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.