¶ Gun Dogs, Estate, and Labradors
Welcome to the lab , a Cornerstone Gun Dog Academy podcast focused on all things gun dogs , good times and the great outdoors . I'm your host , barton Ramsay . Welcome , laura . Thanks for hosting me at your house . It's beautiful here .
I would love for you to tell the people listening a little bit about where you are in the UK , about this property and its connection to the estate here , and how you came about being here . Was it Stanton .
Stanton Herald Estate . We're centrally located in the UK East Midlands region , so right in the middle of England , as it were , so very handy for road networks In the County of Leicestershire . The Stanton Herald Estate is an old family estate .
It goes back to the Earl of Ferris , a very historic estate , but we just have a barn situated in the middle of the National Forest on Forestry Commission Ground . It's a converted barn and we've been here , I think , about 15 , 16 years .
Yeah , it's beautiful here and you can just walk here , but four acres in a pond , that is a very American-style training pond with an island and some good features , and it's just right when we can see it up the window , so being able to walk out and train , yeah it's ideally situated and ideal for the dogs , as you say , because we've got our own little bit
of land , but we're also surrounded on 360 degrees of National Forest land , which is open access land , so we can run the dogs on there as well . That's great . So 15 years or so here you talked a little bit about with me last night . How long has it been since you got your first Labrador ?
And tell us a little bit about that dog , because I don't think you were getting set up immediately for running field trials . Or maybe that was your goal , I don't know .
Well , the story goes back a long way to when I met my husband in Zimbabwe . We got married in 1998 . He had a couple of black Labradors that were working bred going back to British lines , I think and that kicked off my love of black Labradors . We then got a dog in that country that we were given a pup by Derek's brother for our wedding present .
It was either that or a shower door . So we decided we'd go for the puppy and started to get involved loosely in a bit of gun dog work out in Zimbabwe with that dog , very different to how things are here . But that was my toe dip , as it were . And then we came back to this country in 1999 , end of summer 1999 .
Unfortunately had to leave that dog behind because we didn't know where we'd be in this country and we were renting and didn't have a dog for a while because we were getting settled in this country .
And then we got our first Labrador in this country in 2000 , I think , and she was half showbred and half working bred , which is what our Labrador Zimbabwe was , and naively I thought best of both worlds .
So she was a nice looking Labrador , nicely put together and had some working background as well Now , with hindsight , obviously I would have gone for a thoroughly working bred , because that seems to give you a lot more in terms of bidability and the desire to work .
So she was a good start into our world of Labrador ownership in this country lovely , lovely , temperamented dog and started us off on a journey really .
Yeah , so that was over 23 years ago . When did you win your first field trial ?
I took part in my first not with that dog , because she had several eliminating faults . She enjoyed singing , so we had a bit of noise . We had unsteadiness , she had a huge desire to work but really wasn't quite the right material for working .
So she enjoyed retrieving and she just took me to a certain level , did some working tests with her , but she was never going to go much beyond that . My next dog that I got was a fully working bred and that's the dog I took and did my first novice field trial with in 2005 . And actually won that my first trial had ever been in a one with that dog .
So she and I won first time out and she was nice dog , very , very hot headed , very hard going , hot headed dog . Of course , of an old fashioned dog really you don't see so many like that now .
She wasn't the most biddable animal but she had a very , very strong desire to work and strong drive and so as I ran her , a novice , she went straight into open . Again , my lack of experience she was probably too much dog to progress into opens . She was . She was too hot headed .
And then that took me on to my next dog , which became the foundation of my breeding line and that was a bitch from Jane Fairclough . Jobes Hill Labradors , jobes Hill Gunn Dogs , and that was Jobes Hill Octavia . She was born in 2006 , I think , and I trained her very diligently . Lovely , lovely animal , superly biddable .
Took me by surprise after Nelly , the first field trial winner , because she's she's so wanted to work with me and depend on me a little bit and she . We ended up going all the way and I qualified for the Retriever Championships and major up to champion in 2009 . And she became so . She was my first champion and that was proof .
That was proof . Yeah , lovely proof . And at that point and there are a lot of people in America listening to this , so I want to back up into a few things that you said and help them understand but at that point , when did you choose the name Stoughtonville ? Here they called an AFIX , so your kennel name .
Yeah , so she didn't have my AFIX on her because I'd already got . How it happens with the AFIX is you can't apply it once you've had a stud book number or once you've had a trial award , so you have to apply an AFIX prior to getting a trial award , I think .
Well , I put my AFIX on the next bitch which I had , also from Jane Fairclough , and that was Jobes Hill Lottery of Stoughtonville , so she was the first one that I put my AFIX on . I think I got my AFIX 2000 . I don't know . So B was that could have been 2008, . I got the AFIX , so anyway , I applied it to B and that was the first time I used it .
So yeah , the AFIX , if you're breeding here , it's a requirement , right ?
You don't have to have one , but it's like , I suppose , for you guys it's like a brand , so it's your kennel and you know what dogs are associated with that kennel . So it's nice to have .
¶ Dog Show Titles and Competition Levels
We get a lot of questions . I get a lot of questions about names of dogs that come from the UK because if you're in the US it can be very confusing . But it's really simple . Typically the breeder kennel will have their name in the actual kennel club name and if that dog was sold to or went to another kennel they'll add of their name .
Yeah , so a breeder can put a prefix on , so , for example , storn Tobail story . So the prefix will come first and then the name you want to give it , or Storn Tobail , lemon posset , or you apply it if I bought a dog in from somewhere else . So my recent champion , he's Jarel Starr Hogan , and then he's Jarel Starr Hogan of Storn Tobail .
So he belongs to my kennel now , but he wasn't bred by me , right ?
right . Yeah , it's a good way to keep up with it .
For once you learn it , it's easy to kind of see yeah , so the breeder is the first name , and then if it's of or act or suffix , that means it's been brought into that kennel Awesome .
So you mentioned you ran your first novice and won that one and then you said the dog really wasn't , was a little too much dog for you to go into . Opens In the US and field trials the novice has to be run by handlers who are unpaid , In other words not a professional , and the open has to be or can be run by anybody .
But if you are paid to train dogs professionally you have to run in the open . So the distinguishing difference is not the dog , is the handler , and then in a hunt test it's really just kind of open to whomever . It's just the levels of dog work or what distinguishes here . That's quite different .
So if you could just explain what is , it will stick with field trials and then go to working tests . But for field trials in the UK there are several levels . So if you could walk through those .
So we stick with retrievers . We have three classifications of field trial . We have novice , all aged and open . So novice is where you start off with your young dog . Dog that's not won anything and , as you say , it is the , it's the dog , not the handler .
So you're still going to have professional paid handlers versus hobby handlers or your keen amateurs or whatever . It's nothing to do with the handler , it's the dog . So you start in novice and win out of that . So once you've had a win you're then a qualified dog for an open steak . Now , open steaks in this country are hugely oversubscribed .
