back to training

But with a twist... we' ve been working hard on basic obedience with both boys -- and especially the 'long stay.' As might be gathered, this is an indicator that the Mominator failed to earn either of the final two Obedience legs at the CVVC's Versatility Day two weeks ago due to his decision to 'freestyle' during the 'long stay' portion of the both tests. The VCCNE has its Versatility Day on August 1st up at Sharpe's Farm. Hopefully we can get both boys finished up with the obedience and conformation parts of their Versatility Certificates. And so, in the meantime, I have been taking the boys to the softball fields near the house while there are games being played, setting one up in front of the other, making them sit or stand in the sunshine, with the wind in their faces or at their backs, while everyone else in the park looks at me like I'm mad. It's all proofing.

The twist, though, is that we started horseback training in preperation for the fall season. We went up to our friend and pro trainer, Deb Goodie's, place upstate to do some training with her, her horses, and some birds. We'd planned to go earlier, but the weather in the northeast has been very wet -- and as a result, the grass at Deb's is wicked tall, and the ground very damp. Perfect for woodcock as it turned out, but another great reason to train from a horse.

I had wanted to start horse training to build my confidence in my horsemanship, Jozsi's comfort with looking to me and the horse for directional cues (rather than relying on my voice, my whistle, or coming back around to check in), as well as general strategy for working with a scout. It feels like there's so much to process -- happily, though, Jozsi is a better dog than I am a handler. Sadly, I didn't get any great video of Jozsi breaking away -- which is always a hoot -- but did get this clip. After running Jozsi this morning, we then ran Yogurt, The Most Awesome, to see what she might find in the undergrowth. After a lovely point on a woodcock in a thicket, Yogurt then went on to establish this point.

As you can see, the grass was deep and the quail we had put out the day before had decided to covey up in the tall grass near a pond, close to water, but safe from the air (you can also hear a frog croak in the undergrowth). To Deb's right, there is what looks like is a very small rise. What you can't see is that the undergrowth actually gets deeper, much deeper, before it drops off to the pond. It was approximately 18" taller than the average vizsla. I know this because Momo found a third quail in there about a half-hour later -- and was completely invisible even from horseback! It took three minutes to delicately plough through it without tripping over him by mistake.

Momo probably actually deserves the most credit for the two days. He was run off a horse for the first time yesterday and was definitely a little nervous. But this morning, he was all over it and a hunting fiend. He will never be a field-trial contender, but this was definitely fun for him.

And so, now, after two days of busting through tall grass and standing water, both dogs have sacked out happy, dreaming quail hunting dreams.

that dog can hunt...

Let's hear it for Team VCCNE! First, there was Fruska, then there was Baron, followed by Jozsi, and now, most recently, we have Widdershins Flyin Kyler as a trophy winner at the Connecticut Valley Vizsla Club Hunting Dog Championships! Bravo to Kyler, 2009 winner of the Hunting Dog Excellent (HDE) stake.

It was a hot, humid day at Flaherty this year. It was arguably hotter last year for Mr. Enthusiasm's moment of glory, but the air was thick, thick, thick and the breeze skinny, skinny, skinny! Belonging to the CVVC's field trial committee who organizes this event, I had to work the event and so didn't get to see Kyler's run. I know Mike enjoyed his run with Kyler... which is arguably all we should all ask for when we run our dogs.

But we had a bonus day because, in addition to Kyler's run in HDE, her daughter, Rogue, also earned a judges' Award of Merit in the Hunting Dog stake. The judges were clear that they loved her foot-speed and intensity... and that if she had maintained her points just a little longer, she would have done even better. Wooah, Nellie, this little girl is a hard-running 10mos old -- and I can hardly wait to run her from a horse again come fall.

It was actually a double bonus day because our own Widdershins Momchil, aka. The Mominator, was also awarded a judges' Award of Merit in Hunting Dog Excellent. I have said it before, I'm sure, that Momo will probably never make anyone gasp for breath in a competitive environment, but he is a good, good boy who will find you birds. He had a stop-to-flush, an honor, a nice back-course find, and then behaved beautifully in the bird-field proper. Both dogs went on their own points before the handlers could get there... and for safety reasons, the judges elected to work his bracemate's bird first. The bird didn't fly hard enough to be shot -- but as it was blanked on the ground, Momo's bird flushed. So in addition to behaving while all this silliness was going on, I had to send him on to find another bird. He found a chukar that also chose not to fly (probably a side-effect of thick air and/or moisture on the grass). It was shot on the ground and he performed a very nice retrieve. The ribbon was a nice validation for a good, good dog.

