An Introduction to Field Trialing

This past Saturday I had the opportunity to attend the North Texas Sporting Spaniel Club’s (NTSSC) field trial. Unfortunately, the trail was for Springer Spaniels, so there were no Cockers in attendance. However, the format for Springer trials is identical to the format for Cocker trials, so it was a very good learning experience for me. I had been wanting to attend a trial for quite some time, but had never had one within a reasonable driving distance. So, needless to say, I was pretty excited when I found out about this trailing taking place so close to home.

I happen to be friends with one of the officer’s of the NTSSC, and as soon as I arrived at the trial grounds he came up to me and asked me if I would be the “bird shagger” for the next round (i.e. the guy with a basket over his shoulder who walks behind the judge waiting for dead birds to be deposited in his basket). Since I had never been to a trial before, and hadn’t even seen anything at this trial yet, I was a little hesitant to say yes, but he was able to persuade me into doing it. My instructions were to “stay in the back pocket of the judge.” I positioned myself behind the judge, intending to not say a word, but he turned and initiated a conversation with me. He was very gracious in explaining some of what was going on, and even asked me quite a few questions about my dogs. I  have to say, the opportunity to shag birds was awesome. I was able talk to the gunners and judges while walking back from the course (not while dogs were actually running); and I was able to watch nearly every dog in the trial from close up, and noticed a lot of different styles of dogs, as well as handling techniques. I am definitely partial to Cockers as I found myself enjoying watching the smaller Springers much more than the larger ones, but I think I learned something from each dog that came through.

Several things stick out in my memory. One of these was the very first dog that I watched run. About 40 yards into his run he flushed a bird and moved about ten feet before sitting. The judge gave the handler a tap on the shoulder and that dog’s day was over. In a sick sort of way, I enjoyed seeing that even dogs that are run in the open division aren’t perfect. I also clearly remember watching the winning dog run in the first round. I had to leave at the end the first round, but I heard from my friend which dog won. I remember thinking that this dog hunted smarter and harder than the other ones, and also was very responsive to the handler. I was happy to hear he had won, as I figured that reflected well on dog discernment! On a side note, I think it would be very difficult to judge one of these trials. There are so many good dogs that come through that it must take a very critical eye to determine which dogs place and which ones don’t.

My purpose for going to the trial was two fold. One was to watch how it was run, and to get a general feeling for the event so that I’ll be more comfortable when I compete with Rocky in the future. Two, I wanted to see what areas I need to work on with Rocky in order to get him to that level. In regards to this second objective, I think the thing that stuck out most to me was the emphasis on the dog’s intensity and intelligence when quartering. I watched dog’s cover their ground very well, with high energy, and even adjust their patterns in relation to the wind direction. In applying it to Rocky, I saw a definite need to continue working on his pattern. He is coming along well in this area, but I need to continue focusing on smoothing out his quartering and making sure he covers all of the ground in front of me. I also noticed that there is not a huge emphasis on retrieving. The dogs are required to retrieve all game shot, but I didn’t see a lot of great marks, and I only saw one retrieve that looked difficult. I think that maybe I am spending a little too much time perfecting Rocky’s retrieving abilities and need to focus more on his hunting abilities.

Overall it was a great experience and I can’t wait to get involved in Cocker trials with Rocky. I didn’t feel for a second that he was outclassed  by any of the dogs that I watched, although they are certainly trained to a higher standard than he is at this point. I feel confident that if I continue to work on smoothing out his pattern and get him steady to flush and shot (this is a big one and I’m working on it), we can at least compete without embarrassing ourselves!

I took Rocky out this evening for some work on his (you guessed it) quartering, and he paused long enough for this picture. What’s a blog post without at least one picture?!

Book Review: The Working Cocker

Life has been a little crazy for me lately. I started working a new job that has me working long hours, and although I still find time to train the dogs, I don’t always find time to write about it. On top of that, I added a new addition to the family today. No, it’s not another ECS. This one is of the homo sapien variety. He came this morning and is doing great! Rocky has taken it upon himself to be the personal guardian of the baby (Bret), and at least for today he could usually be found somewhere close to the vicinity of Bret (as was the case for this picture).

