[Brevard Arndt]

I am sitting here with a premium for another field trial scheduled on grounds that my dogs have run three FTs on in four months and a HT five months ago, with another HT coming up the last of April.

Do you think that a dog should be run repeatedly in events on the same grounds in the same "season"? How much time should elapse between running events on the same grounds? I would prefer not to get the "It depends" answer :roll: . I am looking for some "rule of thumb" answers.

 

[Cray Stephenson]

are the judges the same? Are the grounds severely limited? WOuld it limit the creativity of the judges?

 

[Lisa Van Loo]

Cray, that is "it depends" dressed up in new clothes. :lol:

Really, here where I am, there aren't many choices for grounds. Basically, all HT & FT are held on the same three pieces of property year in adn year out. Two of those hold a lot of potential for varied tests without repetition. One of these is severely limited, and the same tests crop up year after year, regardless of club, judges, or venue.

One thing that you can do to help yourself is to avoid training on any grounds wher you have frequent events. Nothing like having a particular hassle on a piece of the property in training (say, a long knockdown-dragout over getting a dog off a point) only to have that EXACT factor in the SAME spot used in a test you run a week or two later.

I haven't seen dogs get the testing marks they ran last week confused with what they are seeing today. but I HAVE seen dogs flare off a spot where they were trained, or get drawn to a spot where they had a mark or a blind in training.

Lisa

 

[Brevard Arndt]

Field Trials on the same grounds

are the judges the same? Are the grounds severely limited? WOuld it limit the creativity of the judges?

No the judges are different. The grounds are not too limited, a National Open was there a few years back. A triple DQ was ran in January. As far as the limiting the judges creativity, it hasn't yet.

My concerns are the backgrounds, knowledge of certain areas by the dogs, and becoming trial wise once they recognize landmarks.

 

[Brian Cockfield]

I am sitting here with a premium for another field trial scheduled on grounds that my dogs have run three FTs on in four months and a HT five months ago, with another HT coming up the last of April.

Do you think that a dog should be run repeatedly in events on the same grounds in the same "season"? How much time should elapse between running events on the same grounds? I would prefer not to get the "It depends" answer :roll: . I am looking for some "rule of thumb" answers.

I'm in the same boat as you Brevard but I don't think it's a problem. I like Cooper Black and it's big enough to use often as long as the judges have some creativity. JMHO, even though my oldest dog always seems to lose his mind there. :?

 

[JBlack]

I too run there often and do not think its a problem. Cooper Black is big enough to be used often. The numerous variables (wind, bird placement, etcc...) are not matched very often at all.

 

[Chris Kingrea]

Surely we all train on the same grounds many, many times over the course of a year. I suppose running 3 or 4 trials shouldn't be too big of a deal.

 

[Tim Carrion]

As few times as possible and as many times as necessary.

The options for grounds are decreasing as the need is increasing.

Tim