Answers Needed Before Field Training Begins
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By Chris Robinson
At a dog show a couple of years ago I had been chatting with a fellow hunter about his plans for the fall when I was approached by a lady with an absolutely gorgeous Golden Retriever prancing along beside her. She introduced herself and said, “I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation about hunting this fall and I need some advice. I’ve never hunted, I’m scared to death of guns, I live in the city and have all my life. What’s more, a guy with field Goldens that I know told me that show Goldens are no good in the field, they don’t have any interest in hunting or birds. Despite all this against me, I’d really like to give it a try because Rex is about done being a show dog and I think I owe it to him to give him a chance to do what the breed is supposed to do. He has some dogs in his pedigree that have hunt test titles including a couple of master hunters. So, maybe he could hunt? Could you give me an idea of how I might find out and get started?”
As my Scandinavian ancestors would have said, “Uffda!” I suppose the Biblical scholars who wrote the King James version of Genesis may have faced a similar dilemma although on a much wider scale. They solved it by asking for divine help. Not having any Godly inspiration available at that moment, I sort of hemmed and hawed for a bit in order to get some thought organization time mainly because my work as an investigative reporter has often put me in situations that required about as much diplomacy as you’d get from an irritated bull elephant but this wasn’t one of those occasions. This was a case where I wondered not only where to begin but also how to be tactful while still being honest. Because, for a four-year-old dog that had never had any real bird work, becoming a successful hunt test dog can be an uphill climb to say the least.
First of all, I told her, the field Golden guy was correct, at least some of the time. I’ve seen some Golden Retrievers from show lines that had absolutely no interest in birds. But, I had also seen some that were, in the words of one of my old hunting partners, “Damned fine huntin’ dawgs” three of which had earned their master hunter titles as well as that “damned fine huntin’ dawg” accolade from their hunting buddies. As far as field Goldens were concerned, I had seen some that you couldn’t pay me enough to get me to hunt with them. They were so “wired” that they were such a constant trial to keep under even some vague semblance of control in the field that hunting with them was more like torture than the pleasant outing that a day in the field is supposed to be. So it was my view that she shouldn’t take the field Golden guy’s opinion as gospel in determining Rex’s odds of becoming a success in hunt tests.
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Short URL: http://caninechronicle.com/?p=193052
Posted by AnthonyA
on Dec 15 2020. Filed under Current Articles, Featured.
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