Style of trial.

[rabbitearl]

What style of format trial has the most gun dogs in it? Dogs that like to smell smoke. A dog that is hunting every weekend not at a trial every weekend?

[Lone Pine Beagles]

ARHA Progressive Pack without a doubt.

[jim matuszewski]

spo isn't a bad style either for hunting dogs

[Dago]

Definitely not akc large pack.

[Aubrey Holcombe]

.......The ARHA/NKC has the Gun Dogs in mind, if the hound Does Not Hunt, in 15 min. after the Judges announce for the, Handles to release, their Hounds, they can Announce that Hounds, color of Collar is Not Hunting and then have that hound Picked Up, for that day.

D.R.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~>>

[Aubrey Holcombe]

I forgot to say this No Hunt is in the Progressive Pack, I don't know for sure about the Little Pack ?
D.R.~~~~~~>>

[South Woods kennel]

Dago i was un aware of you ever even owning a dog let alone trialing one. After all your wife wouldnt even let you out of bed to hunt. Let me know when she takes the leash n collar of ya n ill show ya some gun dogs that do well in trials. Lol a good dog can get it done wherever hes put down trial or under the gun!

[Dago]

Jake, some good trial dogs are good gunners, but not when they're at the trial every weekend chasing ribbons.

[rabbitearl]

If I was to do a trial next sat cause rabbit hunting is over. There would be nothing but rabbit hunter in it. Speed an drive. Or big back. They just cannot keep a rabbit going. To many dogs wants the front. Over the years of doing these trial. Its the only trials were I see nothing but rabbit hunters

[Shady Grove Beagles]

rabbitearl
What kind of trials do you actually run. I've never heard you mention any A.K.C. affiliation with any association such as U.B.G.F.,Mid-West,Deep South,etc. or any particular format such as S.P.O.,Large Pack,Gun Dog Brace or 2 couple pack etc.
The same goes for A.R.H.A. in regards to Little Pack,Progressive Pack,Large Pack.
How about U.K.C.?
When you mention these trials that you hold I was just wondering cause I'm not aware of them or have not seen them advertised. Just curious.

[rabbitearl]

At one time in the early 90 I done arha for 3 years. till a man drove 12 hr to get here and he did not win. He done ever thing but cuss us out, how sorry we were.. We had a meeting at the end and said. This is our last arha trial.I see how some people are when they get in.Chasing a FC. They forget the fellowship an the work the people put in trials. to hold a trial. So some years went by and some guys wanted a trial so we started having fun trials. I would buy big trophy and BBQ a hog and we were having a better time than the lic trial. As I see it nobody care for making a FC. Just having a good time. talking crap, and telling lies. an eating. Sure some will get upset if there dog don t win but not like this guy that was there just to make his dogs FC. I v renting out my place for SPO akc. Iv been ask to hold lic trials on other thing. But no. I don't care much about somebody I ve don t know that gets about half the money and telling me at my place , club house,7 pens and plenty of rabbit what to do at my trials. No paper work at my fun trials. I love fun trials. The fellowship you cannot beat it. The trials I do now and sometime I ve done all three at one time. TCP, speed an drive, and a new one I try years ago. TCP speed an drive. Some times we will put in a spo fun trials for fast dogs then slow dogs. I had a trial some years back. 132 dogs in the trial. Now these TCP trials. These men don t play. They can really stay on a rabbit. 28 packs is the most I had in one trial. One thing you have to have in a trial. RABBITS

[Aubrey Holcombe]

Mr.Earl, looks like you been There and done that, over the years. I have to agree with you about the hard works that is required to hold and run a Field Trial, as I was the President of the Broad River, ARHA club here in N.E. Ga. back in the 90's WE started out as a spin off the Big Club in Thompson, Ga. the CSRA. That club is still running Strong to this day, folks pulled together and kept, it going.

The Broad River, lost lots of members, when I made the decision to run some of my hounds in the Progressive Packs, Sunshine mills Hound Of The Year Event, so I drop out of the local club and was on the road ever week end, trying to keep my points up for the HOTY, and when I got Burned Out of the ever week traveling, and went back the club has folded up, folks like to come bitch and find fault, but don't want to help run the show.

D.R.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~>>

[HatterasBob]

It seems no one has answered your question , so I'll try.