So in theory anyone can put their name in a hat for the ballot into an open steak . But preference is given to dogs with a qualification , for example those that won a novice or had a place in an open . So for all intents and purposes you have to win an obvious first and then you progress into open .
We also have all aged steaks and they're sort of halfway house so you can run a novice dog in an all aged steaks . Some all aged steaks have conditions . So some would say you need to have had an award in a novice steak to run in an all aged .
So they can be that little halfway house and they're a good ground for people that have had an say , for example , had a win with a novice dog but don't really feel it's quite ready for open yet . So you can run in an all aged steak with it . Equally , you can run a complete novice dog and win an all aged steak .
Some don't have to be qualified to go into all aged and then open steaks . You're qualifying steaks for the championship . So we have two sorts of open .
We have a one day open , which could be between 12 and 16 dogs and as it implies it's run on one day , and then we have two day steaks , which are 24 dogs , and I could explain how they qualify for the championship .
To qualify for the championship you have to get what's called an A qualification or three B qualifications , and A qualification is a win on a two day open steak and a B qualification is a win on a one day open steak or a second in a two day open steak . So that's your route to qualify for the championship , which is held annually .
Yeah , so when you're running these trials , the titles that we see often on pedigrees there are some unofficial titles and then there are some more official titles . Could you explain just briefly what does it take to become a field trial champion , which is the official title that would be recognized by the Kennel Club ?
Exactly , there is only one title recognized by the Kennel Club and that is Field Trial Champion . A lot of people that have won an open steak like to put them on their pedigrees field trial winner , or you might see Open Field Trial Award winner .
So you'll see FTW , oftaw and so on , or Open Field Trial Winner , but as you say , the official title is Field Trial Champion . To gain that title , obviously the dogs come up into open steaks , usually by winning an open steak or an all-nose steak , and they need three days of wins to qualify for the title of Field Trial Champion .
So realistically that could be a two-day open-steak win and a one-day open-steak win . It could be two two-day open-steak wins or three one-day open-steak wins . In addition to those wins we also need to have what's called a drive certificate and a water certificate for the dog . So that's a piece of paper that's signed by .
For the drive certificate , its dog must have sat or remained steadier to drive in an open steak and that's signed by . I think it can be signed by an A and a B panel judge now , but it used to be two A panel judges . So it's a piece of paper to say your dog has sat quite near to drive or remained quite in steadier to drive .
But that must be done at a trial and an open trial . The water certificate all that is is again something that's signed to say dog entered water readily and swam . There's no retrieving element , they just need to know that your dog can swim and that can be done anywhere , but it has to be done during the winter months before April .
And again , that's signed by two panel judges .
So , yeah , I and I was , we need , we have to get into a point of clarification . I was confused on about the , the show point , which I was told wrongly by someone . But so essentially you have three days of winning and open .
So if you win two , two day stakes , obviously you earn the title , but you're , you're , you're even a day up , you've won above and beyond what , what ? The minimum requirement and then a Drive certificate in a trial . So if you , if you exclusively run trials , then that are walked up , which we'll get into you would have to go find a trial .
That's a drive and you don't have to win , you just have to sit steady and get the certificate .
Exactly , yet the dog has to be judged .
¶ Driven vs Walked Up Shoots
So yeah , you do need to get yourself into it .
You have to go find a driven trial and get into it , which is , but I guess if you also have a dog that's just getting into opens , you could go get your drive certificate before you ever win , just so you have it when .
Yeah , absolutely a lot of people do that if they're in , have the opportunity of sitting in a drive in the stake . In fact , I did the same , so the first two two day of mistake that I won this year finished with a drive , and so I was able to get drive certificate for the dog .
Excellent . Yeah , I was told by someone that dogs here had to have a show ring , a point . So I don't even know what you would do to earn that . I learned from you that that's not true , but there are some people that choose to go and do that . I've had a few dogs that came and their Paperwork that came to me . Well , kane had one .
He's still came and moose as well . Yeah , yeah .
And there's no I mean the show and the working sides of split so far apart .
Really now is particularly with Aberdeals , not so much with flatcoats but we're certainly with Aberdeals and that there's no way one of our working dogs could compete in the show ring , and you do see some showbread dogs competing at a level in the working side , but the two , the two have really drifted quite significantly apart .
So there's no necessity for a working lab that's going to get field trial champion and there's no show necessity . There's no confirmation certificate , unlike other countries I believe Germany they do have a Confirmation .
Austria as well .
Yeah , they have to have a confirmation standard , which is an interesting point because you and that's probably where you pick that up from , because certainly when I had moose , it to be used in Austria or Germany , they want to show , they want to show Assessment .
So I had what you get a championship show judge to come and assess the dog and it's just assessed it's either good , very good or excellent . So you just get a certificate or piece of paper and a report of the dog's confirmation .
What are the score ?
Moose was excellent .
Oh good , and as that's , yeah , I mean you see Labradors when I mentioned that I have British working line Labradors . People's assumption generally is that they're really small in Then America . To me they're not really small at all , they're very just . I mean there's a wide range , but in a lot of the American working lines the dogs have gotten really big .
I think they're getting away from that . Now . You'll see some really nice American working line bitches that are around 50 pounds , which would be really normal , but you'll also see some dogs that are Over a hundred pounds , yeah , which is I don't know the kilo , but that's , that's hefty , it's a big dog .
Yeah , that'd be 25 pounds bigger than this , so it's a big , large dog . So the confirmation standard is something that it's not really there but again in America is the same . The drift between show dog and Working dog is it's a massive , massive gap between those two . So we don't . We don't see a ton of it . You mentioned sitting steady in a drive .
I imagine there are a lot of people listening to this that have no idea what a drive is . Just in America there might be two or three driven shoots still around . So Two ways to what types of trials I've been to in the UK one is a walked up and one is driven . There may be more , maybe duck shoot .
I don't know if that's a , there's a drive , but explain the difference between those two and Sort of what the dog work looks like in those two , because it's very different from what we do .
Yeah , so to effectively from two different types of shooting . So a driven shoot , which I'll explain what happens , and then the walked up would be from a rough shoot where you're self-beating . So I start with a walked up shoot . That's usually walking through a crop and with the dogs at heel and all the guns in line .
So you're walking , progressing forward as a line . Sometimes you have spaniels working front of the line as well and and yourself yourself beating . So the pressure of you walking or the spaniels in front Will push the boats out in front of you and the guns will shoot them , going away from themselves .
So that's , that's one type of trial that we have here and it's more common , probably from From where we live , midlands upwards , further up the country , and certainly you go into Scotland and virtually all of their trials are walked up like that Down south , and a lot the trials are a lot more driven .
