Pending board approval, the AKC will allow Garmin GPS tracking collars at AKC field trials effective 1 August 2009.

www.akc.org/pdfs/events/field_trials/pointing_breeds/GPS_tracking_collars_0409.pdf

Rick

Well thank God, finally. Everyone say a little prayer that it passes.

Jean

I was (and still am) one of the proponents and wrote in support of this.  My feeling is that those that would use this to cheat are either already cheating or would find another way to cheat anyway.  Even if we assume a worst case that 10% use them to cheat, why punish 90% of the people for that?  At the end of the day, the judge still has to put up the best dog (unless we're going to also assume the judges are cheating) so just because my scout is outriding (which is already prohibited and will be reinforced in the new regs) with the receiver doesn't mean I'm going to win.

I also don't think the weight is an issue anymore, but because of the current training collars.  Training collars used to be big, bulky and heavy.  By requiring a light tracking collar it would help in keeping the dog from thinking they had a training collar on during a trial.  Now, training collars are so light and small that they are close in weight to the tracking collars already approved.

I do agree that it is about the dogs, and after playing with the Garmin for some time, I can say that they do work as advertised.

Rick

How long does the battery last on the Garmin?

Battery life on the receiver is advertised as 24 hours, but it uses replaceable batteries so that isn't an issue (just carry an extra set of AA's).  The collar/transmitter sends updates to the receiver at selectable intervals.  At 5 second updates, the advertised life is 17 hours.  However, you can select 10 or 30 second updates.  If updating position every 30 seconds, battery life is 36 hours.

One thing to consider regarding battery life when comparing a tracker to the GPS - with the Garmin I know exactly where my dog is, while with the tracker I only know which direction to look.  I know you guys that have used them a lot can tell generally about how far away the dog is, but I've also seen several times where the dog was 180 degrees from where they were looking.  Unless my dog is somewhere inaccesable, search time should be significantly less with the Garmin.

NOTE:  I'm not associated with Garmin or any vendors, but I am a gadget guy.  I got it originally because it's a pretty neat toy.  With AKC now allowing them (or atleast soon will) that's just a bonus.

Rick

That's why I invited  you to the trial up at Hartford.  You could have learned a lot.

Trialing is COMPETITITVE, which means the dogs doing the best job, out on the edge and doing it all right are going to win.  A dog can't be on the edge all of the time without occasionally going off and making a wrong turn.

Gun dogs should not be lost, but get lost occasionally.  AA dogs by the very nature of what AA is, are going to be lost with some frequency.

There's an old axiom that rings pretty true, "You SEE your gun dog go on point, whereas you FIND your AA dog on point".  Not a hundred percent accurate as it depends on the terrain, foliage and course, but it is pretty accurate nonetheless.

Dogs also know the difference between a day of hunting and competing at a trial and the good one's adjust accordingly.

Also there's a big issue with dogs competing on different grounds, or even the same ground with altered courses.  Not knowing where you are or which way to go leads to getting lost for dogs just as it does people.

There are lots of trials in your neck of the woods, get out and attend, even enter a few and you might just develop an understanding and respect for trialing, along with the dogs and people who make the sport what it is.

Again this is why you need to go to some trials and actually observe and get some first hand experience to temper your judgmentalism.

"On the edge" does not mean out of control, it means just the opposite. It means a dog that is hunting to the limits of the course appropriately which means the dog is staying in contact with the handler. 

One problem a dog like that can easily get into is that on a windy course it only takes a few seconds for the path the dog is running 200-400 yards ahead of you to end up being very far off course if you take a left and he keeps going right.

The best are the one's winning, not the average dogs in the stake and part of what makes them the best, and thus the winners is that they don't make those little mistakes that carry them far off course which the other dogs made.

For my dogs that both hunt and trial the difference is pretty obvious.  When I'm carrying a shotgun and wearing a hunting vest and there's no horses, judges, or gallery to follow they realize we are hunting and not at a field trial and they adjust according.

Field trials give us a lot of things that improve our dogs.  Any dog can be handled when they are in gun range, you have something truly special though when with just a whistle and a turn of your horse you can turn an AA dog at a half mile or mile or further.  When you are close enough to your dog to be physically intimidating it's very easy to call them in or to keep them honest on a find. 

It takes something very special however in a dog for that dog to stand a find honestly for ten or fifteen minutes or longer because he simply trusts that you will get there eventually.  It takes something even more special for that dog to still be standing tall and proud and looking like a million bucks when the first ran their heart out for a half hour in 90 degree heat constantly pushing the front and then stood that find looking good for ten plus minutes.

Trialing also gives us dog with better brains and stamina, because a stupid dog isn't going to win much because he cant' figure out the game and one lacking stamina and heat tolerance won't ever be out of gun range the last half of the course on a warm day.

Again, you need to attend some trials and look at what wins consistently before you can begin to make assumptions in any informed manner as to what trials are, or what kinds of dogs they produce.

