SportDog TEK 1.0 Locator Trainer System –Review

I was introduced to the SportDog TEK  1.0 Locator Trainer System over the weekend at the Region 7 NGSPA Championship. And I must say I am kicking myself for buying the Garmin over this model.

The primary reason I bought the Garmin over the SportDog is that I did not need a combination unit as I already have a SportDog e-collar. And primarily because I did not think the Locator Trainer combination was legal for AKC field trials.

The combination COLLAR is illegal, however what I do not read in any of the sales material is that the e-collar complete with its antenna are completely removable with only a couple of screws. So for less money than the Garmin Astro GPS a person can get both e-collar and GPS. It in fact just rides as a separate unit atop the location collar. 

Even better, the handheld unit has programmable buttons. So the user can custom configure a button to be momentary, continuous, or escalating pulse… along with what seems like infinite control of intensity.

If you don’t want to remove the e-collar portion to run field trials, then you can buy an extra locator collar for under $160.

I was told the package also comes with a longer range antenna, but I personally did not get to use that feature.

For me I hope the collar helps with my dog being collar wise, as his training and running field trials will be in virtually the same collar. Surely that will fool my dog.

What NOT To Do With Your Whistle

At always I learned something new at the field trial this weekend. My dog ran pretty well in his first event taking third place sandwiched between older more experienced dogs already with one title or more. In fact, I would say that for the most part I had a decent handle on him.

It was because of this improving control I went into the Open Gun Dog stakes with added confidence that my hundreds of hours of training would overcome my dog’s trial wise behavior of turning the competition into his time to play off in the woods.

At the breakaway he looked like a pro, working a tree line 150 yards to the right, cutting back to the left another hundred or so yards to work another birdy looking spot and then a long forward run 400 yards in front and over a hill. In hot pursuit I was looking for my dog to pop out somewhere… anywhere. But I did not see him. It was then I saw a flash another three hundred yards up and on a fence line to my left. I thought it was my dog, and that he had missed the course turn. I blew my whistle two times, signaling him to turn.

Next thing I know a hundred yards ahead my dog is running full speed left to right.

The judge says, “pick up your dog.”

“What did he do?” I asked.

“He was on point right there and he bumped the bird, now he is chasing it. Pick up your dog.”

What dejection.

When I got back to camp I retold the story of my woes, and a fellow trailer said, “You never blow your whistle, or hit the e-collar if you cannot see your dog... ever”

For one, first and foremost whistles are used to move dogs. Go forward, turn, and in my case here are just a few of the commands that a dog can learn using a whistle. None of which say stop, so when a dog is on point, even when you don’t know it, then the whistle is telling him to go. If the dog is on point and you don’t see him and you hit the e-collar, then you are correcting good behavior.

Some field trial regulars have told me the whistle should only mean go forward. They say that if it means anything else then someone else’s whistle might call your dog to them, or turn him a direction you don’t want him to go. For me, I still want to be able to turn my dog with a whistle because I think it has a better chance of reaching his ears on those long four and five hundred yard casts. But I can assure you one thing. I will not be blowing it unless I see him from now on... and know it is my dog that I am seeing I might add. 

Putting On A Pointing Dog Field Trial

I have not been running my dog in Pointing Dog Field Trials long enough to appreciate how much work goes into actually putting one on. Frankly, the ones I have attended ran so smoothly they seemed as if there was much effort behind it at all. Last weekend my understanding and appreciation changed dramatically.

Somehow I was volunteered into volunteering to be the Chairman of an upcoming field trial, with all the assurances the regulars would help and guide me through the uncharted territory.

For me, I like to work from To Do lists, and so with the help of www.akc.org, the previous field trial secretary, and the current field trial secretary this is the list I came up with.

Date:

Location:

Grounds Reserved

Judges Assigned

AKC Notified

Trial Approved by AKC

Ribbons & Plaques Ordered

Judges Gifts

Judges Hotel Rooms

Judges Travel

Arrange P/U of Judges if needed

Horses for Judges

Lunch Menu

Breakfast

Birds Reserved (3/Entry)

Bird Bags

Send out Premium

Porta Potty if needed

Water Troughs for dogs and horses

Tables for food

Captain of the Gunners

Dog Wagon

Inspect Grounds

Field Trial Signs

Trash Can(s)

First Aid Kit

Helpers

Field Marshall

Bird Planter

Host

Budget for field trial

All of which sounds pretty easy when in list form but each item can end up taking substantial time. Lucky for me the grounds had already been reserved so my first task was to find the judges with the help of some very resourceful club members, a half dozen or more calls and e-mails and in a couple of days I was able to round up the 4 judges we needed. Of course I then had to figure out what Stakes they were to judge, and as one judge was running dogs in 2 of the stakes he was place first and the rest fell into place.