In spite of all of the “hoopla” surrounding this weekend, I still found time to read The Working Cocker by P E Jones. When I arrived home from work Friday evening, I found it stuffed in my mailbox. I’d all but given up hope on seeing it because I’d been informed that it had been shipped at the end of December, but I had yet to see it. I figured that it must have got stuck in customs or lost in transit seeing that it had already been almost two months since shipping. It was certainly a pleasant surprise to find it in the box, and seemed to be perfect timing  having arrived at the start of a weekend!

Let me sum up my impression of the book very succinctly for you: I had a very busy weekend. I still managed to  finish reading the book early this afternoon. I liked the book a lot.

Now for the details. P E Jones does not know me from Adam, but I have been a “secret admirer” of his for the last couple of years. I have tried to find out anything I can about him over the internet, and have followed his success in field trails fairly closely. He has an extremely popular kennel name (Maesydderwen), and his dogs show up in a large number of ECS pedigrees. When I read the description of this book, I was excited because I thought that it would  give me a glimpse into Jones’ kennel. The book did not disappoint in the least.

Jones has a very personable style of writing. After reading the book, I almost felt that I knew him personally. He has a dry sense of humor that is prevalent throughout the book, and this makes for a very easy read. I had waited so long for this book that I wanted to make it last, so I found myself imposing mandatory breaks in order to draw it out a little longer! I would love to someday purchase a dog from Jones, and after reading his book, I feel that I wouldn’t hesitate to call him up on the phone as he seems like a very decent person.

Now, for the content more specifically. Here is what stood out to me:

1) I thoroughly enjoyed his material on the history of the breed. I have read a lot of material on the ECS breed, but a lot of what Jones wrote was completely new to me. It helped clarify some of the questions that I had, and was very informative. A number of times I found myself reading something to my wife that I thought interesting. She feigned interest, but really I think she was secretly making plans to wake me up in the middle of the night to go have a baby! Either way, I learned more about the ECS breed as a result of this book, and that’s saying a lot.

2) Generally, the training methods for Spaniels are fairly similar across the board. Most trainers follow the same general principals and then add their own little nuances. P E Jones is no different. Most of the training material in the book I had already learned from other sources. However, there were several things that were unique and that I will definitely implement into my training. One of these is a method that I have not seen anywhere else for improving a pup’s ability to track a runner. It makes sense, and will be a help for both hunting and competing. Throughout the training portion of the book Jones reminded me over and over again to not give an inch to my dogs. This served as an excellent reminder to me, and I know it had an impact on how I treated my dogs even today. He states at the start of the book that the training material in the book is more directed at the novice than at an experienced trainer, and I believe that is an accurate statement for the most part. The novice will find a lot of good material to implement in their training. On the other hand, I would think that even an advanced trainer would do well to at least read Jones’ material.

3) My undoubtedly favorite part of this book was the insight that it gave me into so many different Cockers, of whom previously I had only known as names on a page. Jones seems to know something about every single dog that I have ever tried to research on the internet. There were a number of dogs whose names I have researched, but was unable to acquire any information, that unbeknownst to me Jones had trialed, and provided a description of in the book. He also had pictures for a large number of these dogs, which made it even more interesting. Many of the dogs that he competed with in the past are the foundation stock for the dogs that we own today, and I at least found it fascinating to read about these dogs that contributed to the dogs that are currently curled up at my feet!

So, who would I recommend this book to? Anyone who is truly an enthusiast of English Cockers will benefit from this book. I have this extremely strong addiction for the breed that creates a strong appetite to learn everything I can about these great dogs. This appetite is not easily satiated, but Jones’ book did more than any material that I have ever read to at least curb the hunger pains. I found it extremely interesting to learn about the breed from someone “on that side of the pond”, and it was clear that he knows more about the history and the founding dogs of the breed than most, if not all writers here in the US. I feel strongly that if you are a fan of the ECS breed, then you owe it to yourself to purchase this book. It will provide you with an excellent read, and will make an excellent resource to have in your collection. Not only for training material, but also to reference a particular dog that might be in a pedigree you’re interested in. 

