One of the truly disappointing characteristics of North American versatile dog fanciers is their expectations for their testing systems.  Whenever I give a training or behavior seminar the most common question I get is: "How do I get a better score on...?"  Unfortunately the expectations for their dogs are limited to the improvement of their test scores rather than the improvement of their dogs.  I preach a 'Train Beyond the Test' philosophy in which tests are only a stage in the development of a versatile hunting dog.  My bias is that I am a devotee of hunting dogs and consider them unfinished if they do not hunt.  That may be an elitist attitude but I delight in studying the development of a dog as it learns to hunt, something that cannot be trained.  Training should develop the relationship between between handler and dog so that the handler can understand what is going on while the dog is really learning to hunt wild game.  I realize that I am a dinosaur destined to become extinct as human populations grow and envelop more and more of what little wild land we have left. 

Unfortunately many thousands of our versatile dog fanciers have no opportunity to hunt wild game and testing has become their only dog related outlet.  These people are quite variable in terms of what a dog means to them and some are devoted to a weekend or a week of bird hunting each season and testing is only a stopgap exercise.  An increasing number of versatile dog fanciers (and test judges) have little or no interest in hunting and are test enthusiasts.  And then there are the socialite types who get enthusiastic about dogs because they can get into the in-group, an expectation that leads to the burgeoning of the dog group politics that destroy most versatile dog groups by rendering their activities worthless exercises in personal power.

Tests which originated as minimal requirements for a started hunting dog have become the highest goals for many thousands of dogs.   The worth of a dog and, unfortunately, the worth of a dog owner are now evaluated by their test scores and the hunting abilities of a human and dog team are ignored.  When I became an enthusiast of versatile dog testing in the late 1960s we viewed the test system an an examination of young dogs for the benefit of breeders and pup buyers and the later tests were were simply to inform the handler what could be improved in their dog's training.  Hunting dogs were the objective and the need for repeated testing wasn't considered worthwhile.  As the testing systems developed we found an increasing number of participants repeating the higher level tests solely for test score bragging rights.  Today we have testing systems that require judges to run their own dogs repeatedly to maintain their qualification as judges, their knowledge of dogs and hunting are only incidental qualifications.  I know versatile dog judges who don't hunt but run their trained dogs in three advanced tests each year to keep their social standing as a judge up to the 'standard'.  I know a couple of judges who don't hunt anymore and spend two hours each and every day training, a behavior that I consider pathological.

Each individual at a versatile dog test is there for a different reason and most of these reasons are now about self-esteem and social status.  When tests and trials become entirely about people and have little to do with dogs there is no need for me to continue associating with the group.  My interest is dogs, not human social interactions.  If you want to really learn about the nasty aspects of animal behavior join a dog group and work hard to improve it... it's quite a learning experience.

Cj