m not sure a pile of dummies on the ground has any place in a working test, for starters.  Secondly, I completed the task I was told about at the start of the test, which was to send my dog for the Blind first – not the Seen.  There was no further instruction given to me about how to treat the rest of the pile of blind dummies, which the dog is sure to clock when retrieving the first one!  Birds do not generally fall in piles!  Of course we can argue that I should be able to control my dog enough to prevent her getting anything unwanted.  However, that brings me onto…  Thirdly, the judge interfered in my test and gave me ‘advice’ which led my dog to be in the position of picking the wrong dummy.  Fourthly, this test was way too hard for Novice.  It was harder than the Split in Open, due to the terrain and cover and obstacles.  I have two dogs.  I enter one in Novice because that is the best class for her.  What sense does it make, for Novice to be harder than Open??

At this point in the day, I am exhausted from walking backwards and forwards.  The dogs have both screwed up their hunting.  I know, from this, that we won’t be in the awards.  The day is going very slowly and I can tell everyone is going to be there into the evening.  And I’m so miffed by this Novice test.  I think to myself that I don’t really enjoy working tests much.  And I remember just why I jacked all this in a few years ago.

And so I withdraw.  And come home.

And now I need to reassess a few things, because I’m really not enjoying gundog work with our dogs in the UK.