So driven trial is on A driven shoot day is where the guns are all stood out in a field On pegs . So they're all pegged out . You've got to say , for example , 10 guns on the shoot day and the birds are Beaten out of a wood . So you'd have a wood with , maybe with a pen in or In woodland or or crops , for example maize , tall maize crops .
The beaters all work through that crop , pushing the birds out over the tops of the guns . Guns stand still and shoot the birds and in that respect , the dogs are then positioned either in the gun line or some way behind the gun line , sitting in a line yeah , so a beater is .
We would . I guess in America would be like a flusher .
You know , somebody , somebody with a spaniel , usually With a dog . You have beaters without dogs , but beaters with dogs are ideal because the spaniels are working , as I say , in the woodland , through the bramble or through the maize crop , walk over crop and just hunting up and finding the birds and pushing the birds really toward pushing the birds out ?
Towards the gun , exactly that .
Yeah , and and on a drive , there's an amount of time that elapses where the beaters are working , and then the ones I've been to , there's like an air horn or something that distinguishes hey , the beaters have stopped Finish , and I guess at that point the guns will rotate to a new peg sometimes . So what will happen is to drive on a normal shoot day .
You're right . The guns peg out and they'll stand there . There can be quite a bit of time before you know . Sometimes the birds are beaten from quite a long way . So there can be a lot of standing around doing nothing , where the dogs have to remain quiet and steady while nothing happens .
Birds start coming over the guns , gun shoot and , as you said , when , when the keeper says that's the end of the drive there's either a horn or a whistle signifies the end of the drive and the guns will stop shooting , unload and close the guns and then that's the point where the pickers up will then come in and pick the birds .
Let the guns pick their own . If some of the guns might have their own dogs on the pegs , so they'll pick the birds they want to pick around their pegs , and then the pickers up will come in and work and pick the live birds and then pick the dead , sweep up the dead birds .
And we were talking earlier , so and I didn't I didn't know this . It's obviously different at a trial , but when you're picking up , when you're just you , you call it the pickers up , so that's , you would just consider going out working your dog . It's probably the I would say around here , the most common way you could work a dog would be picking up .
So you're not actually shooting , no , no , no , no . You're just handling a dog on a shoot , yeah , and you're not really running a lot of retrieves while the shooting is going on .
None at all , unless they're alive , unless you have a runner . So you're there to work . So on the shoot day you've got the the beaters with their spaniels who are there to produce the birds for the guns , and then the pickers up are there to work to to collect all the birds , to put the birds in the bag .
So no very bad etiquette to be picking dead birds during a drive , so the dogs will sit there patiently . Obviously , any live wounded birds that come down , they need to be gathered quickly for humane reasons . So they will be sent for during the drive by the pickers up , or picked afterwards if they've gone into Woodland or something .
But the picking up starts once the drive's finished because otherwise it would be dangerous and distracting for the guns .
Which is it makes a lot of sense . It was mind blowing to me the first time I learned that you guys actually were getting paid . I mean , it's a work here , the the estate door , the owners of the shoot , exactly yeah . But I guess that makes sense , because shooting over here you're paying to shoot and you're paying per bird .
Exactly so . Every bird that's picked and put in the bag is money . So typically I mean pickers up aren't paid an awful lot , but it's usually the price of a bird . So if you only pick one bird , you've sort of paid for yourself , but you're there , yes , to get all the birds that have been shot .
That's such a foreign no pun intended foreign concept for us to consider in America , just that you would be paid to go work your dog . I mean , obviously it's not , you're not going to make a living doing it , but you can . It's a neat idea that you're really helping the gamekeeper and the estate do their job better by gathering these birds .
Yeah , you are paying to do a job there .
Yeah , what is sweeping ?
Keeping is where , for example , a load of birds might have fallen into a woodland area and so you , as a picker up , you might be stationed in that wood or just outside . You've seen a load of birds go in there . At the end of the drive you'd lose off your dogs .
You might have a pack of three , four dogs with you and you'd just let them go into that wood and sweep the ground , hunt , hunt around and just find birds and bring them back to you . So they're just hoovering , they're just going in raking around , hoovering while hunting .
Yeah , just going wild .
And it's a fantastic way for young dogs to learn their craft . You know that's how they're going to learn to find birds .
So with a young dog when you first start doing that , you probably take it out with an older dog and at first of all you just run around chasing the older dog , thinking it's having a nice time , and then when it finds its first bird , it says , oh okay , this is what this is about .
So they start to learn to be a bit more independent and run around and start finding their own birds . So it's learning their craft for the future .
I want to get into that a little bit . But I want to talk about a little bit more of the picking up . How important is picking up for the field trialer in the UK ? It's not necessarily the same if you're not able to run , retrieved during the drive , you're sweeping . That's a little different . But you mentioned gain finding ability .
¶ Dog Trials Retrieval Importance
How important is it for people , in your opinion , to pick up before they start running a dog ?
It's essential that dogs I mean we sign a declaration before we go into field trial to say that the dogs picked every sort of game , both dead and wounded .
So the only way you can do well , not the only way you can do that , but the primary way that you can do that is to by getting on a shoot and going and picking up and learning the dogs learn their craft . So it's really , really important for people to get picking up experience with their dogs .
You can have the best trained dog in the world on dummies , but they have to learn game . How to treat game .
There's something and that's probably a good transition there . But there's something that was very attractive to me early on about the dogs here and the dog sports here was the practicality . I mean , what you just explained is it ?
I mean it's necessary , and part of keeping the tradition of shooting sports here is having the dogs , and the way that you guys trial here is still so very connected to the way that the dogs are used in a practical manner .
It is . It hasn't drifted so far apart as it has in the United States and it's essential that we do keep that connection . It's interesting to see . Now I sometimes hear people coming in and they've got the dog and they say I want to do field trials . But it shouldn't be that way . It should be I've got a working gun dog , I'm going to shoot .
You know the dogs progressing and that should be the route into then competitive environment , not the other way around .
Really , yeah , that's great . So in your trials and this is something that we could spend a long time on , but sports just noticed noting a few of them what would be considered an eliminating fault ?
You mentioned that your first dog had several eliminating faults that might prevent that one from trialing , and then your novice dog was a bit much until you got proved .
What would be some things if you're a judge and you are an A-Panel judge , which we haven't really gotten into that , but you guys have kind of levels of judging , which is I've found the requirements are strenuous . It's not easy to become an A-Panel judge .
Not anyone can just sign up and say , ooh , I'll be an A-Panel judge , so there's a lot of experience that comes with that . As an A-Panel judge , what are some things that can happen in a trial that you would say that's an eliminating fault ? That will immediately result in the dog being put out of the trial .
We have a list of eliminating faults in the J-Rex and also major faults which , again , the dog can be put out for . Ones I've touched on are noise , so any form of giving tongue , noise , whining , barking that would be instant disqualification , running in so unsteadiness , the dog going before it's sent .
