well, ok. since i have been asked....
and before i start, thanks for a great discussion with everyone pretty much staying on topic!
tests on tech water provide an excellent opportunity to measure the dog's trained abilities and the handlers ability to communicate with their dog. one thing i DO like about them is that the liklihood of injury is small, compared to natural ponds that are frequented by the public and used for fishing and other pastimes that tend to leave dangerous hazards such as broken glass or fish hooks behind, which could injure a dog. this is every judges and participant's nightmare. tests in this type of water usually revolve around multiple re-entries, swimming past points of land that tempt the dog to beach early or lose it's line to the bird and getting in and out of the water in exactly the right place. that said, while these are excellent abilities for a retriever to have in their bag of tricks, at least here in new england, they are not overly useful in our hunting situations.
it's not much of an issue, really, as we have so little of this type of water available to run HT's on up this way.
in this area, we tend to hunt stick ponds, bogs, rivers small and large, and tidal areas. we have a lot of lily pads, logs and stumps in these places that are useful in testing perseverance and marking, and the big water is a challenge in and of itself. i guess a lucky few have access to some golf courses where geese are a nuisance, but this is by and large not available to most of us.
most of our test water is on ponds that are a few acres in size, or on flood control impoundments, where bays and coves are generally utilized. long swims up here are a very common because our water tends to be predominately swimming water. this is actually good as long as the judges don't get carried away. i don't get the opportunity to judge senior or junior much anymore. our master entries tend to be large, at or near the limit before splitting (AKC). i would love to do an open water test with 40 or 50 decoys, dropping the marks in and beyond the spread, with an out-to-sea blind, because that is realistic and i believe it would be a good measure of the qualities our Masterdogs up here need to possess, but it would take way too much time when testing that many dogs. a 10 hour water test is just not in the cards.
i guess what i'm saying is that i prefer the natural water over the technical, but it's all good, and a good pair of judges can make a suitable test from either type of water. -Paul
P.S.- the idea of sending a retriever into a 6 knot current was brought up in this thread. i have never seen the dog capable of making headway in water moving at nearly 7 MPH. it is a BAD idea and borderline irresponsible in big water. you better have a boat in case things go badly. i have seen too many "dead" ducks and geese come to life while the dog is enroute that resulted in a lively cripple with a significant head start on the dog to hunt in this situation without a boat with a dependable motor handy. i learned the hard way. my dog was ok but had the chase gone on much longer i'm not sure she would have made it back to shore. a smallish freshwater river, ok. that's different as they can get out of the water somewhere, even if it's some distance downstream. no duck or goose is worth losing you buddy!
P.P.S.- sorry for the edit, but i was hurrying to get to work and my first post had some "holes" in it!
