In the field trial, all of the dogs are paired up with a brace mate (aka: the dog they are running against). The dogs are paired up randomly and are assigned a brace (time to run) randomly as well. During each brace, there are 6 quail put out in the field for the dogs to find. The dogs are scored in the following categories: point, retrieve, backing, and obedience. Dogs can lose points for interfering with another dog. The brace only lasts for 30 minutes, and the dogs can only be scored on a maximum of 6 birds together.
The dogs are released into the field and a stop watch begins the 30 minute countdown. The first dog to go on point will be scored for the quality of their point (0-20). A quality point involves the dog going on point and freezing completely. If the dog relocates or creeps forward in his/her point, then a lower score is given. If the second dog "backs" the first dog's point, meaning goes on point behind the first dog without interfering, then that dog will receive a score for backing (0-8). At this point, the handler of the backing dog must leash his dog so that it does not interfere with the shoot and retrieve.
The handler of the dog on point will now move forward and flush his bird. If he kills the bird, then his dog has one minute to find the dead bird and retrieve it to hand. The dog is scored on the retrieve (0-20) based on how many steps forward the handler has to make in order to get the bird from the dog. So if the dog retrieves the bird and brings it right to the handler's hand, then he gets the full 20 points.
If the handler misses the bird, then that bird cannot be pointed again for another 3 minutes. So depending on your dog, you can either move on to another bird or wait for the 3 minutes. Keep in mind that the entire brace is only 30 minutes though, so you don't want to waste time.
There are only 6 birds between the 2 dogs to be found, so your dog needs to find the birds first in order to get the most opportunities to score. Some of this is based on the luck of the draw. If you get paired up against a dog that is not as good as yours, then you will probably be able to score on more birds. If you are paired with a dog that is of an equal ability of your dog then it will be harder for your dog to score high because each dog will probably find some of the birds.
In Sadie's brace on Saturday, she was paired with another German Shorthair that was at the same level as her. Therefore, Sadie scored on 3 birds and the other dog scored on 3 birds as well. Luckily, Sadie still received a high overall score because she scored so well on her pointing, backing and obedience.
For the sake of time, there are two braces going on at the same time on different parts of the preserve. The preserve has 3 hunting fields that are used. The trial was being run on course A and course C on Saturday. After each brace, the scores are totaled and recorded. At the end of all of the braces, the top three dogs from course A will run against the top three dogs from course C in the finals. Sadie was in 3rd place on course A until the last brace was run on that field. One of the dogs on course A managed to score higher than Sadie, thus knocking her to the number 4 position on that field and out of the finals.
Although Sadie did not get to compete in the finals, we still had a great time. Even though Jared is the only person who is allowed to handle/shoot over Sadie, I still get to walk the field trial with them. So I usually walk behind them, taking pictures and talking to the judges, trying to learn more about the field trial process. Attending the field trial is a fun opportunity to get to see other dogs and other hunters who also use the preserve regularly. I can't wait for our next hunting trip so I can do some of the shooting :)
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