Tomorrow we have two rounds of versatility testing for each of the boys: two legs each of Obedience and Conformation. If Momo passes these, he will have earned his Versatility Certificate; if Jozsi does too, he may be able to complete his third legs of these two areas in August at our VCCNE test at Sharpe's Farm.

In the meantime, here's a quick salute to Wendy + Chris Russell at Widdershins for producing two great dogs, and making the the third possible.

lots and lots of highlights

There's been a lot going on over the last two weeks or so. I'll try to be brief.

First of all, it's hard to imagine that two years has passed, but Mr. Enthusiasm, our own Widdershins Upwind Jozsi, turned 2yrs old on May 15th. And for his second birthday he got... X-rays! and dilated pupils! We decided to keep Jozsi intact to see if he turned into half the dog we thought he might based on the great dogs he has back there in his pedigree. And frankly, he's a good enough dog that he really should contribute to the breed by producing pups -- and our breeders have agreed to remove his limited registration status from his AKC registration. We have no plans to become breeders ourselves, but we've let folks know that he could be available in the future. But first he had to pass his OFA hip and elbow evaluations and his CERF eye exam to minimize the prospect that he might transmit joint dysplasia or heritable eye diseases. The CERF exam provides immediate results, the OFA evaluations can take 2-3 weeks. I am an anxious parent and so I overnighted his X-rays to them, and called them after 2 weeks. In as much as anything can be in a dog whose nicknames are 'Crackfiend' and 'Mr. 200mph', he is normal and therefore an eligible bachelor. And we have some interested parties... V-Harmony is in full effect! (The picture is from this past Friday. Nice lip curl!)

Speaking of V-Harmony, we got to see Vizsla Superstar, HRH

Brizstow Jones (and Karen and Glenn) the following weekend. As ever, she is lovely and sooo very excited to get out into the rough tough Bronx, to run with her two loyal troubadors of fun, and smell new smells like a gajillion left-over paintballs, the random guy under the bridge cracking his 11am six-pack, and all kinds of other things I'm glad human noses can't smell. And so here she is... Air Brizstow!

I just got back from taking the boys up to the Hudson Valley GSP Hunt Test up at Flaherty. I wanted to run Momo on Saturday in his first attempt at Master Hunter (MH) to see how all our spring training had gone and had volunteered to help out as a line marshall for Sunday. And being up at Flaherty, I took the opportunity to bring a bunch of quail to use as training birds for both Mominator and Mr. Enthusiasm (who also needs to keep working on his honor). We got two great training runs on on Friday -- and I have to admit I was really pleased with how the two guys did together. Momo really seems to have figured out the honor and both boys were looking pretty damn still on their feet. I think this is a great pic, one of several in fact from the afternoon.

Then Saturday came around and Mominator was up. We were the third brace of MH and my suspicions were confirmed by reports from the first braces that, in addition to any birds that had been planted, there were also sufficient numbers of quail left from field trials passed that the first two dogs encountered coveys of quail. I had a game-plan to work the marsh edge away from the trees as soon as possible, knowing that the likelihood of encountering birds was slim. However, as soon as we entered the backcourse proper, Momo made an impressive find on a quail in dense undergrowth, dense enough that while I could hear it scurry I never saw it till it flushed. Then his bracemate went on point and Momo did a beautiful honor. We then managed to get away from the trees and out into the sunlight and headed out for the birdfield. Along the way, our bracemate encountered the previously mentioned coveys of quail and despite some fairly impressive self-control finally got picked up after a quail got up in front of her face, sufficiently close to poop on her nose, then fell to the ground again, sliding down her leg -- and while she never moved her feet, she leant around and picked up the bird in her mouth. Sadly, a no-no.