So with the judges decided AKC had to be notified. The F/T secretary did that, but not before we decided the order of the stakes, whether they would be retrieving or not, and how much the entry fees would be. In the meantime the former F/T secretary was putting together the Premium.

All this information was submitted to AKC when it was pointed out to be I was charging the wrong amount, and the judges have been put on the wrong stakes. Again the secretary did a wonderful job sorting it all out, and then the Premium was able to be distributed after AKC's approval of the event.

Having spoken with the judges I knew their needs and made hotel reservations on their behalf. Fortunately they would all bring their own horses and transportation.

Someone along the way volunteered to take care of breakfast. I planned a lunch menu, and all the other tasks were systematically covered. All told to this point I had probably invested a couple of solid hours.

The day before the trial I would gather up all the necessary items to feed 25 people 2 different lunches as well as getting judges gifts and thank you cards. Including the prep time on the food I spent 5 ½ hours on this task.

The next morning I began to load up everything on the list. That took an additional 3 hours.

I had to drive about an hour out of the way to pick up 200 birds, which by the way made a very stinky mess of my trailer. And at some point I still have a 2 ½ drive to return the cages the supplier let us use.

Arriving at the grounds I inspected the course, set up what I had to set up, and waited for the help to arrive. This was another 1 hour process.

I started lunch both days around 10:00am. By the time I had cleaned up it was 2:00… so another 8 hours of lunches feeding 16 – 20 people each time.

I passed out ribbons, thanked folks, drove the dog wagon a few braces, and was the last to leave. After packing everything back up of course.

Too tired to unpack Sunday night I did it on Monday night, and that took another 2 hours.

The point is this. There is a lot of work that goes into a field trial. Volunteer to help. Thank the people that do. This experience has given me a new appreciation for the people that make this sport so fun. And special thanks to the following:

Terry Bomer – wonder woman, former secretary, bull dog, go getter, and invaluable.

Sarah Messer – thank you for acting as Secretary and doing your part to make it smooth.

Kirk Bomer – Thanks for the dog wagon, captaining the gunners, your advice and help, bird planting and everything else. And especially thank you for letting us use your trailer as base camp and the awning to get out of the rain.

David – thank you for such a great attitude, willingness to help, taking all the trash away, and just being you.

Chris – Thanks for showing up and being a part, driving the dog wagon, and awesome attitude.

Haley Killam – takes for the lunch dish and breakfast tacos.

Terry Bomer, Eric Sailors, James Messer, Ron Hudson – Thank you all for judging, for donating your transportation and other expenses, and for making the trial a surprising success.

Gene Mosley – Thanks for showing up and hosting. You are a tremendous asset to the club and to the sport of Field Trials.

If I missed someone let me know. I am not beyond adding to the list.

Happy Field Trialing.

My Dog Shot Me The Paw

Right Turn Ahead

I had the pleasure of running another field trial this past weekend. This event was located in West Point Texas. Classic hill country grounds just East of the famous La Grange, Texas. For those unfamiliar, La Grange is the infamous location and inspiration for the classic Best Little Whore House in Texas.

These grounds I would describe as smaller than what we have run on before. Complicating them is some impenetrable wire cross fencing. This type of wire fencing is good for boundaries, but makes for some exacting turns as this course was laid out. Specifically after the initial thousand yard run the dog hits a cross fence forcing them to turn left. Unfortunately a hundred yards or so forward of that position is a ten to fifteen foot opening the dog must make a right through to hit a third of the course. Compounding the matter, the entire length of the cross fenced area in question is a 50 yard swatch of grass with a perfect game holding tree line that the dog must entirely avoid. Needless to say you need either a close hunting dog, or a good handle (control) of your longer running dog.

On the first day we ran the Open Gun Dog stake. My dog ran normally at a couple hundred yards ahead of my trotting quarter horse. Not unlike every other trial he disappeared into the brush. As I made the left turn and came to the opening for the right turn I saw a flash of my dog 150 yards ahead working the tree line. I hollered his name, called here, blew my whistle, all to no avail. In all honestly I was thinking my dog must be deaf as he didn’t even look my direction.

I moved forward on the course singing to my dog, hoping the scout would turn him our direction when finally I gave up and turned on the GPS to find my lost dog. As the GPS synced with the collar it said my dog was four hundred and some odd yards north on point… and he was, but we were unfortunately done.

And so the next day I took extra special care to heal and whoa my dog, and remind him who was in charge. With the greatest of stealth I swapped his e-collar for the tracking collar, and to the line we went. This was the Amateur Gun Dog stake and much different from the day before my dog was responding to my turn commands. He was running beautifully out front between 10 and 2. He quickly found his way to the thicker brush on our left and I thought, “Good, he will hunt in there a little and I can get in front of him before the turn.”