We call that breaking Right yeah again .
Unfortunately you're gone , so the dog has to be completely steady . Chasing game , swapping retrieves , picking one and then going swapping for another , Failure to enter water there's a whole list in the J-Rex of these .
What about blinking ?
Yeah , that would be amazing .
Is it major or eliminating ?
I don't remember .
Standing over a bird .
Standing over a bird is not written down in the J-Rex as either , but that would come under sloppy retrieving , so it would be as major fault .
Yeah , that's when I was unaware if I saw it in an IGL video . I was pulling for the dog and I think it ended up with a certificate of merit maybe , but it was probably set to win . It was run in Scotland and the last retrieve the dog stood over it was hovered over the bird . Really .
It picked it up and put it back down and looked at another bird and then picked it back up and brought it back .
That was it .
That was done .
That would be eliminated . Unfortunately , it was a bad deal .
But that's not something that , you see , people really put a lot of focus on in the US . But if it's a wounded bird , it's an incredibly important thing . I mean , if a dog sets that bird down and it takes off , that could be it .
Yeah , again , and that comes under sloppy deliverance , sloppy retrieve , also a dog that repositioned the bird several times on the way back . The judge will be looking at that . It's not ideal , because as you say if it's a wounded bird , it's got the chance to get away .
I love that . So running in making noise , sloppy retrieves .
Out of control without merit . All these things are taken into consideration .
What are some things that judges are looking for ? Obviously , they're straightforward retrieving . What are some things that you would say we just talked about this as I was at a trial yesterday things that give you credit , or just walk us through how your retrieves are scored in a trial , and then maybe , what would bump up a score .
Credit points are natural ability , marking , nose . So credit needs to be given for dogs that mark well and quite often isn't , because sometimes a dog that marks really well can get to the fall of a runner before it has a chance to take off and sometimes that's not taken into account .
So good marking , good nose , hunting , drive style speed all these are things that are looked at . Nice fast dog gets out there quickly and directly to the fall , makes a good job of the fall and is quick on the way back and delivers tenderly to hand . Those are all credit points .
Things that can end you a little bit of extra credit are taking a runner off the fall , tracking it , for example , the bird that the dog's gone to directly . It's found the fall , gets there , the bird's not there and it starts to take what we call take a line , so it's nose to the ground and it's following a line away from where the bird's fallen .
Dogs that do that . That's going to give you some nice credit . You can be credited for an eye what's called an eye wipe , where you go behind another dog . So if one dog's been to an area , failed to locate a bird , might send another dog that's also been to the area done a good job of the area , failed to locate the bird .
Third dog comes in , stays in the area , hunts and hunts and then picks the bird . We'd say that dog's performed an eye wipe over the other two dogs and that would be given some credit for doing that , if it's a genuine eye wipe , if the other dogs hadn't actually got to the area .
Really , you've just gone behind those two dogs and some people call it a technical eye wipe . So you've gone behind those two dogs , but the first two dogs never even got there and those dogs the first two in this situation are still going to be eliminated from the trial .
They're done because they , but they're not necessarily done because they got eye wiped . They're really done because they failed to make the area .
Well , in the first instance , the ones that made the area failed to find game and were eye wiped . In the second instance , the ones that failed to make the area could be put out .
So if the bird's not found , for example , and two dogs failed to make the area , the judges would put those two dogs out because they didn't get to the fall , didn't make the area .
Yeah , that's something that was difficult for me to understand at first , but when you see it it makes a lot of sense . So I want to talk about those things for just a second . You guys put a lot of focus on the area .
In America they call it the area of the fall , and it's the same , and especially like AKC Masterchast , we were talking about those like if you have a dog that makes an area and leaves and returns to an old fall area , you're out . That's an eliminating fault for sure . But for you guys the area is huge .
You hear it a lot , you see judges , you know the dog , they put the stick up and what I've learned is the signal of he's in the area , right . So how do you define that area of the fall ? I'm sure it varies based on cover , but how would you define the area ? And then , what are you looking to see in a dog ? Because you have runners .
You mentioned runners . So for us in America that would be a crippled bird . So that's a bird that hit the ground and is no longer where it hit the ground , and so there's extra credit given to a dog that sorts that out , which you would .
That's something that we don't really get to evaluate much , and we'll kind of go into that , but the importance of the area , what are you looking for in the area ? And then , how are you judging dogs that never make the area but still pick the bird ?
So the area , obviously for a March achieve , you've hopefully marked it , the dog's marked it , the judge's marked it , so you've got a very strong visual indication of it's fallen near that tree , for example . So you're looking for a dog that goes directly there and hunts around and doesn't start wildly taking a moat of ground .
So you really want the dog to what we call hold an area , which is to stay within a sensible hunting distance , and you dictate that with your training . So you set up , okay , you think well , what's a sensible distance ? You don't want it taking in the whole county .
You want the dog to methodically cover the ground , because it was a little partridge tucked into some long grass . You know , if the dog's whizzing around at 100 miles an hour , taking in vast fences of ground , chances are it's not going to find it . It's just running , looking quite stylish but it's not going to find .
You want a dog that can just drop its pace . So ideally for me I'd want a dog fast out to the area . So dog quickly and efficiently to the area . So that's your sixth gear Stopping it in the area , for example if it was a blind retrieve , and then telling it to hunt there , and then I want it to drop its gears .
I want it down then in gear one or two . I want it going in a slur enough pace that its nose is going to work . So it's still hunting stylishly , but it's dropped its speed and pace right down . And you mentioned cover . Yeah , different sorts of cover .
You could have a sugar beet field , you could have long grass , you could have a wood , so that just depends .
You mentioned something when we were talking earlier and it's worth noting here , when you're talking about the area and not taking in a lot of ground . So we would call that hunting a big space , not hunting too big . We ran a little setup earlier
¶ Handling and Evaluating Dogs in Trials
. Bray did a great job on the go bird and he was on the correct side of the wind and he had not too long of a hunt for the cover . But he hunted for a bit and you did not handle him because we're training .
But you mentioned in a trial you would have stopped him as soon as he was on the correct side of the wind , right before he passed the bird .
And I mentioned in America you're penalized for handling on a mark In an American test , though in that scenario and it would probably be the same for your working test you are literally just evaluating the dog's marking ability . But what is never going to happen is another bird inadvertently flushed , because these aren't live birds .
So for you guys , you see a lot of quick handling on marked retrieves . Even I do over a dog that might be about to blow past a mark , or what's the importance of that ? Why is it in trials okay to handle on marks Like what are you looking for what ?
we're looking for is to keep so . Again , talking about the area keeping things quite tight Because of the volume of game we're working in , which is probably very different to what you've got . We have a lot of game on these grounds , so if the dog's gone to the fall and is holding sensibly in that area , that's fine .
