"Line" to the Blind

KwickLabs said:

50 yards with 15 degree "cone" off 6.6 yards (from the blind) & at 100 yards that is doubled to 13.2 yards..........Sorry for the tangent. :wink:

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There ya go!

Now how do you score a "Key Hole" ?

Using the 15deg benchmark, at 75 yds that is about 15' on each side of the "laser" line.

At a FT, if the factor is substantially less than full width of the 30' corridor , and it has been "tried for"/challenged but missed.

Should this ever be an automatic failure,in spite of the fact that while doing so the dog was never outside the 15deg boundary.
Or should it simply be scored relative to the work of the rest of the field ?

john

I just don't understand what is so worthy of a high blind score when a handler is just demonstrating control over a dog (although that control was severely lacking as an initial line taken) as the dog ping-pongs back & forth across a laser line yet with little momemtum (tough to demonstrate good style & momemtum with 15-20+ whistles in some cases).

John I understand where you are going with this but the problem is that even if some say they share a view that the dog should "simply be scored relative to the work of the field" BUT hold the idea of this laser line (with a keyhole in this case), the dog will still be failed compared to that dog that hits the keyhole yet demonstrates no style or momentum & may well be as variant to that laser line on both sides of that line as the dog that missed the keyhole. Only if you are of the school of thought that visualizes there is a corridor or blind path to the bird will you give due credit to a good initial line (but slightly off-but within the cone) that carries for a considerable distance with only corrections that result in never crossing the laser line but intersecting at the the bird (not the dog 2 example in the blind discussion thread unless dog 2 had several less handles). I don't think the keyhole should ever be an automatic failure. BTW I ask again, would any of you laser line folks change your view if dog B had just 2-3 whistles along that same line taken?

And Nancy P your comment implies that crossing the line along the way is the same as making progress toward the blind while saying that dog B that near-parallels the line is not making progress - yet in the example given in the blind discussion the distance traveled by dog B to the bird was approx 20% less than dog A. That tells me dog B had the better line - and don't confuse this issue with cast refusals that is another issue that can be judged in a much more objective manner (let's deal with the line to the blind issue separately). Again, that is why I ask would any of you laser line advocates change your mind about dog B if there had been only 2-3 handles?

"The line to the blind is the line to the blind."

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It's pretty much that simple, IMHO.

And trying to visualize 15' to either side of the "line" at 75 yards is counterproductive, again IMHO. Point "A" is the mat; point "B" is the bird. Draw a dotted line between the two, show any appreciable hazards or landmarks germaine to that line, then draw what the dog does. At the end of the series, eliminate any outright failures or cumulative failures and move on.

When the judging is done, I doubt either judge will have referred to how far off line dogs were, but rather how close to ON line the dogs were and did they take the casts they were given and hold those casts for an appreciable distance.....regardless of the "degree" or distance at whatever yardage they were left or right of the line.

As was stated earlier, that there is a field of dogs is moot for a hunting test. For a field trial, the field of dogs sets the standard for the blind.

It ain't trigonometry regards,

kg

K G said:

"The line to the blind is the line to the blind."

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It's pretty much that simple, IMHO.

And trying to visualize 15' to either side of the "line" at 75 yards is counterproductive, again IMHO. Point "A" is the mat; point "B" is the bird. Draw a dotted line between the two, show any appreciable hazards or landmarks germaine to that line, then draw what the dog does. At the end of the series, eliminate any outright failures or cumulative failures and move on.

When the judging is done, I doubt either judge will have referred to how far off line dogs were, but rather how close to ON line the dogs were and did they take the casts they were given and hold those casts for an appreciable distance.....regardless of the "degree" or distance at whatever yardage they were left or right of the line....
kg

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It seems to me to just be semantics whether you judge how close to or how far away a dog runs relative to the line & clearly the line to the blind is the line to the blind - but that becomes relative when judging the field of dogs (like whether you say these dogs are called back or these dogs are dropped, to the field of dogs you get to the same judging result). And while the line is the line, few dogs (if any) over FT blind distances remain perfectly on that line even if they arrive at & retrieve a blind without a handle, so by the very concept of how close to that line a dog remains while running the blind actually becomes a corridor with its width determined by the field of dogs. So while you might not being visualizing a 15' deviation from the line, by your own statement you are judging the dogs relative to how close they are to that line & have to determine how close/how far is acceptable relative to the field. That acceptable how close/far is a corridor in application.