And my plan worked perfectly. As I slowed at the gate leading to the right and north my dog popped out of the woods 50 yards south of me, turning east he headed down the same tree line where I lost him the day before. I called, “Remi here.” It was then I saw my dog glance at me and get into a higher gear down the tree line. “No… here… whistle blows… nothing turned my dog.”

Suddenly I realized my dog did not need a trip to the vet to see if he can hear. My dog had given me the paw… he has decided this was his hunting trip and not my field trial.

My scout as planned had positioned himself perfectly to cut him off if he repeated the mistake of the day before. And Remi gave him the paw too. In fact Joe said, “I swear that dog ran faster to get away from me.”

At the 12 minute mark I found out later Remi finished the course and headed through camp to go again.

Giving up on the trial for the second day in a row I turned on the GPS. It said my dog was 990 yards away on point. And that is exactly where we found him.

We obviously have some work to do, but I don’t feel too bad about it. The day before the same thing happened to my Scout and his dog. Also one of the Pro Trainers had one of his dogs do about the same thing.

So dogs will be dogs and they will give you the paw. But as for my dog, we are going to work on him having a little more respect, and not being so collar wise. 

Trust Your Scout

The Scout’s role in many cases is as critical as the handler. Though according to the rules they are not to "handle" the dog, but supposed to be there to help find a dog on point. Reality is far different out of the site of handler and judge. 

When a dog is out of view left or right it is the responsibility of the Scout to locate the dog. If he/she by chance happens to “push” your dog out into the front, well then they have done a good job.

It sounds like cheating, and perhaps in the most technical of senses it is, but it is also very much part of the game as scout, handler, and dog are there painting a picture for the judge with the idea that the prettiest picture wins. That prettiest picture happens to be a dog working out front between 10 and 2 o’clock, covering the entire grounds in the allotted time. (no sooner or later) Along with independently hunting, finding birds, and being steady to wing and shot.

Problems is this involves dogs which have been bread to hunt and the best hunting is not always out front between 10 & 2 of the handler, and the dogs know this so they go further side to side than one might want. This presents the handler with a puzzle. Does he/she hack on their dog to keep them in the correct position? Or do they allow their dog to be out of view for reasonable amounts of time trusting the Scout to return the dog seamlessly?

If you are going to win then you are going to have to rely on the Scout and continue forward as if nothing is wrong when your dog goes too far right or left.

Of course over time dogs become patterned to run out front in the proper manner if given hundreds of hours of training on field trial like grounds, but for us that don’t have the time or money to do this we have to… trust our scout.

Again there is a fine line between cheating and properly scouting, but I have heard of scouts actually picking a dog up onto their saddle and riding it to the front and turning it loose again. I don’t agree with doing that, but I can tell you that a scout is a very effective moving boundary when a dog goes the wrong direction. And a Scout is 100% critical when a dog misses a turn in the course to go straight.

In the case of a turn where the dog goes straight the handler should turn early. By turning early he has now made it where what once was in front is now behind and to the side allowing the Scout to move into the area the dog was last running. After turning early, create a little distance, then slow down so the Scout can create that boundary to turn the dog back onto the course.

That’s just one tip. There are a lot of ways the Scout and Handler can work together, but the first thing is to work with someone you trust. There is nothing like continuing forward but wondering if the Scout will find the dog. It makes you nervous and that comes through to the judges. More than being in perfect control of your dog it is important to be in control of you. A good Scout that you can trust helps to be just that.

Always Trust Your Dog

Running a field trial is a virtual sea of variables that perhaps God Himself has designed and orchestrated to cause confusion to the handler, particularly some new to field trials like myself. This past weekend was a very hard lesson learned, but the lesson for me is “always trust your dog.”

We were running in our first contest of the weekend, the Open Gun Dog stake. Our brace mate was handled by John Rabidou who has produced over 130 field champions and 19 national field champions. This fact is intimidating enough and added to my already nervousness. But my dog ran extremely well. He had the first find and was backed by John’s dog. Then quickly had a second find and then a third find. All the bird work was good, completely steady to wing and shot. But after the third find the judge says to me, “sure would like to see this dog run.”

This statement to me meant my dog was looking good; and as someone new, the judge was trying to give me a pointer about what would best improve our odds for the rest of the course. Having collared my dog after the third find my scout tried to walk him far enough ahead that we would be beyond the immediately “bridy” areas. After a few yards or running forward my dog broke left. I preceded forward hoping, and praying he would pop out in front so the judge could watch him run. Further and further we went when a horse rides up on a gallop and says, "your dog is on point back there."

So we returned for the fourth find. My scout had found the dog, but we could not hear her holler, "point."