I can’t say enough good things about this book, and would heartily recommend it to my fellow Cocker enthusiasts.

A Few Drills

Rocky has really been coming on strong lately. Unfortunately, his owner has been swamped with work! However, every time I take him out, it seems like he surprises me with something new. Case in point: last week I took him to the park for some quartering exercises. After he found the last ball I’d planted for him, he started “asking” me for a retrieve. I hupped him and through a ball for him. But, rather than giving him a simple retrieve, I decided to throw something new in. I sent him for the retrieve, but when he was about half way there, I blew the stop whistle and he spun around and sat down looking at me! I really couldn’t believe it. I have done a lot of basic obedience with him, but he has such a strong desire to retrieve that I figured it would override the obedience.

In the video below Rocky demonstrates his new trick. I have not done it again since the video was taken because as you’ll see in the video, he starts to anticipate the stop whistle. It only took a few normal retrieves to iron this out, but I certainly don’t want any hiccups in his retrieving. At the start of the video you’ll also see him demonstrate his steadiness when I roll a tennis ball in front of his nose.

Let me apologize in advance for the poor video quality. The baby noises in the background are also distracting, but try to focus on the dog work

A Little Brag

I have recently got to the point where I've decided I'm not going to let Rocky flush a bird and not be steady anymore. Meaning, every time he flushes a bird, I am going to make sure that he sits when the bird flushes, regardless of how inconvenient it is for me. Last weekend I trained with a Springer owner and was able to work the dogs on live birds. I kept Rocky on a long lead (probably about 50') and when he flushed the birds, I gave him a "hup whistle" and used the lead to make sure he didn't chase. The birds didn't fly straight out when he flushed them, so the lead was slack, but he did eventually sit each time.

This past week I took him out for a little run at a local field and twice he flushed doves out of some low willows. When I blew the hup whistle, both times he immediately stopped and watched the doves fly away while he sat their quivering. To be honest with you, I was totally shocked that he responded this way. Macy isn't even close to this point, and I've done a lot of obedience training with her (which, unfortunately, you might not know just by watching her!). I was very encouraged by Rocky's performance, and although I've never fully steadied a dog, it seems like he is well on his way to getting the concept.

Today I took him down to the park for a few retrieves. When I first got there I took him off his lead and gave him a "get out" command. When he got to about 20' away, I blew the hup whistle and he hit the brakes in a hurry. I then rolled a tennis ball about 12" from his nose and he watched it roll by without flinching. Somewhat surprised by his performance so far, I decided to step it up a notch. I walked over and picked the ball up and gave it a good toss, probably 30 yards away. All the while he sat watching. I then gave him the release command (his name) and he torpedoed after the wall. When he was about half way there, I gave him a hard hup whistle, and he hit the brakes, spun around, and sat down! I was absolutely shocked by this. He has such a strong retrieve drive that I didn't think there was any way I'd be able to stop him in mid retrieve without a lot of work. I then sent him to finish the retrieve and did the same drill over again, and got the same response. I'm also working on making him hup before he delivers the ball (or dummy) to my hand, and he did this both times as well.

This was my first time ever asking Rocky to sit in the middle of a retrieve, and he performed as if he’d been doing it his whole life. This dog is really making me excited! I can't believe how easy he is to work with and how quickly he picks things up. He turned 9 months old a few days ago, but sometimes he seems like he is 5 years old

Recovery

I realize I’ve been a long time in posting. Near the end of my stay in the midwest I ended up catching a fairly severe cold that didn’t exactly lay me up, but definitely made life miserable. I’ve also had some work obligations that have sidetracked me. I’ve still been getting in short training sessions with the dogs, but nothing really hard. I suppose It’s for the best as they probably needed a little recovery time after the amount of hunts I put them through. I figured out that we hunted 7 out of 10 days while in IA/MN. All of that hunting was done in deep snow to boot, which made it that much harder. Still, I managed to come away with 11 birds total for the trip.

Here’s Macy recovering from all of the hunting—she looks a little pitiful, don’t you think?!

I have recently started some quartering drills with Rocky that I would like to video and post on here. Maybe tomorrow? My wife is now sick (I hate that part of this time of the year!), but I’ll get her out there soon to do some videoing. I’m also still waiting on the video from the Maesydderwen kennel. I suppose the holidays probably slowed down the international mail.

