Held at the Sussex Game Farm, Nr Petworth
On Saturday 12th May 2012
As usual, Hampshire held the Special Puppy in the morning and the Novice in the afternoon. The beauty of being on such good land by kind invitation of G. Crouch Esq. is that there is enough variety of terrain for the Puppy Tests to be set in completely different places to the Novice Tests. This involves a lot of extra work extra work for the organisers and helpers and those who set the Tests.
I cannot tell you about the Puppy Tests as I was not there – maybe someone who competed would like to tell us what the Tests were like.
Puppy and Novice both had 4 tests under 4 different judges. The Novice Tests are described below.
Test 1 was a 4 dog walk up. This was held in a field of long grass. One mark, a short distance ahead, for each dog. Its amazing how much trouble the long grass caused. A lot of dogs failed to mark the fall of the dummy precisely with most going too far. The dummy was very difficult to locate in the long grass, so even if the handler had marked the spot well the dogs still had a bit of hunting to do.
Test 2 was a mark in the water. The dogs had to cross one bit of water, go over a bit of land and then retrieve the dummy from the second bit of water. Sounds quite simple doesn’t it but in effect there were 2 ‘barriers’ to get past. The first barrier was at the entry into the water at a point where it was on a straight line to the dummy. There was a fallen branch half on the bank and half in the water. This was a big deterrent and the majority of dogs went to the right or left looking for a better way in. The second barrier was getting back on land, by which time it was understandable that a lot of dogs had lost their impetus and forgotten their objective.
Test 3 was a blind – with a bit of a twist. Standing on a track in the woods with the judge. 20 yards ahead the track forked left and right. The helper stood a few yards in half way between the right and left fork and fired a starting pistol. The Blind was some 200 yards further up the left hand track. I don’t know if it was the echo from the gunshot or the natural lie of the land but a lot of dogs were drawn down the right hand track and needed to be handled back and up to the dummy.
Test 4 was another mark across water onto the bank opposite. There was a bit of heelwork to start. The swim across and out the other side was plain sailing but ‘finding’ the dummy on the bank caused some problems. The scent was not good that day.
The Novice ended with a 4 dog run off, which was a bit of heelwork and a mark in the long grass field. Again, finding the dummy in such long grass proved difficult but the ultimate winner kept his mark very well and was straight out and straight back.
So well done Steve Rolfe and Badger !
On Saturday 12th May 2012
As usual, Hampshire held the Special Puppy in the morning and the Novice in the afternoon. The beauty of being on such good land by kind invitation of G. Crouch Esq. is that there is enough variety of terrain for the Puppy Tests to be set in completely different places to the Novice Tests. This involves a lot of extra work extra work for the organisers and helpers and those who set the Tests.
I cannot tell you about the Puppy Tests as I was not there – maybe someone who competed would like to tell us what the Tests were like.
Puppy and Novice both had 4 tests under 4 different judges. The Novice Tests are described below.
Test 1 was a 4 dog walk up. This was held in a field of long grass. One mark, a short distance ahead, for each dog. Its amazing how much trouble the long grass caused. A lot of dogs failed to mark the fall of the dummy precisely with most going too far. The dummy was very difficult to locate in the long grass, so even if the handler had marked the spot well the dogs still had a bit of hunting to do.
Test 2 was a mark in the water. The dogs had to cross one bit of water, go over a bit of land and then retrieve the dummy from the second bit of water. Sounds quite simple doesn’t it but in effect there were 2 ‘barriers’ to get past. The first barrier was at the entry into the water at a point where it was on a straight line to the dummy. There was a fallen branch half on the bank and half in the water. This was a big deterrent and the majority of dogs went to the right or left looking for a better way in. The second barrier was getting back on land, by which time it was understandable that a lot of dogs had lost their impetus and forgotten their objective.
Test 3 was a blind – with a bit of a twist. Standing on a track in the woods with the judge. 20 yards ahead the track forked left and right. The helper stood a few yards in half way between the right and left fork and fired a starting pistol. The Blind was some 200 yards further up the left hand track. I don’t know if it was the echo from the gunshot or the natural lie of the land but a lot of dogs were drawn down the right hand track and needed to be handled back and up to the dummy.
Test 4 was another mark across water onto the bank opposite. There was a bit of heelwork to start. The swim across and out the other side was plain sailing but ‘finding’ the dummy on the bank caused some problems. The scent was not good that day.
The Novice ended with a 4 dog run off, which was a bit of heelwork and a mark in the long grass field. Again, finding the dummy in such long grass proved difficult but the ultimate winner kept his mark very well and was straight out and straight back.
So well done Steve Rolfe and Badger !
RSS Feed
