Club l'Epagneul Breton Inc, Victoria, Australia, field trial

Victoria

The Club is holding its Non-slip Retrieving Trial on the 9th November 2008 at Nagambie, Victoria and its 4th championship show is on the 1st November at Lancefield. Once again, I am unable to attend due to work commitments!!! I will get over there one day!!!
Waldo, will you be attending...please let us know how it goes!!

See Mr Gianni Guffanti from Italy is judging the show.

Waldo

Hi Victoria,
No, we wont be going. I'm not really in to the retrieving trial thing, well at least not yet anyway. Most of that sort of thing is a fair way away from where we live and I'm pretty (well very new) at the whole gun dog training side of things.
It would be good to get involved at some stage, that reminds I better send off my renewal for the Brittany club over here as it's due.
Cheers,
Waldo

Victoria

Yes, I see it is due now!!! Thank you for reminding me!!

doganjo

Can you describe what is required in this test please, Vicoria - always looking to describe different ways of doing things for Breed notes. (incidentally Dog World ones are free www.dogworld.co.uk, Our Dogs www.ourdogs.co.uk needs to be paid for on subscription to whole newspaper)

Victoria

Annie, to tell you the truth, I actually have no idea what non-slip in the trial sense means...I'll get the schedule, it may shed some light on the matter...Bill Allen would know!! No the schedule does not; it is held under the rules and regulations of the Victorian Canine Association. I'll have a look at their site.

www.vca.org.au

cannot find anything re rules, probably not looking in the right place and am somewhat distracted by my Gateau Breton cooking!!!!!

guy

A "non-slip" retriever is a trained retriever that is steady to shot and fall and therefore does not require a "slip lead" to restrain it.

Victoria

Oh, crickey, Guy, thank you!!!!!! Help!!, over here all our trials novice, puppy, etc, etc are all 'non-slip'...

doganjo

gundoglover

This is a link to the Australian National Kennel Control's rules for retrieving & field trials: http://www.ankc.org.au/home/inner.asp?pageID=70&mainID=2

Scroll down the page to reach them.

I have only competed in non-slip retrieving trials in NSW. All retrieving trials are non-slip here, so the "non-slip" is an anachronism.

At the Beginners and Novice level all the retrieves are marked (sighted) retrieves including at least one water retrieve. Either fur or feather is permitted.

At the Restricted, All Age & Championship level, at least one blind find is required. Other runs may include "two birds" - both marked simultaneously - the judge to indicate which the dog should retrieve first; "walk-up" where the bird is released at any time after the handler enters the control area and the dog must be alert to mark it; "wounded bird" where the bird is dragged some distance from where it originally fell. At the All Age & Championship stakes there is also a test of steadiness in the hide, where a dog must honour another dog's retrieves. For all stakes, the dog is fired over by a shot-gun discharging blanks.

When I was competing with my goldens in NSW, I won several novices & restricted stakes but only labradors won the All Aged & Championship stakes. This may have changed in recent years. At the time, the runs really suited the labradors - very long (hard to believe a shot-gun would have landed game at that distance). In other states, other breeds were able to compete with the labradors because the runs were shorter and suited dogs that worked by nose more than sight & handler direction. As a rule, these working labradors did not earn show titles - far too lean for that!