Congratulations Doug!

[Neil Mace]

From American Field:

REGION 9 AMATEUR SHOOTING DOG CHAMPIONSHIP

American Falls, Ida.—Idaho’s Lucky Lady, eight-year-old pointer female owned and handled by Rich Heaton of Boise, Ida., won the Region 9Amateur Shooting Dog Championship over 18 other contenders. Lady had two stops to flush, a clean find on sharptail grouse and a solid race. Runner-up was H BV Dunfur’s Plan B, four-year-old German Shorthair male owned and handled by Doug Favor of Pocatello, Ida., for his hunting race, a clean find on sharptails at 5 and another sketchy find at 42 on sharptails.

This is a significant win and very impressive. Were I looking for a GSP pup, I just found the sire.

Note: not to second guess the reporter, but a lot of times on shaprtail, what looks like a stop to flush is wild flushing birds after a proper point, the birds leave through no fault of the dog. And a "sketchy find" on shapries cannot be faulted. I fear we see too many pen bird trials and forget what a wild bird will do to a dog, it is rarely as pretty and clean as we would like.

Way to go Doug! Glad you had good judges.

Neil

[DGFavor]

Haha - the find itself was not sketchy at all. It was a perfect stand on sage hens not sharpies!! The sketchy part was Bugs taking a step of relocation to peek around a sage bush while I flushed at a big distance from him and the birds got up an even bigger distance from me - not a huge crime but enough to cost ya' a placement many times. His first find was spot on perfect on a single sharpie so that might have saved his bacon!! Lady's birdwork was perfect but the other dogs with birdwork in the stake all had hops/steps/questionable STF/etc. to where it was a crapshoot for the RU spot. We lucked out big time.

It's a crazy game. Have a less than perfect run one day and get a placement. Have a perfect run with the only dog with bird work in a wild bird stake another day and those judges say that's not good enough. Wierd game. Take the trophy and run is my motto!!

[myerstenn]

Doug , an AA championship requires that the dog to meet the minimun critera for placement in stake. A shooting dog race does not meet the critera for championship placement in such a stake..placements are not earned by just participating in a stake, but by meeting the required standard. I understand that is a somewhat subjective statement and you may or may not agree with it. As for placing dogs 1thru 3, I find very little value in doing that when you have two dogs in a seven dog stake that could have been considered,one that met the AA critera on basis of race and the other,well you know the rest of the story. I would not consider this a weird game,lets just say its a education process,one thats an on going process for all of us. Congratulations on your win!!!! sincerely Ned Myers

[R-Heaton]

What is the "written" standard for an AA dog? What is it for a Shooting Dog?

[kbshorthairs]

Congratulations on the win brother! I agree.......take the trophy, smile and say thank you very much.

[Neil Mace]

The best difinitions are in books, but you can check the AFTCA Guidelines:

http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~emorgan/Guidelin.pdf

Neil

[myerstenn]

Neil , thanks for posting the book. this should answer many of the questions that have been generated in these discussions

[Thor]

Congrats Doug, that is awsome. As far as the AA thing goes, kinda hard to run out of control when your dog is busy doing what it is supposed to do, pointing birds, don't ya think? Have a good 1. JW

[Neil Mace]

Back to Doug's win, if he didn't live and campaign in the desolute N/W, another couple such wins would put a gsp high up on the Am SD of the Year. I am sure the dog is good enough, but there just aren't many Am point trials out his way.

Of all the trails I ran in last year, the Region 6 Am SD was the most competitive, those guys are serious, and they have good dogs.

Not sure everyone gets how impressive a win it was,

Neil