One complaint is the emphasis that some judges put on the rear dog touching the front dog during the run. In many instances the back dog has no choice if the front dog cannot make forward progress. Again, this is a subjective judgment on the part of the judges. The rear dog is not always the offender, but is usually penalized.
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March 1, 2008 at 11:31 pm |
The ideal situation is for the rear dog to never touch the dog in front of it. If the run is proceeding in a timely manner than the rear hound should ‘kill time’ by patiently waiting for the dog ahead to move forward. If the rear dog is totally independent and non-competitive it will “kill time” without touching the front dog. Some hounds do this by just waiting patiently while others may slowly swing their heads from side to side.
If the front dog is totally inept and is pottering (showing a lack of effort or desire to make progress on the trail) the back dog should politely step around the pottering bracemate and continue on with the run maintaining the same gait as it did when it was approaching from the rear. It should never go under the front dog (wheelborrowing) or go to its head (headhunting) and bark in the same track as the front dog.
These desirable traits come naturally for certain hounds (killing time, correctly stepping around and maintaining the same gait in both front and back). In my experience many hounds can be trained to stop wheelborrowing. I have never found a cure for the head hunter. That hound should be eliminated from competition and from your breeding program. Some beaglers believe that wheelbarrowing is not interference or competitiveness but only shows that the rear hound has a desire to get the next track. However, my question is how can a wheelborrowing hound not be interfering with the the front hound. For example, If I were painting a window frame or in fact concentrating on any thing that I might be doing and someone came up to me and shoved me or got under me and shoved me up into the air I would find it very distracting. I cannot believe that it would not be distracting for the front running hound to be the victim of ‘wheelbarrowing’. Therefore I believe that wheel-barrowing is interference. However, because this happens at trials I like to train a hound with another hound that ‘roughs it up’ from time to time. The main reason being that it will prepare it for the inevitable time in a licensed trial when this will happen.
Good judges know when a hound is competitive or lacking in independence. If a hound is placed in the rear and immediately makes a move to go around the front dog then it is competitive or lacking in independence and should be demerited accordingly. If it runs the rear at a different gait than it runs the front then it is two-gaited which may indicate that it it is also competitive.
To summarize: A hound should never touch the brace mate in front of it. If the brace mate is pottering the rear hound should politely step around. It should always maintain the same gait while running both the front and back. Thanks Russ for the discussion topic.
March 2, 2008 at 2:21 pm |
First, I don’t like a hound “wheelbarreling” another but if he is not competitive and is staying “on the line” should he be penalized more than the dog that “leaves the line” and eases around his bracemate?
March 4, 2008 at 8:18 am |
I believe that incidental contact means nothing. The rule book suggests that the non-cooperative, overly competative dog in a trial is undesireable.
The issue is the obvious, overly competative hound!
Regards,
Beaver Creek
March 5, 2008 at 12:56 pm |
Dale,
Are you saying that a dog that stays on the line but touches the front dog is competative?
March 5, 2008 at 5:49 pm |
Clay,
No, not necessarily! I assume that you are refering to a little incidental contact, right? To me that’s not an indication of competitivness. The question becomes is the front dog causing the problem by lack of flow? That said, the next question is how much flow is adequate or inadequate? This where the sport becomes very subjective, depends upon who’s judging. The short answer to this is a dog demonstrating slow, steady, methodical flow has some abitlity to show us where the rabbit run, while others either lack trainning or natural ability.
The competative dog, deemed undesireable, is the one that continually roots under or shoulders a bracemate when its bracemate shows steady progress. Those are the obvious!
Here is a great example: Last fall I was judging a trial where the front dog was very slow, but very accurate as the run proceeded through the weed patch. The back dog was a step more ready to get to the next track that the front dog was still tonguing and continuously lifted the front dog off its hind leggs, but stayed in line.
So what would you do in this case if you were judging? Or what happens in most field trials?
Here is my thought on this pair of dogs. I wasn’t so qick to demerit the back dog because the front dog was extra slow. In addition, I was not confident that the front dog had enough grit to carry on with the rabbit beyond a 30 yard dash, perhaps, due to a lack of nose or desire. So my judging partner agreed to let the run proceed to a pathway. At this point, the front dog let up and walked around to a loss. The back dog had plenty of time to come up with the rabbit, but ended up just following the bracemate around without regainning the trail.
So, to end this long reply, I don’t consider the back dog in the example above a overly competative dog due to its circumstances (you had to be there), but was in a tough position to track from behind though it had opportunity to solve the problem.
Thanks for replying. I enjoy this stuff! There will be a lot of controversy over this subject matter since its a hot topic. The bottom line is that the more we watch dogs perform, the more we know about them!
Regards,
Beaver Creek
March 6, 2008 at 1:28 am |
No problem with that.
Clay
May 7, 2008 at 4:06 pm |
Brothers as I read this. I just happen to see this happen a tral here a few weeks ago at a local trial. We had just had the advance judges school. There was a brace that was supposed to go down. Well the handler of dog #1 put his dog on the line and let it stand there and bark about 15 times. He then cut it loose. The dog never made an attemp to go foward on the line just stand there and bark. The handler of dog #2 was waitting for the handler or the dog to go ahead and make some kind of movement so he could cut his dog loose behind. Well this went on for about 3 or 4 min.The beagler #2 was new to beagling and didn’t know what else to do but just cut his dog loose. He got his dog to bark on the line behind the #1 who still hasn’t moved as of yet.Well dog#2 then went around dog #1 and ran the front from then on. Dog #1 kept hanging up and hanging up. The dog #2 kept on going and it looked as if he was doing agood job but getting futher on away from dog #1. Well any way they brought dog #1 back in the 2nd but never named the dog #2 who ran all the rabbit.and done a good job at it. He was told that his dog should have waitted for dog #1 and not to go around as he did. Well now you tell me what was the handler of dog #2 to do in this case? If it had been me I would have ask the judges what do you want me to do with my dog. Put him up in front or wait until the line was out. I do not think that you should cut a dog for going around a dog that is doing nothing on the line but standing there and barking. If Dog #1 won’t go on with the line then he is the problem not dog #2 for going around. This happens way to much. We have got to do something about this.everybody know that if you stand behind a dog for very log and holding you dog while dog #1 is barking. All you are going to do is charge your dog up. Now what is the answer to this and to keep it from keep happening?
Bill