If the dog drifts out , it can start disturbing vast volumes of live games . So you get into a situation where it's getting into a load of birds and disturbing the ground is what's called disturbing ground , which we don't want because that's ground that we're going to probably be walking over later and shooting again .
So you don't want a dog raking around putting birds up left , right and center everywhere . So that's the difference . So you'd be careful to manage that really .
Yeah , again , super practical , although even still . I mean , if you have a nice mark off the front of a line , even a long mark , and the dog just runs out and bang , puts his nose on it , that's a lot of credit . I mean , I've seen that in a trial and the judges love to see it when you don't have to yeah straight out and back .
I mean that's what you want ideally . But also you're looking at the terrain , that retrieve you alluded to earlier , where the dogs just about to go out of sight into a very , very thick cover . That could be a danger for the handler because once your dog's gone in there you're sort of a bit hit and hope .
So in a trial you'd be thinking I don't really want the dog to go way deep into that cover and end up lost and then I've got to do a recovery so you might put the judicial stop in and just hold it right where the fall is and not take the chance .
In training I'll often take chances that I wouldn't take in a trial or a competition because I want to see if the dog can recover itself and I want to know what the dog can do in a certain situation .
And if I can teach a dog to recover itself or marks out of sight , then I'm building a better dog for the future and then I know I've got a dog I can trust when I take it to a competition .
So practical , which is great . Obviously , you do have the working test here now exclusively on dummies , and I've seen those and those are .
I mean , they're very similar to some of the hunt test setups you see , and something that I would love to start in America is a style of working test that resembles what my favorite part about them is the point system that you use .
So if you could explain this , starting with 20 points , the setups that you guys do and then just a little bit of the difference in the working tests and the trials , here , in the UK .
So we have . Obviously we have the shooting season , which is when our trials and live game shooting occurs , and that's well . 12th of August is when grass shooting starts , but 1st of September is partridge and then 1st of October is pheasant , so we've got that running through to the end of January and then that's the end of the shoot season .
So then we have the off season , which is springtime onwards . Through the summer it's typically when we have our working tests and , as you said , they're done on dummies and they're . Our working test is supposed to be a test of where your training is at . So they were set up originally not to be an end in themselves but to be a means to an end .
So they were to test how your training was going throughout the summer before you took your dog into the shooting field . They probably progressed beyond that now to become almost a sport in their own right . So great fun . Go to working tests .
They're a working test on most weekends throughout the country and they're typically a series , as you've said , of 4 to 5 tests , depending on how many dogs are entered on the day and how many judges .
You've got but 4 or 5 stations of tests and they were comprised a test of variations of marks and blinds and , depending on the train , you might have water , you might have fences , you might have woodland , depending on where the test is set . But each test is typically out of 20 points , as you said .
So you start with a maximum of 20 points and obviously if your dog performs fairly perfectly , you're going to hold on to those points . Otherwise you lose points for various elements , basically , of the test .
So if you're running a test , that's , let's just say , a double marked retrieve , and you have to handle the dog on the mark , are they going to the duck like a point ?
So it's really interesting because people think , oh gosh , if I handle on the mark I'm going to get less points . Which , yeah , the perfect dog is going to run straight to the mark , put its nose down , hunt and pick and bring it straight back . That's your IDLE 20 .
But if your dog slightly overshot it and you have to just put a whistle on and put it forward onto it , yeah you might lose a point or so . But it's far better to do what I'd call damage limitation and gain 18 points than to leave that dog and then let it rake around forever and then you've got just your hemorrhaging .
You know the dog's gone completely out of there and eventually you still have to get the dog back and then you try and handle it and it's all gone terrible . And then you end up with seven points or 12 points .
So people sometimes come into it say , oh , you know I'm going to lose points for handling on a mark , but sometimes you're going to lose a lot less points if you handle than if you don't handle Because judges don't want to see the judges that are shooting field judges . They don't want to see a dog running around here , there and everywhere .
That's not going to get you maximum points at all .
So and if you're running in a test , the eliminating faults we mentioned earlier are going to earn you a zero on that one .
There are no eliminating faults in working tests . So there are major faults that you can get a zero on a test but you're not eliminated from the rest of the competition . So , you could get zero on test one . You could go to test two and get 20 , go to test three and get 18 , go to test 12 and get 15 .
So you haven't been eliminated from the day , unlike in the field trial , whereas soon as your dog had that fault , that would be end of competition for you . Right , so you can keep going , so you can carry on and do the tests , you won't feature in the awards with a zero .
That's a very interesting point too . I didn't know that to you , mentioned it the other day . So you can't earn one of the awards if you've had a zero .
No in a working test . If you've had a failure on one of the tests , you can't be in the awards .
Which makes a lot of sense . Yeah and yeah , I love watching you guys . As a working test , I think they're a great evaluation . I do think that what will probably happen is it will become more of an end than a means , and that's where you start to see the tomfoolery .
That's where the gap between field trials and working test starts , and it becomes less practical , because I think people naturally want to continue to make progress and as the dogs get better at this sort of style of testing , there's only so much you can do to make it more difficult . You're going to have distance and factors , really Exactly .
And the amount of retrieves are a complication of the setup .
So yeah , I don't know that you'll see that here as much as you do in the US , because in the US and obviously in the field trial world , it is a sport in and of itself completely separate from duck hunting and they all accept that and it's great if you know that's what it is , if you're going into it with that expectation .
But I didn't know that it was set up for a way to evaluate your training going into the season . That's helpful . I see a lot I try not to get too much in the weeds , but I see a lot online of people complaining about just because your dog's good at a working test and hasn't picked up Doesn't mean you're ready for trials . You need to be on time .
Yeah , a working test is the technical training of your dog , isn't it so ? Is it steady , Is it quiet , Can it handle it on dummies ? Can you send it left , right back ? Does it stop ? Can it mark ? Well , you know all of those skills that a fully trained dog would have , but it is nowhere going to give you that preparation for going on to game .
So a dog that's operating at a good level in open working tests is , you know , may have the technical aptitude to handle fine going into a trial , but it still needs , as we said , to go and get all that game experience , so to learn how to pick a runner . You know a working test is never going to do that for you .
Right , which I was thinking about other than actual hunting experience . There's just not a lot of opportunity to pick runners in the USA . You know , and having been over here and seen so many trials , one of my favorite things I'll never say it out loud , but it happened it actually happened at the end of the season last year . There was a very difficult bird .
My friend sent his dog the dog I guess it wouldn't be a technical eye wipe because the dog didn't actually make the area . The area was difficult to get to and then I was like I'll get it . So I picked the bird with my dog .
He got the retrieve and in my mind I was like yes , I wipe , you know , and we don't have a lot of opportunity for that kind of thing , and if I had said I wipe out loud they would have wondered what in the world I was talking about .
