Yesterday's Working Test.

[MC]

Hi Guys,

 

I thought I would post to let you all know about mine and Merlin's second ever working test. This one was organised by one of the member's of our training club to raise funds for Cancer Research as she lost her husband to Cancer about 18 months ago.

 

We were drawn as no. 7 so there wasn't too much hanging about to start with as this only winds Merlin up as he hears the shots and wants to retrieve everything. When it was our turn we walked up and shook the judges hand. Merlin sat beside me.

 

I cast him off and he went into possibly the best hunting pattern I have seen him do, working the cover to the left and right. When he got a little too far ahead a couple of pips and he was back in line, the shot was fired which he sat to and watched the dummy and marked it well. Unfortunately it landed right in a large patch of stinging nettles which he circled for a few times before leaping in and coming back straight to hand with the dummy.

 

On his blind retrieve he was cast off, encouraged all the way and when I called "lost there" he stopped and picked the dummy straight away.

 

The water reteive was next, the shot was fired and the dummy thrown, when he was sent he went straight to the dummy and picked it up, he then wouldn't come out of the water. Little *******. he drowned the dummy well and truly and was eventually encouraged out of the water. Both judges had smiles on their faces but I had lost too many points by then.

 

On our second hunting run under the other judge every went really well, up until the other side had their retrieve first and Merlin had to sit and wait. He started whining and getting fidgetty. The judge told me to call him back to me but this didn't stop him, when he was cast off again he went straight to where the other sides dummy had landed and searched for it before returning to me and started hunting again. His retreive went well.

 

All in all the day went really well and the main thing was we raised about £700 for Cancer research, and although I never went out to win, (it was another training session for us) if he hadn'tmade a noise we would have came alot higher up the order than we did.

 

If there is any spaniel judges reading this could they explain how the scoring system works as the dogs that I thought went well did feature in the results.

 

And to top off a really good day just as we were fininshing off with the open stake dogs, a hunt came through with a pack of bloodhounds. A real sight and sound to enjoy.

 

Thanks

 

Martin and Merlin

[BTMS]

Good on both of you

 

It is a fine dog you have there.

 

Brian

[pavman]

hi Martin

 

well done mate, like me sounds like your having fun,

 

as I understand it you have a max of 20 points per retrieve, you start to lose points if you have to handle the dog on a seen mark, and when you handle the dog more than 3 times on a blind,

 

you need to keep a dog in the area on a retrieve and a judge will let it work away as long as its in the right place, if it drifts off a 25 yard circle (ish) they will not give you as long, and you will be asked to call your dog in, if you do, you get no points and that’s you out the picture

 

The dog should heel well (never outside arms length) stop on the whistle (first time) etc etc

 

what they do is look to knock marks off to sort the order out, if dog A makes a retrieve and stopped when commanded and dog B did the same but had to be whistled up twice to stop it makes sense that dog A is the better so should have a higher mark, it may only be a point or so (under kennel club rules) but over a few marks its a lot.

 

As I have found you have to nail the basics at all times, a good retriever is fine in the field with sloppy heel or whistle work as you just want to find game, but its no good in a test!

 

good luck

[MC]

From what I understand they give marks out of 50 for hunting (quartering the ground), out of 10 for the seen and blind retreives and also 10 for the water retreives, so yesterday we had a possible score of 140.

 

I do not know what we scored as I didn't see the score sheet, I will try and find out.

 

The reason for asking about the judging is that one judge made a comment to me about a particular dogs hunting and how poor it was, yet it came second, it also meesed around a lot on both it's seen retreives.

 

The one thing that Merlin has always been good at is marking the fall. Hence why he went straight to where the other dummy had dropped, even though it had already been retrieved.

 

Still I enjoyed it but I am not sure if I could get seriously involved in working tests, I want a dog for shooting. But it is a good training arena.

 

Brian,

 

Thanks for that, Merlin said you're not too bad either

[lurcherboy]

Well done Martin & Merlin

 

 

 

LB

[Mungler]

Get a brown envelope ready for the Judges next time - I am sure that is part of the scoring system.

 

Well done.

 

Can he make / retrieve a cup of tea yet?

[MC]

I am sure you are right Andy, Either that or buy the next puppy from one of them. As they wouldn't want one of their dogs to look bad.

 

He can't make tea yet, but he does like drinking it. I have to be careful where I put a cup down.