What To Do As A Handler When...

[Good Dogs]

The judges made several mistakes and the last one was to call you to the line with a dead bird in plain sight and interfering with the test. You made the mistake of not making sure the "field was clear" before leaving the holding blind. You were trying to help things along and learned the axiom "No good deed goes unpunished." You would have been well within your rights to request that the judges remove the interfering bird and suggest to them that you'd go back a few dogs while they get the test reset and ready. Or as suggested above, simply rope your dog and go back to the truck while they sort things out. Lesson learned: You own the field and have every right ask or otherwise make sure that all gunners are ready and any distractions removed. Most judges will try to make sure of that but they might not notice a white truck driving near the test, or a flock of wild mallards rolling over the field or any number of other things that might make for an unfair situation. Take your time. Look around and make sure they are ready for you and pup.
I certainly hope that after all of that commotion they carried you to the next series and took the interference into consideration at the end of the day.

[Kelly Greenwood]

So did you get called back to the second series?

Generally when a judge says something to the effect of "do what you have to do..." after something funky happened, it means he/she/they realize they screwed up and they are going to give you a freebie. Happened to me one time when the honor dog crept a total of 20 yards parallel to the line and managed to block my dog's view of all three marks, accompanied by loud yelling from the honor dog handler. I was flabbergasted (didn't think I'd use that in a sentence today) they didn't give me a re-run and I ended up handling on two of the three marks. But we passed (last series, clean to that point) so I figured they realized they really should have gone with a re-run and would have looked bad if they failed me after letting that stuff go. So my guess is they did call you back and i hope you did okay the rest of the test.

Yes we were carried to 2nd, but that ended badly, My dog over ran the go bird and hunted about 20-30 yards deep (crest of hill vs side of hill) and I was to scared t handle right away because I wanted to show a clean triple. Once I decided to do something we had a good clean handle and picked up the 2 memory birds clean then had one of the best blinds of the field. I was proud of his Memory birds straight to the area and nice pick ups and was really proud of his blind. I did ask why I was dropped and they said because my dog did not show "Depth of Fall". I am not sure if they considered the mark from the first series he did not see and the go bird in the second or based it just on the go bird in the second series. I learned that when in doubt do not be scared to handle early, an early handle and I might have been back to the third. Somedays things just do not go well, and I certainly wasn't happy with my dog not marking a go bird so he did not perform to my standards for him that day.