Sorry I am so late jumping in on this topic. I have been VERY busy going to field trials and holding spring seminars.
I will wholeheartedly agree with Ken Lynch's comment about people who breed and compete for Dual Champions. We ARE considered "half breeds". The show people relate to us as field people and the field people relate to us as show people. We never really "fit" into any one group. That makes what we do a little difficult at times.
As to Wagonmaster's comment concerning Field trial judges: "noone judges a dog based on what other types of competition they run in".
This is not what I have found to be true. I guess I would just have to say that you would have to walk a mile, or 34 years of it, in my shoes. I would never let any judge that is judging my dog know that it was a Bench champion. I have seen too many judges that have pre-conceived ideas towards show dogs. I would not disagree that this reputation has been well earned by poor performing bench dogs in the field, but it is still a very biased world, that is the trial world, towards conformation dogs. I could tell a million stories . . . but one especially comes to mind. I was running Brittania at a field trial in California. I was waiting on the line with her when the judge rode up and looked at her, he then turned to me and said "so this is the GREAT Brittania is it?" I should have put a leash on her and went back to my rig. Had I owned her I would have. I took Ist and third in that stake with two dogs that did not come close to putting down the performance she did. So I guess I could say, "I been there".
Dave Quindt said:
"We've had a number of Duals win our Nationals, but I don't know of a Dual to win the National Speciality Show.
There have been two Dual Champions to win our NSS Dave. The first was Dual Champion Robin Crest's Chip. The second was Dual Champion NMK's Brittania V Sieb.
tc |