Yuku free message boards

Bill, of course the contention with US field trials is "that dog don't hunt"--literally and figuratively, but that's wide of the mark (literally and figuratively). In actuality, their breeding pales next to the potential for becoming working gundogs as they are trained up. "Becoming" may never translate to "became" but.that is the owner's prerogative. Which is to say even if a FT retriever never put paw in a hide in its life, it nevertheless has had inculcated every facet necessary to become the finest of fowling dogs.

The difference as I've noted before is that US trial dogs reside on a pro trainer's truck about 23 of 24 hours a day, so when they do get the rare window of opportunity to work, whether in training or a trial, they often are "amped up" to the gills. The unfortunate traits accompanying this attitude often carries over to a hide--and a fidgety, antic, mouthy (as in mutilating) dog is no fun for a fowler to have at his side. (The potential for mouthiness needs to be got out of the way early, so mine get a whole charcuterie to work with


Also, it's worth noting that Labs (and other retrievers) are worked as flushing (and alas some as a semblance of pointing) dogs in the US, so in that setting their exuberance afield could be valued. Labs are in fact the most used (and apparently useful) dog in the American "bread basket" where wild pheasants and partridges are most populous.

The HPR thing you allude to seems a bit fresh, unfair demands on a youngster. I don't know what age it's expected of them, but less than two years old strikes me as unreasonable. But the flip side is what you get in NAVHDA, the US version of HPR trials, where dogs are tested at heeling *on lead* and over a course of only about 25 meters. Skimpy stuff, as can be other elements of NAVHDA's testing system, namely the pointing of planted birds and some skewed judgment for assessing a dog's gamefinding abilities. Say a ranging dog "blows through" a bird field and only points a single bird whereas a "plodder" or slower HPR breed may work it methodically and come up with a dozen finds in the same area--and gets judged on every one where the forerunner only was scored (and quite possibly higher) for the single find.

MG