First let me say that every dog in my kennel has Hall of Fame Large Pack blood in them and I'm a hunter first. My Larger Pack blood includes Top Dog, SuperDog, Heli-Prop, Ali-Baba, Ninja, Ranger Dan and of course Jack of All Trades. All up close and often multiple times. I had a litter last year with Jack 4 times in them. So lets not jump on Large Pack because with out them we all would be gunning walkie talkies. I remember my father coming home from an AKC trail in the early 60s stating I'm done with the AKC, you can't kill a rabbit with a walkie talkie. We only had grade dogs after that, until I bought my first Canadian dog in 2002-3. Now, Canadian Large Pack hounds don't know what briers are, there aren't any in Canada and probable only 50% will adapt to them as adults (puppies no problem), at least that's my observation after having several.

I have run Large Pack, I 've placed 3 times at the Nationals. I've run SPO, ARHA Little Pack (I like this but run it much any more), AHRA Progressive Pack, UKC Hunting Beagle (my least favorite) and Performance Pack (my current favorite), although it is being wrecked by the Hunting Beagle influence. I now call it Hunting Beagle Pack, fast, hard hitting, wide checks and lots of over running, not what it was meant to be.

My best gun dog was directly out of Ranger Dan and Cool Running Sonic, that's a Large Pack cross for ya. In my travels, several notable individual's best gun dogs were from Ranger Dan. They never trialed them just gunned them, that is an indication we are doing it wrong. I did both with mine. I looked for a format that fit the style of hound I wanted to feed. Boomer only once was picked up in any AKC format, that was at the SPO Nationals in the pack behind were I questioned a UBGF judges call. He lasted 2 minutes. My best dog now is Out of Murray's Little Blazer (Heli-Prop and Super Girl (Super Dog (Top Dog) & and a Heli-Prop bitch). I still have 3 from this cross. Joker was runner up High Derby 13" female in Mid West years ago. She won her first PBGA trial with 45 dogs, she easily became a UKC Progressive Pack Champion and was the high hound in the first round of a Maryland SPO in December at 10 years old. She has placed third at the NBC Triple challenge a few years back and won the Stake race 2 years ago at 9 years old. I'm thinking about runner her in a Gun Dog Brace trail in the near future.

Formats as I see them:

First let me say the greatest failing in all AKC formats is there is NO score for the jump and NO disqualification for running deer. As a gunner if there is no jump there is no run and there is no rabbit stew. I laugh at the ads looking for a quality jump dog. The only way the get one without growing it is to inherit it. I've own a real macoy jump dog, there sure fun to watch and I buried her. I've only seen 2 others that compared to her. Boomer was a very good jump dog, but I call him a blue collar jump dog. I never saw a brier patch he wouldn't dissect. He looked for briers and never skirted them. It must have been that Large Pack blood. Now for the deer running, Joker got shocked early in life for running deer and never did it again. Now she won't run cat, fox, deer, not sure about pheasant and quail. Now at the mid west run off, Joker and another of my little females made the winners pack. The first bark was a deer. Eight of nine dogs left the county, Joker didn't she went a tattletaled by stand on the judges foot. Five hours laters, 7 of the 8 were found, my second was the one that wasn't found until the next morning. Ten minutes before dark we cast them again. Within 5 minutes Joker was picked up eighth. The trial ended, back at the club house, I asked one of the judges did he access a penalty to the 8 dogs that took the deer. His reply was that all dogs in the pack took the deer. I interjected that not Joker, he had seen me with this dog on the leash looking for my other dog. His reply was that "She was too slow to catch up too the eight!" He was lucky to remain vertical.

AKC Large Pack on Hare: Wide open running, checks are seldom judged because the occur and are picked up before the judges can catch up. No briers and seldom a jump, most hare are track up, the dogs hit a hot track and move forward until it is hot enough to run. It is clearly the best group of guys and there is a lot of friendship, but that's not gunning. The gallery must stay together, so seeing action is problematic.

AKC Large Pack on Rabbit: These are fun events, that why I run the Triple Challenge. I like the fact that all hounds are released at the same time, no bingo machine and luck of the draw, what is more fair than that? No cool wet morning packs and hot dry afternoon packs in the same class.