But you know I was like that's , that's , it's a , it's a cool thing when you have a dog that's able to get there after you sell one . That couldn't I want to talk about without going too too long . I want to talk about prey only because I think that's the most recent example .
So I'd like to like use prey as a discussion on your timeline of training , because you guys do things a little differently here , not not necessarily so much differently , but the timing of how you guys raise your dogs and particularly you , what your expectations are at particular stages of maturity for the dog .
I think Bray is a great example , although he's probably an exceptional example because of what he's done already in trials . So that part aside from a pup , what's your like timeline ?
If you broke it down into chapters or stages , you know what are you doing with an eight to 16 week old puppy and then at what stage are you changing that and making things more formal , or is that a way that you work at all ?
What's the timeline you have with with a young dog that you're hoping will be good on game and you're hoping will be a field trial prospect ?
¶ Dog Training Versus Field Trials
I think , because all dogs are so different I mean , obviously , the dogs I have I've got probably similar breeding in them so they're not so different as me picking random dogs , but , as you know , every dog's different so it's very hard to say , right , this is the fixed timeline from this many weeks to this many weeks .
And I think we're a lot less formal in the UK than you are in the States . You kind of a lot of you guys have the program and you follow this very sort of not rigid but very structured program of you do this element , this element and this element .
I think we probably a little bit more I'm going to say organic here rather than lax , but we're a little bit more sort of we do a bit of this , we do a bit of that .
Having said that , with my young dogs I'll do basics of manners and obedience early on , so I'll get that sort of learning to manage themselves or my young dogs to start their lives in the house .
They don't get into the kennel until they're about eight months or so , so they're used to being in and around the house , just basic sitting , recalling all those little manners and managing themselves , as it were . And the other thing I sort of said is .
Someone commented one of my youngsters is not as far on as Bray was at this age and my reply was well , they were born at different times of year as well and that can have a massive effect . So if one's born in January , you know he's not going to get the input now because I'm busy trialing . I'm not really in time for training , so it sort of depends .
You tend to do more of your training in the spring , summer months , so that can have a big effect . And yes , you wanted to use Bray as an example , but I don't think he is a very good example in terms of he has been exceptional and come on far quicker than the dogs I've had before in my usual sweet spot for making up a champion .
It was probably three to five years and obviously he's just . He's just kind of gone .
We can pause there to talk about it before we go further . Because he is the accept .
I mean , I think probably not so much the first year , he probably just thought it was really nice going on really nicely the first year because you would send messages and updates about how well he was doing , but it didn't seem like you thought he was going to do what he's done now . So we talked about how to earn your title Bray this year .
I think Laura's hope was to win out of Novice , so when a novice , meaning she could run opens with Bray and go into next year maybe trying to win some of those opens . So it didn't go that way .
No , I mean secret . I hope he hoped he would place an open . So I wanted to try and get him out of Novice early on . I felt he was capable and certainly throughout summer he was looking like a very nice dog indeed . So yeah , it's . But you know you need it . As you know , field trials are hugely over subscribed in this country .
So just to get the runs and get him into Novice trials , I thought , oh , my goodness , what if we don't do that ? But luckily I got him in his first run on the 4th of September and he won that straight away . So that was that was us then into opens , which was good .
Yeah , so right in the opens probably . I mean , I'm sure you did hope to place , but you probably didn't have a ton of you don't know the young dog right .
You really don't know . And obviously you're at the stage where , if you've had one , when you think , well , was that , was that a lucky win ? Was that ? I knew he looked nice and people said to me he was looking nice .
But until you start running them and obviously as a two year old they are young , young , inexperienced dogs you don't kind of quite know how they're going to react .
Yeah , so Bray turned to in July .
Yeah .
And you ran him . You had one open . That your words were . You weren't quite on your A game . You didn't feel very well . But then the next you ran him in a two day . The first one that he won was where .
That was fairly likely to hear Neville Neville Hall Okay , Last year .
All walked up .
No mixture of walked up and mini drives . Oh , I had a drive to the end , so you got your drive yeah .
So you won that two day stake which qualified you for this year's championship , yeah , which is being held where .
Up in Scotland .
Yeah , which will be very different terrain . Yeah , I'm driving there today . So , yeah , very different terrain .
Yeah , moreland days of the Bracken and Moreland type of terrain .
Yeah , Moreland , which is we would call that like Hill Country .
Yeah , yeah , gracie Hill . Yeah , so to grass me yeah .
Yeah , so obviously you had a strategy play to go put your name in and try . You keep saying oversubscribed . So for those in America you can't just sign up and run a trial here . No , You're going to have to be a member of a club . That's too complicated for us to really get into and won't impact anyone there .
But your average two day stake of 24 dogs , how many dogs are in England and in the northern parts of England , southern Scotland ? How many dogs are signing up to try to run in that ?
Typically around 100 .
Yeah , yeah , so 100 dogs ish , I know . Yesterday I went and Charlotte said she had 114 signed up for that two day , only 24 getting in . So you're not ever really guaranteed to get to run your dog .
No , no . So you got a handful of runs . You know you're happy .
So you got two runs up strategically , you said on moreland , so up on the terrain where the championship is going to be . So obviously you wanted to go see how he drives .
I felt we'd had a couple of runs down here and I thought I really need now . I knew I was running going to be running in the championship . I felt I wanted to get him on that sort of terrain , so I opted to travel up north rather than stay down here for a run and take him up there and get some experience on that sort of terrain .
So you went and ran a two day up there , and he won that one as well .
So he won that and that made him up to field trial champion . And then I stayed up because I driven up there with the thought of doing these two trials and having a day of the rest in between , and I made him up at that first one of those two .
But my strategy and then I felt when I could come home but I didn't want to let the people down who are running the next trial and also my strategy had been to go and get some more experience on this very young dog . So I said no , I will start here and do the other trial and then he won that , which is great .
You see , your youngest field trial champion and he's the eighth , that's correct , eighth champion , and they've all been in some ways bred by you or your breeding . Obviously , he wasn't bred by you , but he's a moose pup Well .
Jane Fairfax bred my first two , so the two Job's her ones were bred by Jane , and then all the subsequent ones , apart from him , have been bred by myself . And then he was by moose , who was obviously bred by me . So before we went out to America I wanted a pup from back from him . So that's , that's Brian .
And is he your ? He's your youngest champion .
Yes .
Yeah , you just don't see . I mean , I know in America we talked about . That's what I'd like to get back to , but we talked about the , the age and the program , and when we started Cornerstone there was a lot of frustration for people because they wanted us to put at what age you should be where , and that's a very American way of thinking .
I , my dog , six months old . What should we be doing ?
