Juding the Derby

Marvin S · Apr 15, 2009

Vicki Worthington said:
Marvin,

At the risk of incurring your proseful ire, A good handler does not a good judge make in many cases. I know lots of people with FCs, FC-AFCs, Derby Points, and QAA earners who know how to handle in a field trial, but not in training. They've NEVER set up a test in training--wouldn't know how. But they set up a training test they saw at their pro's facility when they judge, and have absolutely no idea why something works--just that it eliminates dogs. However, I agree the judges should be people who have to face up to their peers week in and week out when they do something like I just described. People who no longer run have little to worry about if they don't do their jobs properly when they judge. Human nature being what it is, there is no absolute impartiality.

You will never risk anything as long as you are civil in your presentation.

I don't believe I have ever posted that a good handler makes a good judge, just implied that they have at least graced the line under trial conditions. They at least know what level of work is required to earn a placing in an AA or Derby stake. The database is set up so I can note those people who have someone else do their training & most others can figure that out.

TBS - you were at the trial where I came up with the inspiration to do the website. You had judged the other stake & tried to input to the pair of bookholders what you thought they needed to do. They managed to decimate a fine group of Derby dogs with their idiocy. Having judged with one of them I should have known better & just stayed home. I just thought the other to be more experienced because the club had paid to fly him there, which was a really bad call on my part.

Apparently, some feel there is value in what is posted to about the tune of 1K+ hits a month (our community is small) & the occasional e-mail which says they understand why some individuals should not stand behind the dog with a book. When some one lines up with all Zero's behind their name except for their judging points, that has to say something.

Keith,

I like your idea about you and Marvin agreeing to disagree. Neither of you will EVER change the other's mind.

Keith is not hard to tweak & place in his banty rooster posture.

I enjoy raising Keith's BP as that is probably as close to getting exercise as he will get, as he hires the training work out. I'm really helping him stay fit. :BIG:

JKL · Apr 15, 2009

Marvin S said:
TBS - you were at the trial where I came up with the inspiration to do the website. You had judged the other stake & tried to input to the pair of bookholders what you thought they needed to do. They managed to decimate a fine group of Derby dogs with their idiocy. Having judged with one of them I should have known better & just stayed home. I just thought the other to be more experienced because the club had paid to fly him there, which was a really bad call on my part.

I believe that to be Dave Sniegowski, you know him dont you Vicki!

K G · Apr 16, 2009

Marvin S said:
Keith is not hard to tweak & place in his banty rooster posture.

I enjoy raising Keith's BP as that is probably as close to getting exercise as he will get, as he hires the training work out. I'm really helping him stay fit.

You keep thinking that, Marv. That you did not re-address ANY of the points I brought up in my last post to you tells me where the REAL "tweaking" occurred!

Have a nice evening! ;-)

kg

Jim Pickering · Apr 16, 2009

Vicki Worthington said:
Jim, I'll try to answer, from my own perspective, your questions as best I can.

Thaks for your reply. At the risk of interrupting the seperate Marvin & Keith dicussion I would like to continue with the original subject. Excuse me fellows.

I would NOT drop the dog that ran around the water.

Nor would I if time and logistics were not issues. Maybe we are not as far apart as I though.

Your dog would be considered to have a better overall performance, but not necessarily a better "mark" since both dogs obviously knew exactly where the bird(s) was/were.

There was no my dog or your dog in the scenario; just dog A and dog B. But if you are saying that both had equal marks, but dog A had the better overall performance then I am in agreement. Two for two; we are on a roll.

My discussion originated because of the observations I've had for quite awhile that dogs were eliminated from the competition that should, IMO, be allowed to continue to run--not necessarily place.

In a perfect world you and I would carry as many dogs as find the marks without committing a mandatory elimination fault. However, the judges’ primary job is to find the best dogs entered that weekend within the time allowed. Time allowed has more parts than minutes on a clock. Many clubs are limited on grounds, help, and/or funds. If the FTC asks the derby judges to make every effort to finish a derby in one day, I am of the opinion that the judges should try to accommodate that request by sticking to their primary job and leaving the encouraging new guys to the club some other weekend.