I have tried to get her out to Alberta where she can see the type of grounds where you NEED a big running dog or else your doing alot of walking. Good luck on getting her to a trial.

Some friends use their Astro's on their pocket rockets (britts) and even out here where it flat its not that hard to loose a dog. It goes down a draw, goes on point, and suddenly you ant find the dog.

Heck I have been 20 yards away from my guys on point and never even knew they were there. The Astro is a great unit for not only the big running dog but the dog thats hunting in thick cover like cattails.

Here is one of the places I hunt. This is the type of cover the Astro would be great to have.

Can you find the dog in this one?

There we get to the cruxt of the problem.  You want to hold to your assumptions deriding the FT game rather than actually learn something.

A dog can APPROPRIATELY hunt to the limits of the course while maintaining contact with the handler by not exceeding the limits.  Those limits include type of terrain, foliage and the dog's ability to see and hear you.  If we can see and hear each other at a half mile, as long as he's handling and keeping to the front, he is hunting too the limits appropriately.

Whether you "believe" a dog can be turned or called back in with a turn of the horse and a whistle at a half mile or more is irrelevant since it happens every time a good AA dog is turned loose.   Facts are not subject to belief.

You apparently don't have enough experience hunting wild birds to really comment on how long they will hold for a dog.  Under the right circumstances many species will hold a very long time.  I've watched a dog on numerous occasions hold a covey of wild bob's for over half an hour.  I've seen the same on both wild Huns and Chukar. 

In a lot of the cover I hunt in you can lose a dog on point at less than 50 yards away from you if you take your eyes off of him for even a moment.  You can do the same on many of the trial grounds I have run on in certain places as well.

This is why it's important to owners to be able to find them and why people want such things as trackers and garmins. 

How exactly do games that don't ever test a dog's endurance produce dogs with better stamina?  How much stamina is appropriate?  Well if you never hunt a patch of ground bigger than a hundred acres stamina isn't much of a factor, but spend three days hunting 1000-10,000 acre pastures in Texas or Oklahoma where it can be a half mile or mile between birds, or some time in Washington hunting the Quilomene or Idaho up and down the snake river hunting Huns, Chukar, and Forest grouse and you will quickly learn why stamina matters. 

As I've said before.  Get out of your own locale to actually hunt wild birds, and see/enter some trials and you can learn an appreciation for the dogs and people involved.  You won't like all the dogs or all the people but the best of both are guranteed to make a positive impression on all but the most tightly closed of minds.

I am new this year to Field Trials and my only comment on this thread is if you haven't been to one, it is well worth the time to go and watch and walk in the gallery.  It is amazing seeing these dogs and handlers work.  I ran my male pup in the puppy classes and was astounded at how well he did (mostly pure instinct).  I also had the opportunity to walk in the gallery for some of the more experienced dogs and it was awesome.  This was a walking FT and the cover was light because of the drought we were having in Texas at the time, but it was still a fun fun day.

I fell in love with both the HT and FT and will again compete with my boy next season.  I am spending the summer working with a trainer, so hopefully Ringo and I will be much smarter and better next season.

As far as a GPS for the dogs, I have been considering getting them for when I take the dogs hiking in CO and NM.  This would be more peace of mind for me as all of my dogs will come on a call or whistle.  I just worry about the one time/situation where for whatever reason I can't see them and they can't hear me.  I think the tracking systems are just wonderful no matter what you do with your dogs.  Just more insurance.

Just my two cents.

Believe it or not I enjoy watching a dog that can do both.  We shot over three hundred ducks this year and everyone was retrieved to hand by a "field trial dog".

Being good at one thing doesn't necessarily preclude the other.  Remember the top producing NAVHDA dog of all times is a Field Trial GSP.

Francine - I admit I haven't read all of the above, don't have time. But I'll answer your question about why my dogs get "lost" and I wish we could use the Garmin, from my personal experience. This is not the same as lots of other dogs I've seen at trials, who are runaways.

Willow and Thunder are big running dogs and also very cooperative, their handler has to say very little to them in the field. They cast big and then "check in" to see where we are without coming all the way back, verify the "line" we are on and cast ahead again. They have NEVER truly run off at a trial and we are fortunate that we have never ended the brace without knowing where they are. But many times, I worried that they were lost because they had gotten into heavy cover, as they should, looking at areas likely to hold birds. For example, both of the last two years at the National Amateur Championship in Eureka, Willow got down into low treelines that had water erosion and arroyos. She was essentially down in a hole, pointing a covey of birds. As the scout that always stops my heart because you don't see the dog until you are almost on top of them. Once she is on point, she will NOT be called off. So for me, this is why I worry about "losing" her. She's never lost technically, because she's doing what she's supposed to be doing. But that doesn't make you feel any better when you are scanning the land, saying a prayer that you figure out where she is.

Hope that's a little different perspective, maybe I"m repeating what others have said.

Jean