Is something like this one:
He’s got good legs and athletic body along with lots of drive, style, and biddability.
Yes, he wants to bank run, but unless you’re competing or testing, who really cares? It actually takes some intelligence to figure out the quickest and most efficient way back to the handler. I don’t see the utility in a line-running savant. (I think this fellow agrees.)
I like a dog that can take direction, but I also want a dog with good instincts and a good nose. I don’t live in good waterfowl country. I live where there are game birds that live in heavy cover and fall in heavy cover. I need a dog that can find the blasted things. I know I can’t air-scent a bird the way a good golden can.
My critique of field trials and hunting tests for retrievers is this: they’ve become esoteric. They are not grounded in efficient gun dog work nor are the based on natural ability.
They once were, but that was 100 years ago in Britain, when everyone ran flat-coats.
“My critique of field trials and hunting tests for retrievers is this: they’ve become esoteric. They are not grounded in efficient gun dog work nor are the based on natural ability.”
Ah, Scottie, you probably already know I’m going to argue a little bit… and it’s JMHO…
It’s really, really easy to say that field trials are esoteric and not based on natural ability.
Even if that’s true of field trials, I’m not so sure that’s true for hunt tests at all. I’ve seen some hunt tests, at every level, that are VERY hunty and really do test a dog’s natural marking ability, perseverence, and gamefinding. (I’ve seen a few that were mini-field trials, but mostly not.)
And then… you know which dogs just SMACK the hunty hunt tests? Really make you say, “Wow, what a dog!”?
You guessed it… the all-age competitive field trial dog that’s entered for some reason. (Maybe it’s a bitch someone wants to breed, and she’s qualified all-age but she’s short of her FC so the owner is putting an MH on her; or it’s an FC that the owner is running instead of the pro handler, or an FC that someone wants to take to the master national.)
It’s easy to look at the white coats and pooh-pooh the field trial as an esoteric and elitist game. And it is–absolutely.
But I’m not so sure it’s totally irrelevant in terms of evaluating gundog work and natural ability.
I think it’s more complicated than that.
I can tell you that I don’t want a dog running in lines all the time. I want it thinking and smelling– especially air scenting. I want quartering behavior. I’ve yet to see a Lab actually quarter in the same way as the “setter-retrievers,” and that’s probably why I’ll usually bypass them.
I think the Brits have it figured out. I really do.
After all, they invented these dogs. I don’t see how we have ever improved on anything in terms of dogs in this country.
The running dogs in lines thing is very esoteric. No one in their right mind wants a dog running in a straight line. After all, we’ve been known to wound birds (lots of them, in fact), and once they fall, they tend to run. I want a dog that when sent for a runner, gets on his trail immediately.
I don’t know how you’d handle a retriever to a runner.
Of course, I’m dealing more with ruffed grouse and phezes. I live in an almost waterfowl free zone, and those that do exist are very hard to cook and very beautiful to look at.
“I don’t know how you’d handle a retriever to a runner.”
You don’t. The dog gets to the fall, finds no bird, and follows the trail. Some air scent, some trail, the good ones do whatever works in the moment.
The dog that can’t do that on a flyer fails the test.
For better or worse (and there are pros and cons to it), my Lab is even more in these games for the birds than for the retrieving–he’ll follow a cripple with confidence. And has had no trouble with cripples in tests or training… even when I didn’t trust him and tried to handle him back to the fall… (whoops)
A test last year (though I was in a different flight and did not take that test) simulated a cripple on water–when the dog was watching the second and third birds fall, the first bird of the triple was pulled on a string into rushes 25 yards beyond and to the left of the fall. The mark was scored to the area; perserverence was scored on the hunt. A perfectly legitimate test, and most of the dogs did well.
Most goldens air scent. And when one starts do it, it will begin to quarter in wide casts. I’m sure your flat-coat does it. I’ve yet to see a Lab do this. They quarter with shorter casts.
I still don’t think these trials or the tests are good measures of “meat dogs.” A bank runner is an asset if you’re shooting ducks in very cold water. If he won’t run the bank and stays in the water, he’ll either freeze to death or get out of the water before he does and be done for the day.