Even if time and its other moving parts are not issues, based on the derby dogs we ran against last year and the derby dogs I have judged this year, you are not going to separate the best dogs if there is not sufficent meat, difficulty in the tests to eliminate the less prepared dogs. Seperation is just not possible if the tests are weak enough for the average dog to complete.

Did you not complain about 3 series derby stakes on this or another thead? Let me put a spin on a 3 test derby for discussion. My approach to judging derby stakes had been to put up a first test that was wide open as Richard described, fairly short marks with birds shot/thrown out of the test to try and let every dog get through the first test and get back to the second series. In doing this have I not reduced the derby effectively to 3 series in which to seperate the remaining dogs. I am just asking, but is this approach not penalizing the better dogs for the sake of encouraging the new guys?

Be "rewarding" individuals with a finish/JAM that got all the birds, but not in such manner that they would receive a placement, I feel that encouragement is offered to those contestants to continue to work and strive for better performances. Sure, they may ruin a dog for all-age work, but if they get so discouraged that they just give up and quit, what difference will it make. I'd like to think that the finish(s) may help them to seek more training knowledge and do better with the dog for the next trial or even do better with the next dog they get/train.

To the best of my memory I have never withheld a JAM from a dog that finished a derby I judged because I will have done my best to make the dog earn the ribbon. However, I am not at all sure doing so does these folks any favors for reasons already stated previously.

When I started, my first competitive dog was at the Derby level. I made every mistake you could make as a handler. I handled poorly, let the dog learn all kinds of bad habits too. But guess what...that dog was my first AFC. I buckled down & made the effort to learn how to do things better, correctly...how to have success. If I'd gotten thrown out of every trial because I couldn't place, I might not have continued for the 20+ years that I have.

Was that first dog by chance AFC ESPRIT HARDBALL? I ask this next queston only to gain a better understanding of your opnions, but did you do all the training on this dog yourself? It appears that you are now using pros to train your dogs so I wonder if that was the case with this one 20 years ago. There is a BIG difference between a handler leaning from his/her mistakes at a trial and a dog learning from its mistakes. There is a bigger difference between the dog going home with its amateur owner who must attempting to fix the problems induced at the trial and the dog going with a pro to be fixed during the next week. If you did in fact train your frist dog yourself to the AFC title my hat is off to you, but that makes it all the more difficult to understand your position as respect carring dogs.

Again thanks for the discussion!!

Marvin S · Apr 16, 2009

K G said:
That you did not re-address ANY of the points I brought up in my last post to you tells me where the REAL "tweaking" occurred! kg

Originality would have been worthy of a specific reply, redundancy not so much. ;-)

K G · Apr 16, 2009

Marvin S said:
Originality would have been worthy of a specific reply, redundancy not so much. ;-)

The truth can set one free, Marv....one just has to decide to embrace it.:razz:

Let us allow the folks with more important things to say on this thread to do so. Please, Mr. Pickering, do continue....and don't forget to include a judge's education of new handlers on the running line as to the do's and don'ts of running a Derby dog.

kg

Vicki Worthington · Apr 16, 2009

Jim, I will try to respond to your questions/comments as best I can. This darned system keeps telling me I'm not logged in & I've logged in 3 times now only to be unable to post! Perhaps the moderators have locked me out & done me a favor????

First, AFC Esprit Hardball "Pitch" was my first bona fide field trial dog. I purchased him from a professional trainer just out of basics. He had never run a field trial and was not remotely ready to run a derby. I trained him all spring/summer with a group of amateurs that I trained with on a daily basis. I made lots of training mistakes and lots of handling mistakes. At that time I only used a professional in the winter—from about January to mid-March. Unfortunately, now that I'm in Chicago, my job requires longer hours and an unfriendly schedule for training dogs. Couple that with the fact that training areas are at least an hour drive from home and training becomes pretty impossible to do on any regular basis. Just cause I use a pro now doesn't mean I don't know how to do it!