Keith by using your described judging approach as you noted in brief above, you would seem to ascribe by application to the corridor view even though you state the line is the line. The key would be how do you or others reason a passsing score (meaning the dog is called back here) with that approach. Some apparently are willing to automatically fail a dog for not touching a point of cover, water, etc along the line even though the point may be much smaller than the otherwise acceptable deviation from that line at other points by the portion of the field of dogs that received passing scores or you may well drop dogs that took a shorter path to the bird than another dog that ping-ponged.

Unfortunately, it's not the defintion that's the issue, it's the interpretation. So I still ask would those who are of the laser line view, still prefer dog A over dog B if dog B carried the same line as shown in the blind discussion thread but only had 1-2 handles?

Keith by using your described judging approach as you noted in brief above, you would seem to ascribe by application to the corridor view even though you state the line is the line.

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The "line is the line" is the term most often (and strategically, IMHO) used by judges when asked which points/cover/bushes must be gone over/around/through to get the bird. After that, how everything is scored is relative to what the dogs do.

If a FT blind is such that most all dogs had a "bear" of a time with maintaining "the line to the blind is the line to the blind," then whichever dog did the best will be the dog that "sets the standard" by which the rest of the dogs are judged. That the blind was a "bear" will also factor into the scoring, but since we're judging dogs against dogs, the dog that did the best is where we start the comparision.

I personally don't subscribe to the "corridor" theory because it doesn't adequately allow for factors that should be included in a blind that should/could cause a dog to be outside the "corridor" if he and his handler don't try to fight them. To me, it's sort of like making the mistake of saying "you must get that point/go through that cover/go just left of that tree" in order to be called back.....then -no- dogs get that point/cover/left of the tree.....how do you justify your callbacks then????? That crashing sound is the judge's credibility crumbling to the ground.....

I still vote for dog A in the previous thread because he took the casts that were given. Dog B appears to not have responded until the end of the blind. To me it's a control and response issue, not the relative distance from the line to the blind.

kg

I judged a Q a while back that had a straight land blind with not other obsticals other than the marks just run in the field. The thing that was interesting was at the end of the blind if you were at the location of dog B then if the dog took a back instead of over (15-20 yards offline) then you would loose the dog until in pooped up on top of the hill. Quite a few handlers sent the dog in the general direction of the bird and let them ride out and gave a over at the end. One guy did it in 1 whistle but never challanged the blind. we had 2 days to work with and would carry basically any dog that brought back birds. The water series was obvious get on the point and yet some just swam right by :shock:

This spring I ran a open and the line was in water out on land right of dead tree left of bush etc.. the line was the line and iffin you missed um bye-bye.

Dog A and B have comparable marks which are head and shoulders above the rest of the field and their water blinds are stellar their difference is in their land blind.
My co-judge and myself are discussing the merits of their respective land blinds to determine which gets the blue.
The dog that had the best land blind thus, by the rational of some, determining the parameters of the fairway and for the challenging of the hazards, was picked up on the water marks and is, along with its blinds, no longer in the picture.

Using the rational that the field set the standard for the land blind, where do now you go for this standard
No.
I say that the judges set the so called ?par,?? and by using the Standing Recomendations and I can and will quote passages fron the FT R&SP
to back that position up. :wink:

John


The ?STANDARD PROCEDURE FOR NON-SLIP
RETRIEVER TRIALS?? clearly defines the responsibility
of Judges, ................
It is recommended that a Judge should have clearly
in mind, and for each test, precisely what type of performance
he expects, since such work will merit a high
rating in his records. Then he should observe, and
record, in what respects and to what degrees the performances
by individual dogs have either exceeded or
fallen short of that previously established ?par,?? in each
test. Hence, when the stake is completed, several
Judges will arrive at their final decision about placings
on the basis of which dog, relatively, did better work
than another in each of the several series.