I really don’t see the merit of titles– unless they are also backed up with actual work. The sad thing is we’ve allowed even these things to become attached to our egos, and then we have to compete. The truth is there are lots of good, even excellent, gundogs out there that wouldn’t make a trial or test dog.
To me there is a difference between a trial or test dog and meat dog, and I don’t assume that a meat dog is inferior.
“… and I don’t assume that a meat dog is inferior.”
Oh, I don’t either. Seriously. And I’ll probably do a British-style trial someday for the experience and comparison’s sake. But I do enjoy playing the game–maybe it’s a bit of ego, but mostly I really love dog training and then seeing how well the training’s paid off. There just aren’t a whole lot of British trials around, and not a whole lot of folks train that way, so it’s not a priority.
FWIW, the folks I know who hunt as well as test or trial–and there are a handful–either have dogs that know the difference, and have the experience or discretion to do what they have to do given the venue they’re in and simply don’t confuse them, or the handler “brushes them up” at the end of duck season and they’re none the worse for wear.
I’ve heard of people who don’t hunt their dogs because they don’t want to “ruin” them, but I have yet to meet one. Maybe I’m not hanging out with the highest-class crowd (wouldn’t be the first time)–I’ll have to look into that. ;)
One of my projects for the summer is to learn how to shoot half-way decently so I can make my big dog happy hunting. He’s never going to have the BIG fancy title, and he’s already six, so now we’re going to try to have some fun for a few years while he’s in his prime.
I suppose once I’ve seen it personally from both sides I’ll have more to say on it. From where I sit at the moment, though, nobody thinks going back and forth between the two is a real conflict, and in fact they think they compliment each other. But I don’t really know.
The flat-coat certainly scents differently. I can only go by how she behaves on a mark, because I haven’t had the chance to put her on pheasants or a field of planted birds.
What I’ve seen so far is that she doesn’t quarter wide, really, but she tends to quarter in a more even windshield-wiper and keep her head up when she’s really hunting, and will even pause and seems to sort of mentally sort through all the smells to decide on her next move. The Lab will air-scent and quarter real wide if he’s on a big hunt (or the few times we’ve been out looking for pheasant), and then narrow down his prey and quarter tighter and tighter until he’s actually trailing and digging out the bird with his nose on the ground.
I have no clue if this is typical or not. The Lab sometimes acts like a shepherd, I’m told, and the flat-coat seems to think she’s a Lab most of the time. So, beats me!
When my old dog would go into a quarter, her tail would ring out, and she would point her head into the wind. And then she’d make the long casts into the wind, back and forth, tail switching at rapid speed like the blades of a helicopter. She would sometimes look for direction, but the truth is I preferred that she find it doing this behavior. First of all, it is bred for, and secondly, it is a wonderful way to demonstrate the power of this breed’s nose. Now, to me that’s something that really should be tested more in trials and tests. That dog never lost a thing when she was allowed to do this behavior, but occasionally did when I thought I knew better than the dog. Well, I haven’t got that kind of nose.
She was so good at it that my grandpa once lost his wallet deer hunting deep in the woods. He looked everywhere through that remote country for it. He couldn’t find it, so he decided to try my old golden. We got her to retrieve a leather wallet a few times, and then we took in into the woods where the wallet was gone. We had her smell my grandpa’s hand, and then she was sent for it.
She had the wallet in less than ten minutes– and delivered it to hand.
This dog had little formal training– no FF, no lining— just a hard driving natural retriever from working lines.
And she sold me on this type.
The average pet person couldn’t stand her, but if you wanted a really easy dog to handle that could do a lot of useful things, she was your dog.
Keep in mind, though, that most goldens where I live are performance bred and most Labs are not.
That’s why I always thought it was strange that all of these retriever experts discounted the golden’s ability over the Lab’s.
I mean my golden was a much better working retriever than my dad’s friend’s 100 pound Labrador that was as biddable as the typical ox and retrieved only when the moon and the stars aligned in his favor.
So sad, so funny, so true!
If I only had a nickel for every time someone looked at my 75 pound dark yellow guy and said, “Are you SURE that’s a lab?”
Really. Seriously. He looks like a Lab.
After looking at your dog’s photos, I think you might like this book:
http://www.kerasote.com/
Whoa, they look like my boys Symbah and Saturn. Except the dark one has straighter fur. Saturn has straight fur but only on his mid section :)