Red Label

Kind of like golfing on sand greens.

4evrhtn

Why is having a dog that independently searches for downed "unmarked" birds a bad thing? In the real world alot of ducks are dropped and still alive thus capable of seeking cover. In alot of these instances I have no idea where the duck is hence one of the main reasons I hunt with a dog, he has a nose much more keen than my ability to see a duck that has camouflaged itself 50 yds away. The only direction a good dog should be given is "fetch" or whatever command you use. My dog is also whistle trained to go left or right but if I am giving direction, the dog is following commands instead of doing the search as he has been bred to do. Same goes for dropping pheasant in a corn field and it gets up and runs, I want my dog to be independent enough to do what he is supposed to without constant instruction, especially when I have no idea where the bird went.
Maybe I missed the point of your post liniman, if so please set me straight.... why is it bad for a dog to do an independent search if that is your only chance of recovering downed game? I see this as having a direct coerrelation to what happens in a real hunting scenario. No matter what it is I hunt, I try my absolute best to recover everything I shoot, sometimes that means searching longer.

mustad

4,

I don't think liniman is saying it's a bad thing. It's just a bad thing if you're playing the retriever games. Both examples are successfully used in a hunting scenarios.

The notion of handling your dog to an area is something that definately works in a real hunting situation. So does sending your dog on a line where he's going to come into contact of scent of the downed/crippled duck and then use his natural instincts to track it down.

I think what the NAVHDA duck search shows is that in the event you don't know where the duck is, or you marked the fall poorly and despite handling or sending the dog on the wrong line; that the dog will have the desire, purpose and cooperation to realize he's been sent down a wild goose chase; expand his search and work until he finds the game. Is it a good thing to evaluate? Absolutely. Is it required in everyday hunting? That's probably on the fence for the average hunter.

4evrhtn

I see the point now in regards to "retriever games". I like this specific Navhda test- the same scenario happens often when hunting as you have also explained. I know there are alot of people out there especially in AKC who do not participate in any real hunting and just want to have a hunting title on their dog. To me the title means nothing more than my dog met a standard, I prefer to use that standard as the minimum of what I expect out of my dog instead of the standard being the finish point. My opinion is seeing a dog that retrieves what he sees is great, but I am more impressed with a dog searching for what he doesn't see or smell and searches for the scent of the bird he was sent in to retrieve blind. I definitely see a huge value in that.

JW

To me each test has a different STD from what I read. I want to go see the PL tests and HRC so I can unserstand as all I do is Nahvda.

The Duck search is judged on how the dog progressivley searches and not how well it takes a line. The DS is also opposite of the Field Search as with the DS one wants the dog to be Independant while the FS one wants Dependence.

I can see where one thinks the dog is punished if it finds the duck early. But then one may have downed more than one duck.

I don't know how many times I have rowed over the the other blind (they have no dogs) only to be given a spot to where the duck went and tapped the dog on the head saying fetch.

The Duck Search has helped me teach the dog - Hey I don't know where it is but Its out there - find it and bring it back!
And it has helped me teach the dog to use its nose on the water as well as its eyes.

JW