Mind you, each find after the first is an opportunity to loose. Crazy things can go wrong with the bird work. On this particular day anything could go wrong because Remi was finding 3 and 4 bird coveys, and to me that is 3 or 4 more chances to dog to get confused and loose steadiness. He is after all barely 3 years old.

So I go through my routine, kicked the birds, fire my gun and Remi turns hard to mark a bird. This is legal, but not the perfect picture the judge is looking for, but still all is well. And so we water the dog, heal him forward, and turn him loose.

Time is drawing down. Remi is running out front, popping in and out of mots, working left and right the 15 to 20 degrees in front when he slams on point. Riding up he is pointing a manmade brush pile. Not only manmade, but on the road practically. In fact it looked like a pile of mesquite logs. I thought to myself, “no way did someone plant a bird there.” As I rode up to within feet of my dog to see if I could see a bird I saw something dart around to the back of the pile.

Again I thought to myself, “must be a mouse, because no one would plant a bird in there.”

Riding my horse past my dog I peered into the other side of the pile when all of a sudden the sound of a bobwhite covey rise broke the silence.

Remi looked, and  then took off on a chase ignoring my woe command. Our day was done seconds from the end of the trial. The judges road off, and my scout and I were left to chase down a dog on a mission to catch a quail.

I did not trust my dog, and so I approached this situation completely different from any other time I had done this with my dog. He did what he was supposed to do. I did something stupid by deviating from our routine. I don’t blame the dog. I blame me.

Who knows what the outcome could have been. But had I gotten off my horse and gone with the same repetitive routine of flushing the birds we have done hundreds of times together odds would have been much greater in our favor.

After the class ended I asked the judge where we were before the mistake. He replied, “you were in contention.”

So always trust your dog, and no matter what you think, go through the repetitive motions of attempting to flush the game each and every time. Otherwise you might have the random results of loosing like we did.

Field Trial Gear

There are certain things you will want to have if you are field trialing your pointing dog. Below are some of the items I have with me at every contest we go to.

O-Ring Dog Collar – As opposed to a D-ring Collar there is nothing hanging down or protruding from an O-Ring collar. This for me is just a simple safety issue that can prevent my dog from being caught by a collar ring on a fence or brush for some undetermined amount of time. I personally get mine from Lion Country Supply because they can be bought with a nice brass  name plate already installed. Click here for the collars I use.

Reflective Neck Band or Field Trial Collar – A dog in a field trial may only have on 2 collars. For most one is a GPS collar. The other is either a reflective collar of red or green or a red or green field trial collar. Each dog is assigned a color or red or green depending on draw position in the brace. And short of running against a different breed dog the collar is usually how they are distinguished. For me the reflective band is easiest to see, but there are a host of options.

Blank Pistol – Birds are not normally killed on course and not often in training either. So a blank pistol is needed. They come in a variety of prices from $80 to $300 but be sure NOT to buy a .22 crimp. These pistols are usually around $30 and NOT allowed in AKC field trials. Full .22 like those used for nail guns are allowed.

GPS Collar – This is an expensive item but I would say a must. Fortunately I have not been to a field trial where someone was not willing to loan me one for my brace. Second the newer the dog is the more likely I would say that they have an very good opportunity to get “lost.” The grounds may not be familiar to the dog, and game or other distraction can send them running a great adventure rather than the field trial. The GPS Collar is good insurance.

Crate – Dog crates come from under $100 to custom trailers worth tens of thousands. This is all personal preference, but I would say a crate is a must if only for transportation. There are also lots of manufacturers of the nicer aluminum crates/dog boxes like Owens, Deer Skin, and others.

Stake Out – This metal stake with its swivel and chain allows you not have to keep your dog in a crate or on a leash securely. They are driven in with a hammer so bring one of those, but pull up fairly easily with only your hands.

Bowls – It goes without saying bring your dog’s food and/or water bowl(s)

Lead – This is a personal preference in terms of how you bring your dog to the line, and whether they will heal or not. And believe it or not there are a lot of dogs that drag their handlers to the line.  A second long lead will be needed in case your dog is picked up (disqualified). At that point you will need to “collar” your dog and take him back to camp. So unless you want to walk along side your horse with your dog on a lease you will need a 15’ – 20’ lead to bring them back. NEVER TIE THIS OFF TO THE HORSE IN ANY WAY. Always hold it in your hand so that you can let go if the dog and/or horse get into trouble.

Roading Harness – Many handlers use a roading harness when their dogs are picked up. They carry it with them attached to their saddle for this event. The roading harness keeps the dog from being attached at the neck and is another safety precaution as man, dog, and horses interact.

Training is not allowed on field trial grounds so we will cover some training gear in another post. In the meantime below are some links of just a few of the places I shop for gear for me and my dog. Please add any places you like to the comments below.

Lion Country Supply
Gun Dog Supply
Deer Skin Dog Boxes
Owens Dog Boxes