You will NOT believe what happened at the Hunt Test

It was a really good senior stake. Experienced judges, a good field of dogs, excellent test set ups and even beautiful weather. But crazy things can always happen...

How do you judge the dogs when...

1. A young dog who has run the tests, succeeded and only had to honor, was within one qualifying to get his title, and the judges break for lunch, bathroom, re-bird etc. Dog in holding blind. When the dog is invited out to do the honor, the judge's lunch is sitting there, and the dog grabs it and starts chomping her sandwich. The horrified handler yells NO....DROP THAT!!! Puts his hand around the dog's neck and yanks the sandwich out. Should that dog be dropped?

2. Last dog, on the line, another one on honor when all of a sudden a "shot flier" on the drying rack, wakes up, jiggles himself off the rack, waddles back to the water and swims away. What's a judge to do?

Crazy things happen and I don't think all of them are covered in the judging seminars or the rule book.

Interesting scenarios.

That's a hell of a duck. I would say that one gets to live! :)

I love reading about hunt test bloopers! My favorite was a dog that ran out to get the duck and instead went behind the blind and humped the sack of ducks. :)

There's a story, told in The Labrador Retriever... the History, the People by Richard Wolters. He was relating that in the early days of Field Trials, the upper crust and rich elites and their professionally trained dogs were the principle competitors. Seems some firefighter from Long Island had a dog named Jack who was was doing a very credible job against much finer dogs, and had gotten into the last series of the Open. At the same time, some grand dame had a bitch in heat she thought was safely crated far from the line. Of course, as fate would have it, the bitch got out and ran to find her mistress... but saw the ducks being shot... ran past the gallery and into the field just as Jack was returning with the shot flier. He promptly mounted the bitch, tied for 20 minutes, then hops off and returns to the line, delivers the duck to the handler, squares off for the memory bird is sent by his handler and nails it... as soundly as he nailed the little bitch. The judges, according to Wolters, were very impressed.

I don't know if it's true or if I got the details correct. But it's a great story.