We made it to the birdfield where Momo immediately located a chukar. Sadly, said chukar had gotten soaked from the long foliage and the night-before's rain. Even though I hoofed it up, it barely flapped, plopped into the grass about 4' ahead and could be heard digging for China. I checked with the judge that I could pick the bird up and toss it, and then resumed ferreting around for the bird. I finally dropped to a knee to scoop it out off the weeds -- and apparently at that point, Momo stepped forward about 4-5'. I didn't know this till after the bird had been shot and he'd retrieved it -- so it was a shame to know he was done early. Nevertheless, the lesson here for me is that if I have to do it again, I won't turn my back on the dog again to try and grab a bird... not because I don't trust him so much as to give him a clear view of what's happening. While we were ultimately unsuccessful, I feel very pleased with the boy and can keep training for these kinds of scenarios. If there can be such a thing, the nice part about MH is that it's so easy to screw up that there's almost no point in getting anxious. While good, consistent training will help stack luck on your side, it's hard to train for unprepared bracemates, covies of birds both wild or planted, and the particular performance penchants of individual judges. As an indicator of how difficult MH can be, while no one thing screwed up every dog, not a single dog of the eleven that tried out for MH on Saturday qualified. And this included the winner of the AKC's Pointing Dog Championship, Sioux.

And finally: so how hard does your dog run? Both Saturday and Sunday mornings, I was up at 5:15am to run the dogs on the grounds for a little short of an hour to get them all conked out for what would be several hours in their Taj Mahal dog box. This morning we got back to the tent and the truck and I got their breakfast out and noticed this. Sadly, I took the clip on my cell-phone so it's a small picture but hopefully you can still make it out.

My dog runs so hard that steam comes off him!! Here's to Mr. 200mph!

smorgasbord

Here's an assortment of pictures from the weekend. We were up at the PANE Field Trial at Flaherty, giving Mr. Enthusiasm his last run of the spring season. We knew we had the first brace of the morning at 7am and so got to the field nice and early to arrange for horses and locate my trusty scout, Dennis. So the first picture is of the sun clearing the trees while horses chomp their breakfast.

The conditions were almost too good to run a dog: relatively dry air, cool temperatures, and a breeze. I say too good because I could feel it gusting -- and gusting makes pinpointing birds a little harder for the dogs and makes the birds on the ground a little squirrely and less likely to stay put.

This bird, on the other hand, could hardly be called squirrely. It might have been completely lovestruck mad -- but this grouse kept wandering out of the treeline and circling a complete string of vizslas and German Shorthairs, driving them sufficiently crazy to merit the pro whose dogs they were to kennel them up and resolve to try and chase said grouse into a new neighborhood. It was a monster bird -- and yes, I took this picture from about 6ft as it ran around a horse trailer.

We headed out on our brace at about 7:15am and Jozsi broke away like a madman. We've been working on phasing out the handsignals that can be convenient for foot-handling and translating them into hollers and calls -- and he seems to be getting the hand of it. Even though he runs hard and is beginning to nicely extend himself in front of the horse, he has a great handle. Sadly, though, he only had 15mins of glory... in a 30min stake! He had found two birds already before he cut into a swampy area and, as Dennis later relayed, but which I guessed from watching a bird pop out, he then located a third which started running in front of him. He relocated once, then it flushed and then he broke to chase for a few steps. While his stop-to-flush is normally pretty reliable, this is still pretty good progress for the wee madman. But his time was up. Nevertheless the judge really enjoyed his 15mins and was very complimentary about his range, his responsiveness, and his general state of being 'broke.' He was actually a little surprised that Jozsi was still eligible to be a Derby dog.

Which brings us to this picture from this evening. Once again, I stacked him on a lower set of benches, maybe 18" high and a little rickety, and made him stay while I taunted him with two quail hooked up to flight limiters. Arguably the best training moment was during his first stack on the benches when he tried to step forward to get in on a quail that was flapping on the ground -- and the bench tipped. I then re-set him gently and taunted him some more. (I stake out the other dog near the benches so he can see the other and hopefully pick up both the good behaviors and the corrections second-hand.) After rotating Momo through a session on the benches (in which he did great), I then put Mr. Enthusiasm up a second time -- and he stood rock still for probably three minutes or more while I flapped the birds in front of him, around his head, and then ultimately picked them up and put them back in their pen. They both really are good, good dogs.

The final pic is of friend and pro-trainer, Deb Goodie, with the Vizsla Club of America's #1 Gun Dog for 2008, FC AFC Upwind Shenipsit Rebel JH, aka Yogurt. I wanted to put up a picture of a great dog and frankly a great woman who, if I felt inclined to send a dog to a pro, I would think very seriously about sending to Deb. She can come across a little rough on the edges at first, but Deb not only knows dogs -- but has, frankly, proven to be one of my greatest resources. It's one thing to make friends at trials who are amateurs like yourself and then cobble together good ideas from your collective experience; it's another thing for a pro to share their experience with you (even if you do bring her good, strong beer in exchange). Sportsmanship is perhaps best illustrated by the sharing of advice to those like me who would still happily beat you.