And I think that's even in this country , with it's still the same . You know what are you doing with your dog that's eight months old . We have a lot of questions that you're you're reaching your standard or you're not behind the drag curve , or yeah , we get those questions a lot and we've even in the 52 plus program .
we were very intentional to go week by week , but not age of the dog . Yeah , you could technically start it at any point . I mean it's . I mean obviously there's puppy work , right , and there's things to do . But there's also like hey , I'm , I'm , I'm at the end of week 15 , but we're not succeeding at this . So what do we do now ?
Well , you just stay back to 40 . Yeah , don't don't keep going , because everyone gets kind of . This is the timeline . We have a lot of people that were . You know , I want a timeline , I want to . I can give you a chart of the flow .
I think that's the problem with a weekly program , because then you know , like you say , you might be stuck and have a real problem with deliveries , and for me I'd then want to spend three weeks on delivery and get that right , because there's no point progressing or studying it or whatever it is you're working on .
There's no point in pushing on until you've got some of those core foundation elements .
So the way we tried to mitigate that was having like a progress checkpoint . Yeah it's like hey , before you go on , you should be here , If you're not here , don't move on .
I mean I try and say to clients it's stage , not age . So what stage is your dog at ? Not what age is your dog at .
So at what point ? What stage we want to attach an age to it . But at what stage are you saying , OK , I've got my manners and management , I've got the basic little obedience around here . We're going to push it out in the field and specifically work on things like steadying a dog , stopping on the whistle and taking directional casting .
Right , ok , so again that really let's take the steadiness thing . You have to judge the dog in front of you . So some dogs that are naturally tended to be a bit more steady , they're the dogs I wouldn't try and steady and the ones so I like to see a dog that will be early on .
I just want the dogs really keen , running out , fetching things , bringing them back , and I don't care about delivery or anything , I just want them to have energy and enthusiasm . Go and get that , come back , and then you'll start to mold it .
So then you'll judge OK , well , now can we make this dog weight , you know , can we hold them and just get some steadiness so they get the reward of the retrieve if they stand there and look at it ? You might then decide , ok , I've had enough of the dog running back and throwing the dummy in itself at me . I've got that nice recall .
To me the recall part is really important . Ok , now I'm going to shape a delivery . So then I'll go . Ok , we'll go shape the delivery indoors . So I'm going to stop all of that running around in the field outside . I'm going to come indoors and just work on some delivery . So I've got that back part molded and then take it back out .
Once the dog can deliver properly in the kitchen or in the house , I'll then take that back out to the field .
Do you think that forcing the delivery issues too early can have a negative impact on the recall ?
I think people that try and formalize delivery may end up putting some pressure on the dog because they may not pleasant for the dog to come back . So yeah , I'd rather see that recor Clients that I see come here often who retrieve all dogs , or all retrievers , will want to run out and chase something because that's the prey drive , but the bringing it back .
The most problems that you see are on that return element . So either they're showboating , running around with it , hunting on all sorts of issues , are usually on the return part of the retreat . They don't have much problem running out and going to the dummy but coming back they might , as I say , hunt on with it in their mouth .
They might swap , they might have a slow return , they might run a ring around you when they get there . There's all sorts of Usually you see , those problems
¶ Training Retrieving Dogs and Handling Techniques
. So yeah , I'm careful with dogs mouths and delivery because , again , going back to puppies , I don't If they're six months old on their teething I'm not going to be doing any retrieving with it . They want to pick up a sock in the house , that's fine .
But I wouldn't be forcing dogs to run out and pick dummies when they've got sore teeth and I don't formalize that delivery , as you say , because I don't want to have a slow return . So I'd rather dog came back fast and had a rubbish delivery early on . And then we go okay , now we've got that speedy recall , dog wants to come back to me .
It's full of joy . Now let's just mold that delivery part .
You're going to take the delivery part and separate it from the recall ?
Yeah , so everything that me is about breaking down . All my training is break down into small elements .
So that simple retrieve of run out , fetched a dummy and come back , and if you look at that , there's probably about six parts to it eventually , because you've got the steadiness , you've got the dogs locking on and marking , you've got the straight line run out there , you've got the hunt , you've got the pickup , you've got the return , you've got the delivery and
so on . So you've got all these separate elements . At any point of those elements can go wrong .
Yeah , and so if it is going wrong and you have a client here and they present an issue , what I've always tried to do is say , okay , let's take all the rest of the elements out .
Yeah , exactly . So if we've got problems with recall and delivery , we take the out , run out because that's usually the part that's busy the dog out and put too much adrenaline in . So we'll actually start with the dog out remotely , we'll do some recall work or then we'll start bringing the dummy back in , but we'll recall the dog onto the dummy .
So it's just breaking that down .
That's a great one , and that's something that's been fun to help people with because it fixes the issue usually really quickly when they don't understand what's getting the dog all jacked up . Is the running out or the marking watching something ?
fall , and then the dogs got such a high energy level that's having trouble containing doing what it's supposed to do after that . So I just say remove that altogether , go back and just do . If you've already worked on hold , just load the dog , like you did earlier with Bray . Load the dog , walk back , recall the dog , take the element out .
That usually is a quick way to fix a lot of that , a lot of those things . At what stage are you introducing your dogs to game ? What do you want the dog doing at that point , before you're comfortable with a dog saying , hey , I think not .
Obviously there's no point in taking your dog into the field on game if you've got major problems with things like delivery or recall or anything like that .
So you want to make sure the dog's well trained and not got any issues , particularly on delivery and carrying things , because if it has on dummies then it's only going to be worse on game and it's going to be more arousing for the dog potentially . It's a tricky one , isn't it ?
I mean , certainly with the young pup , occasionally you might find a partridge or something and put it out and just see if it'll pick it up out of curiosity , but it's not something I do loads of . I know in America they often want to get their dog's birdie , isn't it ? They really want to get the dog birdie . We don't really do that here .
So it's the last stage for us . So we would do all our training , get the dog well rounded and trained and then introduce cold game and then a bit of warm game .
It's a stark contrast . It's one of many stark contrasts . But the early on puppyhood . I have a lot of people that come and they want to pick their puppies up and they bring bird wings and they want to see which dog chases it .
I understand where their thought process is coming from , but typically with a Labrador , once they learn what they're supposed to do , they're going to love birds .
It's going to be really rare that they're not interested . It's going to pick something up .
Yeah , once they learn that the thing that is really smelly out there is the thing they're supposed to pick up it's game on , it's pretty easy . I wait most of the time because I have found with some dogs you create more mouth issues if you do birds .
Yeah , if you haven't exactly With a young , that's what I'm saying . I'd want to be confident in the dog's mouth on a dummy and do it that way first .
Yeah , no , that's very similar . So handling , stopping and casting obviously I don't know that you do a lot of like . Do you do pattern blinds here at all ? Do you do a lot of delayed memories , or what sort of drills are you using for those ? Because I do think there's some good overlap ?
You've sent me some drills that you work on and they're very similar to some of the stuff we do .
