UPLAND KENNEL

11463 Hwy 16

Savage, MT 59262

(406) 798-3457

upland@midrivers.com

                  No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

           I’ve been in mental turmoil the last 24 hours.  This chapter is about me.  It will give you insight into who I am, what I think is important about bird dogs and why I will never be the greatest handler nor win a national title with any dog.  I will try to make the chapter as brief as possible so as not to overindulge my ineptitude.  My only defense for what I’m about to write is that I honestly believe the field trial game is more important than any individual participating in the game.

           The story of Lefty, and more to the point the story of me, starts with an incident which occurred during his Saturday run.  He had a good run in the sense that he covered the field in his usual impeccable fashion.  He found three birds and was rewarded with three retrieves.  It wasn’t enough to be close to winning the trial, but I was happy with him except for one element.  He has decided to creep on point.  Not a step or two but whatever distance there exists between his first contact of scent and a distance to within six feet of the bird.  What adds to the problem is, when he first contacts scent he strikes point then starts to move.  If, when he first contacted scent he chose to wait and instead moved in closer before the initial point this characteristic would be punished much less severely.  The rules say that movement after the point is creeping and shall be punished severely but movement before the dog strikes point is called ‘roading’ and shall receive only minor consideration.  I’ve tried every conceivable training method of ridding him of this flaw because I can honestly say it’s his only one as a field trial dog.  Without it he would be a national champion contender.

           On Lefty’s last point he again displayed this flaw.  The point was a good 200 yards from me when it happened, but the judge and I had a clear view of his behavior.  He hit point then crept a good 20 steps until he was a few feet from the bird then locked up a second time.  As there was only a minute or two left in the brace and this was his third find with the leader for the day having already posted six finds and retrieves, I saw no reason to hurry to the point.  Consequently, it took me a good two minutes to reach the dog and bird.  I flushed the bird, shot it and Lefty made the retrieve.  This is where the story begins.

           The judges this day were the same two who were scheduled to judge the next.  I’ll mention their names, Dean Goodall and Jean Steinner, because I respect each of them, don’t think they did anything wrong, and in fact admire them for how the story plays out. I think in the very near future they will be well seasoned and top notch judges.  The only thing keeping them from being top notch at this time is lack of experience and obviously that can only come with time.

At the time of Lefty’s find, Dean was my judge.  After the bird was dispatched and the brace had ended he came over to me and asked me a question.  He did this because I am among the most senior judges around this area, I have been a judging instructor for some time and in fact had conducted the judging seminars through which both Dean and Jean received their respective judging certificates.  Dean said to me in effect; Chris I’ve already given you your final scores but let me ask you a question.  How do you quantify a situation like this, one where the dog displays an above average attribute by holding point for such an extended period of time but by the same token displays a negative attribute of creeping?  Then he added; I’d like to talk with you about this after the trial is over.

           Let’s pause a minute and think about this.  Before you read further look away from the book and see if you can piece together the most innocently sprung trap set forth by Dean.  I recognized the trap instantly.  I knew exactly where it would lead and decided right there in the field he would not lure me into this corner any further.  At least that was my thinking at the moment.  The day progressed, the trial ended and by a fluke coincidence I was sitting alone right where Dean was exiting the field after the last brace.  He again approached me and reiterated his question from earlier in the day.

OK, here is the trap for those of you who haven’t figured it out yet.  Before I explain the trap I need to tell you a detail.  I had gone to the scoreboard and seen that Dean had given me a score of 81 on the find in question.  I thought he scored too high.  Then I looked at all the scores and noticed they were all close knit and high in nature.  This is a common fault with inexperienced judges.  They don’t want to be perceived as hard-asses nor do they honestly want to offend anyone’s dogs by giving low marks.  But the problem with this attitude is the core of NSTRA’s weakness.  Some outsiders perceive our system as a strictly production-oriented field trial, a meat hunters trial at best and at times when the scoreboard looks as it did this day those critics are correct.  If the judge is going to take all work, the best to the worst, and make the difference between the two a factor of 10%, then we aren’t rewarding the dog with impeccable manners and high style.  We aren’t giving a high styled dog a chance of overcoming the dog that finds one more bird but is ill-mannered.

