As a sidebar to the Lab/GR discussion, I pulled out my favorite hunt training book-Hup! Training Flushing Spaniels the American Way, by Jim Spencer. If you don't have this book, you should buy it, even if you do nothing more than mess around with a bird wing with your puppy or be a bird shagger at an upcoming Hunt Test. He's got a chapter on each of the flushing spaniels, including Welshies. The enthusiasm and kindness and patience that Jim Spencer has for flushing spaniels is evident in the book. Interestingly, he was a retriever trainer for many years, and when he got his first spaniels he realized they needed a different training method than the one used for retrievers. And he seems happy to discover that he needed to change his methods.
There's an excellent review of the book on the link I provided above. But, more importantly, read the Preface to the first edition that's with the review article. The preface is from the first edition of the book from 1992 and was not included in subsequent revisions. It was made available by the reviewer with Jim Spencer's permission. It really gets to the heart of my concerns about the differences between Retrievers and Spaniels, and I can only hope that we don't see a shift to more rigorous and demanding retrieving requirements in the Spaniel Hunt Test. And if that happens, what's the point of having Spaniel tests if their style of hunting and retrieving is obliterated?
There's an excellent review of the book on the link I provided above. But, more importantly, read the Preface to the first edition that's with the review article. The preface is from the first edition of the book from 1992 and was not included in subsequent revisions. It was made available by the reviewer with Jim Spencer's permission. It really gets to the heart of my concerns about the differences between Retrievers and Spaniels, and I can only hope that we don't see a shift to more rigorous and demanding retrieving requirements in the Spaniel Hunt Test. And if that happens, what's the point of having Spaniel tests if their style of hunting and retrieving is obliterated?
For my own research, I wanted to see if I could gauge what the response to the new rules allowing the Lab/GR folks to play in our Spaniel fields. So I poked around on the essft.com site (admittedly, not a Lab/GR venue, but Field Trialers are Field Trialers, regardless of the breed, I figured). I came across a link about Dual Dogs and what that really means to the folks who are hard-core breeders and dedicated Field Trialers. The discussion indicated that they view Hunt Tests as a form of dog obedience that any dog can be trained to do-heck, even if they are from bench lines. And that is NOT, to them anyway, the same thing as producing a high functioning field-bred spaniel who can compete in FT's. They certainly don't consider a dog with a JH or SH as demonstrating more than basic hunting ability, and grudgingly acknowledge that a dog with an MH "might start to mean something...[then] still look closely."
So, there you have it-the FT folks seem to dismiss the HT folks and the work their dogs are trained to do, which is really fine by me...because maybe that means that the impact of the new participation rules will be minimized and there won't be anything to worry about when I get a chance to go back into field training.
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