Judging the National Gundog Team Event.

So this weekend i got invited back to judge the National Gundog Team Event.(cold game)

This event is unique in the scenarios that face the dogs and the way we as judges score the dogs.

What is also unique is the atmosphere which is created by the competitors and to be part of this atmosphere is

the reason i agreed to give up my weekend.

The event drew teams from around the country Scotland and York included, some of the faces i recognised from the previous year some of the faces were new to me, the one thing that they all had in common was their smile, even through the bad weather that we endured on the first day.

The first Test was a blind across the lake with distractions and it turned out to be really challenging for a lot of the dogs with only a small percentage completing the task. The second Test i judged for the dogs was just as difficult with the dogs being sent over multiple jumps to blind retrieves, again this sorted out the dogs with very few completing the test as it should have been done, however, one dog that did was a Golden Retriever owned and handled by a young girl and the joy on her face as her dog made it look easy was a very special moment.

The second day was a little bit tenser, these people come to enjoy their weekend but they also want to win and those who were in with a chance of winning were determined not to make any mistakes, I had a straight forward test to judge in the morning, over handling of the dogs probably because of nerves meant that nobody apart from a little chocolate Cocker excelled.

The last shooting scenario is called the Grand Finale and the aim is to simulate a beating line with dogs working, driving towards a line of guns on pegs with dogs, stating pistols, dummy launchers, cold games and releasing homing pigeons are all used to try to get it as realistic as possible, and to be fare it really is a great end to the weekend.

Naming of the winners is kept a big secret by the hard working Chris Gardner and nobody apart from her know, not even the organisers and announcers, so it was a very emotional Darren Kirk who opened the envelope to find out it was his team who had come out on top.... the cheer from the crowd was amazing.

Well done Daz and Team Kirkbourne but also everybody who attended and made for an enjoyable weekend