Pat's Perspective: Stacy and Ellie are ready to run!

Earlier this week, I got a chance to speak with Stacy Rick just prior to her running the 3rd Series. This is Stacy's first National and her excitement is quite apparent. She's run a great National so far!

Courtesy of Pat Burns at https://www.eliteretrievers.com/ 

Pat's Perspective: Talking with Ted Shih

Midway through the 3rd series, I had a discussion with a former national judge, Ted Shih, about the challenges of designing the first set of water marks at a National Championship.

Courtesy of Pat Burns https://www.eliteretrievers.com/ 

Pat's Perspective: Meet Dr. Sarah Love

One of our team physicians, Dr. Sarah Love of Sport Dog Specialty Medicine. She is one of many veterinary professionals that keep these great dogs healthy during such a challenging event.

Check out her new rig, it is awesome!

Courtesy of Pat Burns at https://www.eliteretrievers.com/ 

Pat's Perspective: 7th Series Water Triple

The 7th Series Water Triple is turning out to be another very challenging setup.  I have a few insights that I would like to share with you regarding these marks.  Once again these judges put a lot of effort into their bird and holding blind placement.  Let’s talk about the right-hand retired gun.  I will refer to this mark as R#1.  The bird is thrown in a patch of thicker cover in front of a line of trees.  This position makes it highly unlikely that a dog will stumble on this bird by accident.  The gunners are tucked away in the woods.  Typically, if the dog can find the holding blind where the gunners are hiding, the bird isn’t far away.  So there is great thought put into the concealment of the hidden gunners.  

It always amazes me how a very subtle change in lighting and wind conditions can have a dramatic effect on the dog work.  The  Retriever News Team noticed how the work differed when the wind changed.

I received some insight from the middle retired gun station.  We will refer to this station as R#2.  After looking at the diagram that I posted earlier, they corrected me regarding the exact location of the bird.  

The below diagram will show that the bird lands on a side slope just out of the water and below the flat next to the road.  That station noticed when the wind was at it’s most difficult direction a dog could easily miss this bird from just feet away.  They also mention that the location of the holding blind was right next to the water.  This seemed to make it difficult for the dogs to locate the holding blind. Note that the blinds are fully concealed and camouflaged on all sides.

When this test finishes playing out, the front runners at this will become more apparent.

You can just feel the anticipation build with every test.  The suspense is killing me!  Stay tuned…

Pat's Perspective: Checking in with Robby & Mickey

Earlier this week, I caught Robby and Mickey coming out of the locker room on their way to the 3rd series. This team is one of the most dominant in the country.

Robby gives his perspective on the 3rd series water marks.

Courtesy of Pat Burns at https://www.eliteretrievers.com/ 

Pat's Perspective – 6th Series Land Triple

Pat’s Perspective

Here we are six days into the National and we are 10 dogs or so into the Sixth Series. This is typically where the National begins. We just completed two blinds yesterday. The numbers have been reduced from 153 to 70. Very often this test is a quad with two flyers. I understand that was the judges plan. However, with hot and humid conditions predicted for later today, the judges pulled one of the flyers and the honor. It is great to see that the well-being of the dogs takes a high priority. 

I am always amazed how your first impression on what the dogs are going to do turns out to be wrong. It appeared that the valley would square the dogs to the right on both retired guns. I thought that would produce big hunts and handles. It has done that to some degree, but they seem to recover pretty quickly. Just when I thought a pattern was developing things are changing. A few dogs are now climbing the hills to the right. I am not sure if the conditions are changing or the handlers are reacting to the previous running dogs? And now a dog comes up and drills all three birds. It was awesome! I never get tired of watching an incredible effort. It sends chills down your spine.

This test is likely to undergo multiple changes through the course of the day. Keep an eye on the blog for more updates. Things are really getting exciting…

Pat's Perspective – Third Series

Pat’s Perspective – Third Series

First of all, I would like to applaud the judges for their test design here in the Third Series. They were faced with many challenges. The first was the sheer number of dogs to look at and judge. The second was designing a test that was going to be effective with dramatic wind changes. And the third is what all national judges face when setting up the first set of water marks in a National. That is time management. I had an interesting discussion with Ted Shih. Ted judged the National Amateur here in Mondovi eight years ago. Ted said that he fretted about setting up the Third Series water marks. He studied past issues of Retriever News and specifically Third Series water marks. He commented that it is one of the toughest series to get right. You can’t afford to take the time for large swims. However, you need to get answers. And you want to get them for the right reasons. These Third Series types of water marks are never the test that you first see when you look at the pond. It takes a lot of thought to envision just the right situation. You need to use less water due to time constraints. However, you don’t want to reward the dog that cheats. These judges used a nice angle on the right hand retired gun. The dogs that squared out early on the left were faced with a challenging recovery. Especially with today’s wind. The longer middle retired gun also required the dogs to angle. This angle was after the dog exited the pond and started up the hill. The bird was well placed up next to the wood line and was difficult to wind. This test is going take more than two full days to complete. But without a doubt will play a huge roll in rewarding this year’s National Amateur Champion. Good work Judges!

~ Pat

Pat's Perspective – 1st & 2nd Series

 Pat’s Perspective

We are close to wrapping up day one of the 2021 National Amateur Retriever Championship in Mondovi, Wisconsin. The First and Second series combination is an Interrupted Land Double and a Blind. This is the largest National in history. There around 150 dogs to run. It is taking around six minutes per dog to complete this test. This translates to around a fifteen hour test. It is inevitable that with entries this large, some of the tests will require more than one day to complete. Where am I going with this?… I am talking about scenarios where there are dramatic changes throughout the course of a test. Tomorrow’s conditions are forecast to be very different. All day the wind has been from the North-west. Sunday will bring rain and winds out of the Southeast.

This perspective is my experience on running tests dead into the wind. I remember a National that I ran where an early set of water marks had a similar drastic change. And boy did the dog work change as well. I am not certain why we typically get such peculiar behavior when are dogs are asked to run straight into the wind. It may be because we so rarely train on “into the wind” retrieves? I often remind myself to practice retrieves requiring a dog to run into the wind. One of the obvious challenges is the ability to stop a dog on a whistle. One thing I have witnessed is that when a dog over-runs a mark, the ability to recover can be very difficult. I don’t think it will be all that difficult to get dogs stopped with a different wind due to the very reasonable length of the blind. However, what I do know is that we will likely see different work tomorrow than we did for a lot of today.

Winning a National requires getting some good breaks. But more importantly it requires a dog to overcome some added challenges. I am betting that this National won’t be any different. Stay tuned…

Pat Burns