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1 14
september
october 201 3
By Bruce Fox
There are a number of similarities between the courtroomand the field’Äî
and the thrill of victory is just as sweet in both.
A
s a lawyer, I’Äômused to the
high-stakes environment
of the courtroom, but in
court one typically goes up
against only one adversary or teamof
adversaries. And the competition is,
in almost all cases, human’Äîalthough
at times it may seemotherwise! On
weekends I often participate in a
different type of spirited contest with
different sorts of judges: trainingmy
Labrador Retriever, Ty, and then com-
peting with him against anywhere
from 80 to 100 other owner-dog (or
trainer-dog) pairs in hunt tests and
field trials across the country.
According to theAmerican Kennel
Club (AKC), Labs have been for the
last 22 years the most popular breed
in the United States because of their
even temper and unusual tolerance
for children. As the name implies,
however, these dogs were bred
originally to retrieve game birds, and
they are still classified as gun dogs.
Unlike evaluations in the better-
knownWindsor Championship Dog
Show, sporting judges rank gun dogs
based on howwell they perform tasks
meant to simulate those of a typical
bird hunt.
Both field trials and hunt tests are
extraordinary measures of a dog’Äôs
training and ability, but a field trial
is the ultimate challenge.Whereas a
hunt test evaluates dogs against an
objective performance standard’Äî
meaning that in any event many
dogs can’Äúpass’Äù and be judged Junior,
Senior, or Master Hunters’Äîin a field
trial the dogs are competing against
one another. Only one can win, and a
commun i t y re source gu i de
The Competitive World of
Training Sports Dogs