Deb doesn't have a website -- so hopefully if someone is Googling for her contact information, they'll find it through The Regal Vizsla. If you're looking for a dog trainer or someone to put a field title on your dog, you should consider contacting Deb. Her address is 159 West Corbin Hill Rd, Sloansville, NY 12160; her phone is (518) 231-9455.

training day of sorts + update

I had picked up some quail over the weekend (and had forgotten just how big a stink even a dozen of the little creatures can create) and decided to take Momo and Jozsi up to Flaherty to do some training.

I have been gradually working on getting both boys absolutely steady-to-shot, ie. field trial ready with not a single movement of the feet whatever happens in front of them. Momo developed a creep after he was force-fetched which is, I think, him not wanting to bump the bird, but instead anticipating the flush and the retrieve -- which he now loves. Jozsi has always been pretty steady -- and is now having it rigorously enforced.

I have been setting the boys up in turn on the tailgate of my truck and 'stacking' them (which I gather is the technical term used in conformation shows) and making them stand. I'm not worrying about getting their heads 'high and tight' at least for now, but letting them know that moving their feet even a little will get a correction. For now, at least that correction is just me stepping in and physically re-setting them. Once that seems entirely ingrained, we'll start adding the e-collar.

Once we got to Flaherty, I wanted to run the boys loose and plant birds behind them -- and then re-run the course with each one in turn. The picture is of the two of them immediately afterwards -- Momo's face covered in mud, Jozsi wondering when he gets to run again. He did the first 45mins in his Christie's harness pulling 5lbs of welding cables.

Sadly for me, today was Jozsi's day-of-the-month when he seemed to be completely off-kilter. I call him a 'spaniel' when I'm miffed at him, as in "If I wanted a flushing dog, I'd have bought a...". So on his second run, this time by himself, he found three birds but snapped at and took three steps on the first bird, ran in too close on the third, and ran over the third (probably without scenting it, in all honesty). His only redemption at that point was the stop-to-flush. Better that he gets it out now than at a trial.

I then put Momo down. As much as I love Jozsi's unbridled energy, I love the Mominator. If there are birds in the field, he will find them -- and he did. We walked the same course backwards this time -- which to Jozsi's credit again, I realized that the wind had not only changed since we put the birds down, but had also increased slightly. And so, while Momo had the benefit of better scenting conditions, he also found a couple of birds that I hadn't put down, that were left from other trials or training expeditions. He ended up with four finds -- and, as ever, I am trying to gently bully him into standing completely still on point. As we discovered with his force-fetch, though, sometimes his stubborn streak supercedes his sensitive side -- so while gentle repetitions will often do the job very nicely with Momo, I'm anticipating that a short, sharp shock might end up being what is required to seal this deal.

(Interestingly, I think he has figured this out for when he honors. On his last few honors, he has stood without moving, despite me working Jozsi in front of him. A trainer-friend thinks that vizslas are a lot more context-sensitive than German Shorthairs, for example, who tend to be a little more hard-headed but for whom once the concept/command has sunk in, it is universally applied. For her, the good news regarding vizslas is that, if you are running into boggy ground with a skill or teaching technique, you can often just re-evaluate and reconfigure your teaching technique and simply change the command word. I've discovered this with Momo who likes to overthink things -- and for whom 'whoa' became an overly complicated word.)

I decided to take Jozsi out one more time so we could end on a, hopefully, absolutely positive note. I stacked him up on a narrow plank, 'stayed' him, and then tried to torment him into moving his feet by kicking around, firing my pistol, and then by flying a live quail around his head on a string. He didn't move. I think he thinks I'm mad. I may be.

Jozsi has his final field-trial run of the season in Amateur Gun Dog on Sunday at the Pointer Associates trial. Dennis is going to scout for me on his fancy new horse -- and I will scout for him for Sally's run in Open Gun Dog. Wish us luck.