I trust you all are getting in some good hunts as your seasons wind down!

Iowa: Day Three (and Four and Five)

On Wednesday of last week, I went out for my third day of hunting in Iowa. This time I went to a property that I’ve had a lot of success on in the past, but had not hit yet this week. I pulled up to the property at 8:01 AM (shooting starts at 8:00), and immediately saw a rooster hunkered down about 30 yards off of the road underneath some pine trees. I left the dogs in their kennel and walked up to where I’d last seen the bird, and it flushed in the trees. A long shot through the trees brought it down, and since it looked like it had been hit hard, I left it and went back to get the dogs. I decided to take both dogs with me since I thought there was a chance I’d get a quick limit, and I wanted to make sure both dogs got a good workout. I took the dogs back to the general area of the fall, and Rocky found a delivered the bird. He’s really turning into bird finding machine!

I then proceeded to walk through the pine trees, anticipating walking some switch grass on the far side of the pines. When I got to where the switch grass was supposed to be, the snow was so deep that there was barely any cover at all. As I stood there analyzing the cover, I heard a bird fly out one of the pines above me. It didn’t cackle, but it sounded like a pheasant, so I quickly took about four steps to my right to get a clear view past the pine. It was a rooster, streaking back in the direction I’d just come from. Again, a long shot brought the bird tumbling into an open path about 45 yards away. I could see the bird’s feathers sticking out of the snow, and it looked like it was dead. Rocky and Macy were both on the other side of the pines and didn’t see the bird fly or fall, so they had no idea what I was shooting at. I sent Rocky in the general direction of the bird (he’s not much for blinds yet), and when he was about halfway to the rooster, the bird jumped up and took off running. The chase was on! It didn’t take Rocky long to catch and retrieve the bird, and I was only about 15 minutes into the hunt!

I then walked back to the truck and dropped off the birds and gave the dogs a quick breather, before proceeding to the other side of the road. The snow was incredibly deep and that side of the road didn’t have nearly as much cover as it would have if the snow had been a little more reasonable. I walked up a small creek line, but it was so drifted I didn’t have high expectations. Near the end of the creek line, Macy fought through the drifts around the creek and went up the other side before going under some Cedar Trees. I wasn’t really paying attention to her since the cover didn’t look very good, so she ended up getting out a little further than I’d normally let her. A cackling rooster caught my attention, and I turned to see her flushing a rooster from under the Cedars; it was about 35 yards away when it flushed. I had a really long shot on the bird, but it took a somewhat gradual decent to the ground at the sound of the shot. I called Rocky back to me and made him sit while Macy headed for the downed bird. I couldn’t see the place where the bird fell, but within a few minutes Macy was bringing the bird back. She had a terrible time fighting through the drifts along the creek with that big bird, but at 8:41 I had my third bird in the bag! Macy definitely gave Rocky a schooling on that bird!

This snow has been really rough on the dogs, but they’re doing their best. They are not able to quarter like they would on bare ground, but it makes them use their noses more. I think it also helps them to choose more carefully where to target their efforts. I’ve noticed that especially Macy has been doing an excellent job of hitting the likely looking cover. I am looking forward to getting back to my house where I can work the dogs in habitat that doesn’t have two feet of snow! I am also happy to feel my old shooting form coming back; I had three hard shots today and made all three on the first shot.

I did go out on Friday and Saturday with my brother and a couple of his brother-in-laws, but we didn’t fire a single shot either day! I’m seeing a pattern here…when I hunt on my own I’m MUCH more successful than when hunting with other!

Upcoming Book Review

I just received word that I have a book on the way from Peter Jones at Maesydderwen Cockers. I have always admired the dogs that come from this kennel and hope to someday import one of Peter’s dogs.  I cannot wait to get this book and read about Cockers from Peter’s perspective. Look for a review of the book in the next week or so. If you’d like to read more info about the book in the meantime, The Maesydderwen websight has some info here: http://www.maesydderwencockers.webeden.co.uk/#/the-working-cocker/4544951150