Second, this whole post was prompted by observations I've made over several years, at lots of trials, and in various areas of the country! It does not advocate doing "easy" tests so that everyone can play. Most anyone who knows me and has run under me knows I have the same response as Tina Turner—I don't do easy! What I am concerned about is that the Derby has become more interested in producing tests that do not represent good, pure marking tests. Tests that reveal the dogs that are the best natural markers. Rather, they rely on training concepts—tests designed to elicit a correction in training—to select the winner.

Put up the hard tests, sure. Just ensure they are marking tests. Tests that dogs must actually mark the bird and go to a place that they would not naturally want to go. Make it difficult as you like to "get there" but not by means of training issues, like cheating. Don't judge a mark by the line taken, but rather by the expeditious manner in which the bird is retrieved. The dogs WILL separate themselves. The cream will rise to the top, but the "cream" on these tests just may not be the dog that has lots of derby points in his resume if he got them by being trained to take lines, to know where to go because he's been so schooled about tight lines and where he's already been.

My concerns about the derby stem not from hard tests and eliminations, but rather from eliminations for a hunt, a behind the gun route to the bird, a cheat from a dog that knows where the bird is & goes straight there. Will these dogs place? Not likely, but should they finish—YES.

Limitations on grounds may constrain the tests, but shouldn't alter the judging criteria. Let them fail themselves. Put up the hardest tests—marking tests that is—the grounds allow & judge what you get. Don't just seek to eliminate. There will be some, but hopefully fewer eliminations for "minor to moderate" infractions.

Lastly, it doesn't matter who is running the dog or who trained the dog. The Derby should continue to be about marking, not advanced training. Just because pro-trained, and some amateur-trained dogs have advanced training shouldn't preclude other good markers just because they don't have the benefit of that advanced training—YET.

I don't like to nag dogs to death over every minor or moderate infraction cited in the rule book. Rather, my drawing generally disclose those issues, and I do make note of such things as sticky on a bird, noisy, creeping, poor line manners etc. Hopefully, I'm NEVER going to have to decide a Derby winner be whether he committed one or two minor faults, but rather on good separation on how he found the birds.

John Robinson · Apr 16, 2009

Vicki Worthington said:
s.

Put up the hard tests, sure. Just ensure they are marking tests. Tests that dogs must actually mark the bird and go to a place that they would not naturally want to go. Make it difficult as you like to "get there" but not by means of training issues, like cheating. Don't judge a mark by the line taken, but rather by the expeditious manner in which the bird is retrieved. The dogs WILL separate themselves. The cream will rise to the top, but the "cream" on these tests just may not be the dog that has lots of derby points in his resume if he got them by being trained to take lines, to know where to go because he's been so schooled about tight lines and where he's already been.

My concerns about the derby stem not from hard tests and eliminations, but rather from eliminations for a hunt, a behind the gun route to the bird, a cheat from a dog that knows where the bird is & goes straight there. Will these dogs place? Not likely, but should they finish—YES.

Boy I totally agree with this,

When I first started in this game, rather recent compared to a lot of you old timers, I had the pleasure of training with Don Berard every weekend and Don's nephew Jim Mitchell every day. Don trained with Eric Fangsrud so that was a double benefit on weekends. Anyway Don was full of knowledge but very humble about it. His only guidance to me when setting up test was to put the bird "where dogs don't want to go".

Of course it takes years of experience and good dog sense to be able to look out in a field and know where dogs don't want to go. Every since then I take Don's words to heart when I'm setting up a test in a FT. I have also noticed that if you put birds where dogs don't want to go, and open them up a bit taking the "concept" out of the picture, not a contrary test, just an open test, you take that trained crutch away and dogs that may be schooled on concepts but lack true marking ability tend to get lost.

I really like running hard test where it takes a very good dog to complete the test at all. After four series of hard test, there will be separation and a completion even if you don't place, a JAM will have real meaning.

John

Juding the Derby

Marvin S

JKL

K G

Jim Pickering

Marvin S

K G

Vicki Worthington

John Robinson

Top Contributors this Month

Recommended Communities