*******

Training update #2: this pic is from this evening (Thursday) taken on my cell-phone. Here's Jozsi perched on two saw-horses literally shaking with intensity at the quail I just flew around his head a few times and landed on the ground to rest. Interestingly, both boys when stacked up on the saw-horses put both front feet on a single plank. Both boys know the routine by now, but just get soooo jacked up once a live bird makes an appearance.

horses + dogs

In the classic book, How to Win Field Trials, originally published in 1950, Horace Lytle wrote about trialing that "The purpose of the whole thing is to find the greatest amount of game in the shortest possible time with the utmost grace and rhythm in every action that takes place." The dog that should win is the dog that does this with the most class: "It is a dog's buoyant eagerness; his rhythm in running; the merriness of his tail, that fairly 'sings' of his joy; his style and character in every statue he turns into on game."

As a newcomer to the sport and a lover of books and of reading, I have read classic texts like Lytle’s and William F. Brown’s Field Trials: History, Management, and Judging Standards (1977), as well newer books by seasoned professionals like Earl Crangle’s Pointing Dogs: Their Training and Handling (2000) and Dave Walker’s The Bird Dog Training Manual (2005). Unusually perhaps, none of them describe the role of the horse in all of this. Roxanne Coccia has an article at GaitedHorses.net that explains most of the mechanics of how horses are used in trials, but after reading it I realize that a lot of what is missing for me is how the horse and horsemanship make the dog even better.

This post is inspired in no small part by an ongoing conversation with Gin Getz at the High Mountain Horse blog. I know very little about horse-packing and she very little about field-trialing dogs. Arguably, I only know a shade more than she does. She has already written an eloquent entry about the roles and relationships of dogs and horses in her life and work – and the ways she, her dog, and her horses have figured out how to make the genetically ingrained relationships of prey and predator work for them.

But I have, unfortunately, now handled my dog off a horse four times and have seen the glimpses of his greatness, a greatness that extends a little further each time, a greatness that is his enthusiasm and intensity. And it is the horse that makes it possible. For his first all-breed trial, I handled him from foot in a horseback stake. We still placed, arguably because he runs with a smile on his face and, for a young dog especially, had very good bird-manners. But leaving aside my fatigue, I quickly came to appreciate that my being down low was a disadvantage to him, and not just to my worn feet. He had to stay closer or back-track to keep in contact with me, he had to look for an arm to verify his direction. And heaven knows, the idea of me walking every brace to study every dog and every handler was too daunting to bear.

In her fascinating book, Horse Gaits, Balance and Movement, Susan Harris describes the horse’s ideal forward motion as coming from the ‘circle of muscles’ – “a series of muscles groups that act together and in sequence to make each stride. In a good athlete, these muscles work in harmony, contracting and relaxing in a regular rhythm.” For a variety of reasons, Kim Carneal uses the enso of the circle as the logo for her blog, Enlightened Horsemanship, and the particular enso she uses is to my mind a wonderful illustration of the reach that a fast-moving horse relies on to drive itself forward – never quite closing the circle entirely. By contrast, the suppleness of a dog’s lower spine allows its front legs to come well forward of its back legs. If the horse is a series of circles, the fast-moving dog is perhaps an alternating series of Morse code dots and dashes.

I got to ride some very nice horses this past Sunday at the Hudson Valley GSP field-trial – and it really helped illuminate the relationship between horses and pointing dogs. Especially if you’re lucky to have a gaited horse with a smooth fast-walk or lope, then the horse can be smooth where the dog can be explosive.  But the horse, even if it is just because the extra height lets your dog see you from further away, inspires the dog’s desire to hunt further and faster. Ironically, perhaps, producing a performance of grace, rhythm, and class comes from driving something as ungainly as an articulated city-bus.  All the power comes from the back -- from the horse, from the horse's legs -- and handling the dog from a horse requires anticipation and some degree of over-steering as you make a turn.  However, the real joy comes from gathering your horse’s speed over a small rise to bring the dog back into view and seeing all that explosive, canine energy locked into an intense, rigid statue.

As much as this entry is really about the relationship between a horse and a dog, those 45mins of glorious enthusiasm were also about understanding the subtleties of how the handler and scout can work together to channel the dog’s effort, try to prevent mishaps, and ultimately make the dog look like everything it can be. I feel committed to doing as much of this training and trialing myself, but feel blessed to have friends and mentors to show and guide me. And hopefully the three finds, the manners in front of running birds, the stop-to-flush on a mongo turkey, and the barf-on-the-fly were sufficient entertainment for Audra. All I did was fall in love with my dog all over again – and look forward to the next time, to sitting a little taller and looking a little further for his golden, frozen silhouette.