           So, the trap goes like this: if I answer Dean’s question the way it needs to be answered I’m setting myself up for possibly losing a chance to win tomorrow’s trial by giving this judge the idea that he should have more severely punished Lefty’s creeping.  This likely would not be much of an issue but I knew with full knowledge and forethought that it could certainly become a determining factor the next day.  I also knew the monster I might be unleashing in that the judges, if they made an adjustment in their approach, could easily overreact in their scoring.  They may easily take me too literally.  This would be something they would put finer adjustments on in time but for tomorrow I knew it would be human nature for two intelligent people as were these judges to take the comments of a senior judge they both like and respect straight to heart.  Anyway, I told Dean, “Look, ask me this question tomorrow after the trial and I will happily answer your question in detail”.

If I had an ounce of sense in my brain I would have zipped my mouth shut and ended the conversation.  But, Dean pressed and pressed because he seriously wanted an answer before the next day’s trial.  As I thought about it my loyalty to the NSTRA started to come to the surface.  I realized this was a perfect opportunity to take two judges, both people who had committed to the organization and would be judges for years to come, and make them better judges plus get them thinking about this flaw in our organization, this idea of being considered meat hunters, and have it addressed right then and there.  The setup was perfect.  It was a minor trial so there wouldn’t be a lot of handlers looking over the judges’ shoulders scrutinizing their actions, both judges would have the opportunity to see where they had been as judges that day and what they wanted to do the next and make the adjustments necessary.  I relented and told Dean the problem.  I told him he and Jean needed to use more of the scoring scale and instead of judging the worst work with a 78 and the best work a 90 they needed to think in terms of a range of 40 to 98 as appropriate scoring.  They needed to be more critical of indiscretions and they needed to heap more praise on excellent work.

           There were two problems with providing them with this information at that time.  I knew that if they elected to take my advice they would look at indiscretions as black and white.  They would see a flaw and jump on it.  In time a judge looks deeply at the work, he considers the weather conditions, the characteristics of the field conditions, the breed of dog displaying the flaw as the punishment can vary depending on what breed of dog is displaying it, and many other variables.  Instead I knew they would come out the next day loaded for bear, they would rip at any factor and see it as one thing; a flaw they could use to lower scores.

The other problem I knew I was letting myself in for was that the human nature of judging would come into play.  I honestly think any judge from any field trial organization will say the same thing about their respective formats when I tell you judges are very reluctant to give high scores early in the day because they feel it doesn’t give them anywhere to go if they see good work later.  If they start too high in the beginning they can be trapped into thinking high all day.  I was sure Dean and Jean would take this approach.

I also knew that along with this ‘start low’ thinking came the obvious flipside of the coin by thinking later in the day; ‘I’ve seen so many flaws today I wish something good would come along’.  Then a fairly good piece of dog work presents itself and the judge overacts in the other direction giving it an artificially high score.  This is especially true when a judge works two consecutive days.  They get tired, they want to get done, and because they are so weary of being critical they excessively reward something that perhaps was a little above average work at best.  To top all this off, I knew when I answered Dean’s question that Lefty would run in the first brace on Sunday, absolutely the worst time for a dog to run under judges that were being overly sensitive to any indiscretion.  I made the decision that the health of the NSTRA was more important than my immediate goals.

The next morning I was braced with one of the top dogs in the Mid-north Region handled by one of the very best handlers anywhere, Owen Johnson and his English setter Magic.  I had thought about this the previous evening and felt deep down that likely Lefty and Magic would in some sense split the field and cancel each other out.  But, this was Sunday and I’ve told you numerous times about the way Lefty performs on Sundays.  He simply will not be denied.  Come Sunday morning he launched off that line like he was shot out of a cannon.  He found one bird, then another and another taking only a break to rest while he honored the one point Magic had that morning.  When we came off the field Lefty had five finds and five retrieves plus the back.  It had rained hard the night before and I can honestly say there was not an extra bird from the previous day left alive in the field.  So, of the six birds planted (they plant one extra each trial for the first brace) we had found between the two dogs all of them with Lefty bagging five of the six.  Lefty had still displayed his creeping problem on all five birds.