You use sort of a grid system , so we'd sort of peg out like a square and have you know , run the dog up the side of the square , stop it , cast it right , that sort of thing . So similar to what you'd have T drill isn't it . So , but do similar sort of yard handling exercises when the dogs are novice , the angster I mean my , perhaps coming up ?
He's nearly 10 months old now and he's not done anything much in the way of handling yet he can run out for memory what I call memory blinds . He's got to stop with . I do tend to put the stop whistling quite early . I tend to start them off with that really early so they're responsive on the stop . So he will stop and then I'll go on to static casting .
So I'll just sit it up and start doing static left and right with him . But we're not on the stage by any of that would be joined up yet .
Right Again , same thing . You're simplifying the elements out .
So I'm teaching .
I'm teaching left and right on their own . I'm teaching going out a straight line on its own . Are you using memories mostly to teach ? Yeah , I do . What ?
I call trading memory blinds . So I'd put , walk out , put a dummy out with the dog , come back , turn around , spin around , send him back for it . And then I'd do a sort of triangle or box version of that where he'd send from a different angle . So , starting to get that memory element .
We do things with visual dummies , so you could do that with a white dummy so the dog can see the dummy . So , different things to support the dog . So when you're starting to teach blinds , it's all about cues . So you're building confidence in your setup . How do you support that ? Will you support that by using a great big white dummy ?
Or sending the dog to a traffic cone ? Or sending the dog down in track , which it knows , and so on ? So different ways of supporting that blind setup .
We have a lot of that in Cornerstone . That would just use white buckets and the idea is that you're focused on the cues and the getting there is the easy part , because I want all this stuff right here to be right to build the momentum . You said something that I want to go back to real fast .
You said you start the stopper so early your dogs stop the way that I think dogs should stop , but they stop because they want to work with you . A lot of dogs , you see , stop very reluctantly If there's too much pressure on the stop whistle . You see dogs stop because they're nervous not to stop .
I see that a lot Dogs turn around like oh shoot , I'm in trouble . You really don't want a dog to feel like stopping is trouble but you are breaking their momentum .
Well , I don't see it as that , because I treat the stop whistle as a start whistle .
That's exactly what I wanted to talk about .
So a lot of people will prevent you Exactly that will use the whistle as preventing the dog from doing something . I actually flip that the other way around and use the stop whistle or the hey , look at me . Whistle as starting . So I mentioned to you about static casting left and right .
I would put the dog out remotely , come back from where I was going to cast it , so the right hand dummy would be out there . I'd blow the stop whistle or the hey , look at me , something great is going to happen whistle and then cast the dog right so the dog starts to get that association .
That whistle means you're going to give the dog some new information to get what it wants Right .
Which you start that early . How are you doing that with puppies ? We do games , so the kids are going to be in the house .
Games . I throw bits of food in the house and kitchen so I'm starting to just get a ball or something . So getting the dog spinning around and looking where that food is going to come from or that ball is going to come from .
We start that very early too , just teaching them . Hey , this is a great thing . You stop and look at me in the whistle , that's the best possible thing . But even still , even if it is a start whistle for the next thing you have dogs who are bearing down on the line and they really want to get there and you've interrupted them .
I mean , I know that I don't know if you , maybe you haven't had this with any dogs , but I've had dogs who , in drills and having fun , they love to stop and look at you , but stopping them going out can be a little more difficult .
Yeah , because if they've got that try , if you're stopping them running out towards something , then that's good . But that's your ultimate test , isn't it ? So I wouldn't be stopping a dog running out towards a dummy early on as a youngster .
Right , you would wait until you have a very consistent .
I've got that consistent response that I would be absolutely certain the dog would spin up and look at me when I blew it . So I'm not going to test it like that .
What is the importance to you of verbal rewards in the field ?
Massively important , yeah , and it's a transition from being close to the dog and being able to deliver a reward ball or I mean I use a lot of positive reinforcement so the dogs will use bits of food for things like recall or stops , a reward ball or toy or something , and also lavish the dog with positive reinforcement in terms of praise .
So it's something I've taken away from just a little bit of training we've done here is . We talk in Cornerstone a lot about the timing of reward and how important it is right now Really important . When you raise a youngster to appreciate verbal praise , you've tied it to all the other types of rewards .
So as I'm giving you this ball , it's also good boy , good boy or whatever it is .
It's feedback to the dog , isn't it ? It's communication . So what you reward , you get more of .
So if you're telling the dog like if I see a dog doing really stylish hunting , I'm going to say to good boy , so I'm not going to keep blowing my hump whistle because dog's already hunting , but what I'm going to say is I really like that what you're doing , good boy , keep doing it , he'll go . Oh , I'm getting rewarded for doing this . This is great .
Keep doing it . It comes across very clear with your dogs . We were working with Bray earlier . You were wanting him to not square up , jumping over a fence , which is a whole other subject , because we don't send dogs over fences , because almost every fence we have is barbed wire .
So whenever we bring them over I'm very cautious and I didn't put my imports near a fence because I don't want them to get hurt . But you didn't want them to square up and so you kind of moved him back . After he did square up , give him a quick verbal correction and then immediately , as he's on the right line , back . It's a lot of good boy , good boy .
What's great to watch from 10 feet behind you is how much your verbal praise turns up his speed , everything . As soon as he hears it he's like oh , I'm doing right , and immediately he gets faster and you can see his excitement level because he knows and that doesn't start at this age .
That starts at very young age , associating positive reinforcement with the right behavior . So I love to watch that . I don't know how long we've been talking , but it feels like it's over an hour when we try to keep this mostly at an hour , so we'll probably need to wrap up fairly soon . Thanks for hosting me very much .
It's a pleasure , Nice to see you yeah .
I'm excited to see how Bray does . Obviously he's young in the championship this year , so low expectations for you . But congratulations on your eighth field trial champion . Thank you for that . It's special for me because I had his dad . Thank you for trusting us with him . So I did a game , a little extra , extra food and some meat off my plate that night .
He had no idea why , but he was excited nonetheless . We'll have to do a couple more because we could talk for probably an hour on genetics and breeding and all that , but without going into those weeds , we'll call it good for this one . Thank you , guys for listening to us .
¶ Following Stoughtonville Gundogs on Social Media
I know you're not super active on social media , but if people wanted to follow along with you and Bray and your future dogs , where could they do that ?
Well , you've kind of said it , I'm not massively active , but I have Stoughtonville Gundog's Facebook page .
Yeah , and a very inactive Stoughtonville Gundog's Instagram page .
It's just completely wrong , I'm afraid .
Yeah , we'll try to help with that . But Stoughtonville Gundog's on Facebook you guys can follow Laura and her husband , Derek and their dogs as they run trials and pick up here in the UK . So best of luck this season in the IGL and tomorrow and the last trial for you guys for the season and I appreciate you hopping on .
Thank you very much .