AKC SPO: Still no score for the jump, although judges often score a check for a jump, but it is not in the rule book, or at least it wasn't the last time I judged. I've been known to say in a cast that we have covered an area that would take me 4 hours to hunt, in just 30 minutes. Handlers are beating the brush stomping through briers attempting to jump the rabbit for the hounds. The AKC SPO needs to score the jump and disqualify dogs for running off game

AKC SPO speed:

Mid West (Oh, Ky, Wv): Is the fastest cottontail hound there are. These hounds can run, place and even win AKC Large Pack trials including the Nationals.

NE (Ny, Vt): A little slower than Mid West.

Ne (Ma, Nh, Me, Ct): A little slower than NY, they will penalized hounds for over running and too wide in the checks.

PBGA: Again a little slower than Maine and Mass, although there are some judges here that like the hounds to "run to catch".

Mid Atlantic: Slower than PBGA, can vary from a little slower to a lot slower. Maryland is mostly Brace format. I see a lot of Gun Dog Brace in Virginia now.

Deep South: Again slower than Mid-Atlantic

UBGF: This is the slowest of the SPO formats. I don't know but I'd guess that Gun Dog Brace in NY is faster than UBGF in Ky.

So if you plan to attend an AKC SPO in Kentucky you had better check to see if it is Mid West or UBGF.

UKC is trying to promote the hunting beagle and name there first format after it.

UKC Hunting Beagle: You call your own dog in this format so you can only run one dog per handler. I won't travel very far to only run one dog. I have been beat by the pencil almost every time I attend this event. If there is a disagreement with the scoring. It goes to a cast vote including the hunting judge and there are if able to run 4 dogs per cast and ties go to the judge. I've never seen a judges vote overturned, because he has at least one buddy in the cast. This is the format that turned off my son from trialing at age 12 when the judge called his dog. At the next event the same judge call my dog, but I was able to prove it.

UKC Performance Pack: This format was a take off of the ARHA Progressive Pack format. It promoted a line control dog and rewarded check and jump and deducted for overrunning and wide check work. Since the format has a NON hunting judge if you can find a handler (usually easy) you can run as many hounds as you want. Unfortunately, the Hunting Beagle guys have discovered this and are now judging in this format and the roots have been lost. That is why I call it Hunting Beagle Pack. It was a great gun dog format and my large pack blood did just fine in it.

ARHA also rewards jump, but I have only seen it scored once, although I've seen many jumped rabbits.

AHRA Little Pack: Years ago my first trial was an ARHA Progressive Pack format. My son was running the Ali-Baba bitch I got from Canada. She was fast and clean with little hunt (although that change). Twice he was told to leash his hound and bring her to the pack. While he was running to leash her, the judge told him to wait up, they discovered her was running the same rabbit as the pack, just way in front of them. I was take aside an told that she was a Little Pack style hound and I should bring her back next month for the Little Pack format trial. I did and she place in every little pack trial she attended.

AHRA Progressive Pack: This is a conservative gun dog format. They score jump, but again, seldom. My Ranger Dan male was running away with a win in this format 17 checks to 7 for second place when he was working a check and a hound harking to him stepped on a rabbit and a sight chase ensued. Boomer left his tough check to join the sight chase and was scratched 30 seconds from the end of time for the pack. Unlucky!

These are my observations and beliefs after over 50 years in this sport. They are not meant to offend or belittle anyone or any format. Actually a few of the formats could improve their format by fixing my observations and implementing my suggestions. That's why I made them, that and just trying to tell it like it is, in answer to the question asked. It been a long time since I've posted here.

I've never bin to a speed and drive, but I know about them. Not my style, even though you would think my Large Pack blood would do well. I breed Large Pack blood but train on cottontail and the just don't seem to have that killer speed I expected. I think it is because of the cottontail training.

Anyone looking for a well started yearling from my blood? I got several (10).

[warddog]

Enjoyed reading the post HatterasBob. As one who hasn't trialed beagles but have been to only a couple to spectate, the UKC format appears to be EXACTKY like the UKC coonhound trials and the very same things that you describe with the beagles happen in them as well. People have said to me that coonhound trialing and beagle trialing are much different but you pretty much summed that up. Enjoyed your observations in the other formats as I have hunted Ranger Dan blood for years and found one thing consistent about it, they have hunt.

[Tim G]

I live in the Deep South I find them to be the slowest of all in spo