We also had retrieving issues, not that he had any problems retrieving but rather that the birds, because everything was sopping wet, were not all flying well.  On Lefty’s first find the bird did not fly at all so I asked the judge if I could throw the bird for a retrieve and he granted this request.  On the second find I needed to call ‘safety’ because the bird flew but in a dangerous area to shoot.

On his third find a problem came up.  As Lefty went on point so did Magic with a rather short distance between the two dogs.  I could see from my location relative to Owen’s I would get to my dog first.  I hurried the work hoping to get a back of Magic’s point.  When I flushed the bird for a retrieve it only flew a few feet.  I remember distinctly thinking; I should call ‘safety’ or again ask to throw the bird for a retrieve.  But, Lefty was on the bird so quick there was no time to call safety and if I took the time to throw the bird for a retrieve I likely would not have time to get in position to get the back.  So I took what I had and moved on getting the honor of point.

Lefty had later finds which resulted in another safety and on the last bird, a good flyer, a clean solid retrieve.  Even before I left the field I knew the judges would kill me on the quality of work.  I came over to Jean who was judging me on the second half of the run and told her, “Jean, I know you guys are going to make adjustments from yesterday and I know Lefty’s displayed some flaws, but remember the mark of an excellent judge is consistency.  What you judge to be a flaw this brace has to be a flaw throughout the day.”  I told her this knowing I was going to be penalized for Lefty’s creeping.

When I looked at the scores I couldn’t help but be shocked, not by the find scores but by the retrieves as well.  Then it occurred to me what was going on, something I had already alluded to but when I first saw the score sheet had let slip my mind.  They were not considering variables.  They were indeed looking at the performance in black and white.  That is, it was a flaw or not a flaw, no ifs ands or buts.  For the first retrieve, the one I had thrown the bird I received a score of 71.  For the retrieve which was short and I hadn’t thrown the bird so I could try to secure the back of Magic I received a 66 and for the last retrieve an 84.  The other two retrieves had been safeties which would be given a score of the average of the other three.  The problem with the judges’ scoring was they saw the short retrieves as a flawed retrieve.  However, in this case the flaw was not the fault of the dog but rather the condition of the birds, a condition which precluded their flying.  This should not be held against the dog.  In our organization an average retrieve is considered a 75.  That is set forth in the rulebook.  So, giving a dog a score of 66 and 71 seems unfair when indeed the fault was not from the dog.  I knew this would happen, I knew it, I knew it, I knew it and yet I set myself up anyway.  At this point in time I honestly believed I was too stupid to live.

I’m sure you can guess what happened.  I received a score of 924 for a five find, five retrieve and honor of back.  I’ve always felt the bench mark for good work on a five/five brace was if you broke a score of 1000.  Bear in mind this is without the back.  Later in the day a very worthy dog belonging to a very worthy handler, Agnes the Brit handled and owned by Mike Ryan, ran.  It was against Josie with me handling.  Mike Ryan handled Agnes to a four find four retrieve and an honor of point run.  She had very good work and was given a total score of 928.  I have never before been beaten by a lesser amount of bird work.  I have seen it happen but when it does it has always been by half a bird.  What I mean is, one dog may outscore another with a four find/three retrieve score versus a four find/four retrieve.  I have never seen or heard of a dog being beaten by a full bird.  It happened here, it happened to me and I made it happen myself.  The only person to blame is me.  I created a monster by answering Dean’s Saturday question and I paid the price ten times over.  While the scores Lefty received for his finds were justified, I didn’t think enough about the periphery damage I may suffer by the judges taking a hard line without having the prior experience to consider that conditions can be a mitigating factor and need to be considered in order to come to a qualified final score for any single piece of work.  If Lefty had been given the consideration that the birds, not the dog, were flawed in those two retrieves, he would have been given scores closer to what NSTRA considers average.  This would have raised not only the point total for those two retrieves but would have also raised the points given as an average of the scores for the two safeties and Lefty would have had his win.

I hope this chapter gives you some insight into advanced understanding of field trials, how intricate they can be, how heart soaring and heart wrenching an experience they are.  It has been a long time since I’ve been as affected by a field trial occurrence as I have from this one.  I know I will recover but I’m not sure how long it will take.