But the difference a good horse makes! Especially in the heat, knowing that your horse is sure-footed, knowing that it will stand with the reins dropped when you need to dismount, and especially once you've figured out the particular horse's brakes and accelerator, that good horse just lets you concentrate on the good dog in front of you. And ironically perhaps, when you concentrate on a hard-running dog, you probably become a better rider.

weekend report

So, I was hoping to have gotten some pictures back from other folks by now but sadly, I am a bigger dork than they are and immediately download my pictures and imagine which ones to use. In any event, I was up at the CVVC trial this weekend, running Jozsi in his first adult stake, running Rogue in her second horseback trial, bird-planting, and generally trying to be helpful as a member of the field trial committee.

Besides a brief shower overnight on Saturday, we were blessed with warm, dry weather the entire weekend -- which was good because I had decided to camp out at the trial grounds to save some cash to pay for all the horse-riding lessons and rentals over the past month. The last twice we had used the tent down on Cape Cod at a couple of hunt tests, we ended up suffering through post-hurricane weather and rain (and fracturing two of the four poles). Kelty, incidentally, has awesome customer service.

I had made arrangements with a friend, Bill, Kudrun's father, to borrow a horse from him for the actual braces I was going to run dogs in, to spare myself the grief of trying to wrastle a wrangler's horse that might or might not feel like cooperating. I had also arranged to get myself an experienced scout to help me out with Jozsi's brace -- although it was beginning to feel like I was doomed after pick #1 broke her arm the week before, her replacement got called in to work on Saturday morning, and #3 had to go out early on another brace because both dogs on the previous brace were picked up in the first 10 minutes. But I ended up acquiring the services of Tracey Faber, from the Conestoga Vizsla Club, who is the owner of the fabulous Cannon and who has been scouting for Bob Seelye this fall and spring.

I can sum up Jozsi's first adult stake simply by saying that he got around clean... sadly so clean that neither he nor his much more experienced bracemate, Tony Smid's Jenny, found any birds. Both dogs ran well, hunted objectives, and looked purposeful out on the course -- but sadly, there was no opportunity for Jozsi to show his stuff. Or for Tracey to get off her horse. This is one of the downsides of drawing the first brace of the day, especially on a part of the grounds that haven't been used yet that weekend. The dogs were reliant on the handful of birds that had been freshly planted on a rapidly warming morning with little breeze. It was still a lovely ride as the moisture burned off and we watched two fiendish vizslak burn up ground. But sadly, no quail, no cigar, and no hope of a ribbon. But here's a picture of me roading Jozsi back to the clubhouse -- and yes, I know the checkcord is caught under the saddle trees and not completely around the lip on the cantle.

For her second time off a horse (and especially because she kept getting harassed by her bigger bracemate), Rogue ran great in Open Puppy. She definitely faded a little by the end, but was certainly finding her pattern. The unexpected bonus was getting to run her in Amateur Walking Puppy as well -- sadly, Kim contracted some nasty plague from her darling daughter and could hardly stand. So I had a great time. I was a little disappointed by the result -- she took a 4th -- but was so pleased with how she ran. After two minutes of puppies fooling around, she had several awesome casts... not just big, but to my mind smart casts, down along shady tree edges and down into damp parts of the course, exactly where birds that might have been down a while would go in the late afternoon. And she ran hard for the full 20mins - the final two of which she did with a semi-live chukar in her mouth that was left over from the Gun Dog Stake and had been flushed by her bracemate. While I was a little disappointed by the judges' choices, I was excited by how she ran... less like a puppy and a lot more like a little bird-dog.

I will go up to Flaherty again on Sunday, to ride some braces and apparently to scout for Dennis + Sally. I am glad he is as confident of my abilities as I am of his dog's. Speaking of which: one of the highlights of the trial was hearing the judges discuss their placements for the Open Gun Dog stake at the end of dinner on Saturday. I gather this is still a common feature in livestock shows, but it added a really nice dimension -- as much as anything because handlers and spectators alike come to appreciate the judges as people, and the dogs as the real geniuses of the whole charade.

It was also a great trial because while the odds are clearly stacked in favor of the professional handlers out there, Open Gun Dog was won by an amateur in his first horseback trial working a dog (Rebel Rouser Gingerbrandy, aka 'Rita') that had clearly learned its trade on wild birds. And Bill & Kim also took placements with all three of their home-trained dogs: Baldur, Gestalt, and the mind-boggling Kudrun.