The American Beagler Forum

I am starting this thread to discus PKC beaging. It is not working and I am going to offer my opinions on why it has failed. It may step on some folks toes but I feel my toes were stepped on and I am still hollering about it.
From my point of view, (others may differ), PKC has always been about scoring dogs that produce the meat and minussing the dogs that fail to produce the meat. Then came the beagle Small Pack rules where dogs can get plussed for things I cull for. They are entirely unacceptable to me. And, because the plan was to have a Super Stakes program and a World Championship program, having 2 sets of rules is totally unacceptable to me. They don't have 2 sets of rules for their Nite Hunt program, they don't have 2 sets of rules for their squirrel dog program, PKC doesn't need 2 sets of rules for their beagle program. Having 2 sets of rules is unfair. Let's come up with 1 set of rules fair to all, partial to none.
Stoney, let's use this thread to test your skills as a moderator. I can take any personal attack if it is PKC beagling related. Fair enough. But, I think you owe it to the board members to delete any posts that offer nothing about PKC beagle rules, just folks launching personal attacks on me. I know you don't like me, I can live with that. But, you have a role on this board that you need to maintain.

Redtick,
Is your Pedde dog a champ in pkc? and who championed that dog in UKC?

Dave, we are all familiar with your theory that two formats is hurting PKC. I, respectfully, believe your theory is wrong for three reasons.

First of all comparitivly, all the other kennel clubs that host rabbit hunts have two, three or more formats.... and all are thriving.

Secondly, there is no general concensis agreeing with what you are saying. If there is lots and lots of people really wanting to run PKC but won't because they don't like this one aspect, first of all I would call them selfish (as every format has things people don't like but to support the format and help it grow they understand they won't always get their own way so they support it any way) and I would ask who are they and where are they? If there really are lots of people that this is stopping from running PKC, where are they? Why don't you draft a letter suggesting change and get 1000 or so signatures on it from people that would commit to attending trials if this one thing was changed?

Finally, I think you're looking at the lack of growth in PKC through your own biases and not listening to others......again, if there are lots of others (not just a few as a few won't make PKC take off) start listing some names or ask them to speak up for themselves.

I do have some ideas that I believe would help PKC explode..... but don't even know how to get ahold of anyone in PKC as you have to be a paid member to post on their board, to share them with. I don't know who if anyone is even in charge of PKC beagling.

dk

HOUNDSMAN THANKS FORYOUR INPUT AS STATED BY CRAIG TULL AT THE TIME THE PKC WONDERED INTO THE BEAGLE WORLD IT WAS ALL NEW TO ALL OF US ...LUCKLY CRAIG (WHICH I STILL DO NOT KNOW HOW HE GOT INVOLED) HAD TO FIGURE OUT SOME INTIAL GROUND RULES ..... CRAIG IS A LITTLE PACK GUY SUCH AS WE ALL WERE... I MEMORY SERVES ME RIGHT I DONT EVEN THINK HE BROUGHT A DOG TO FIRST HUNT,KEEP IN MIND HE LIVES SEVERAL HUNDERED MILES FROM LINVILLE IND ..SO I AM SURE HE RAN ON HIS QUATER,, SUCH GROUND RULES WERE ENFORCED ,WHICH WERE TWEEKED OUT ARHA RULES ..NOTHING WAS SET IN STONE AS TIME PROGRESSED ,RULES CHANGED TO FIT THE FORMAT AT THAT POINT I LOST INTEREST CAUSE MY PROBLEM IS NOT THE MONEY I THOUGHT WOULD BE THERE... I DO NOT NEED ANY MORE TROPHIES I NEED CASH ...CRAIG TULL HAS OR DID HIS BEST ...REDTICK WILL NOT BE HAPPY TILL HE THAT F******
RABBIT WELL GUESS WHAT ? DONT ALWAYS WORK OUT THAT WAY..HOPEFULLY IT WILL BUT MAY NOT ...THE BOTTOM LINE IS THIS---DOGS SHOULD BE SCORED FOR FIRST AND FOREMOST.-HUNT THEN CHECKING ABILITY-----DRIVE POINTS ARE ALSO NICE ...WHY DOES ALL THIS STUFF EVEN MATTER ....PKC AKC NKC UKC CAN ALL COLLAPSE I WILL NOT SELL 20YEARS OF BREEDING CAUSE I CAN NOT WIN A 10.00 TROPHIE . JUST MY2CENTS WORTH

Well here are my suggestions for PKC.

I would have a PKC Beagle kick off year, or something like that.

During that year I would:

1. Offer free registration for beagles.
2. Allow clubs to hold hunts free of charge.
3. Hold a PKC Beagle World Championship Hunt, to be eligable you would have to either attended 5 hunts or won a hunt in the previous year. Have a $50.00 entery fee / half goes to the winner, half goes to the club. PKC could give away a four wheeler or pickup or something.

After that year return fees to normal. I realize PKC wouldn't make any money during this year, but I feel it would be an investement that would more then pay for itself in the future. As they say "you gotta' spend money to make money".

Also I believe PKC Beagles should have it's own web-site run by a PKC Beagle director. A seperate web-site and message board from their coon hound program would make it look and feel like a new program on the move, not just a little lost cousin of their coon hunting program. A message board that anyone could look at, post and ask questions about PKC without being a paid member of PKC would be important for starting a new program.

And finally PKC need to get someone doing something in the magazines, if it looks like a program with no leadership, it won't attract anyone. Just my thoughts.

dk

I think our club held the first PKC Hound and Hunter trial in Illinois. Our club and another club about an hour North of us held several after that one. Most everyone seemed to have a good time at the hunts and we never had a minutes trouble but it was next to impossible for the club to break even and it seemed difficult to draw many dogs. At that time I owned a female that won several dollars in PKC but frankly the rules lacked alot to be desired. I voiced my club members concerns with Steve Fielder and some time later he contacted me asking if I could attend a rules committee meeting. Unfortunatly the weekend of the meeting I had prior commitments and could not attend but again I voiced my club members concerns about what the current rules lacked. After the meeting the results of the meeting were posted on the board or in the mag. and the only changes to any rules were those to the Small Pack format. I am unsure if there was even anyone that ran the Hound and Hunter Format even at the meeting(may explain why no rules in the H&H format were changed). The members of our club decided at that time to take a back seat and see if anything changed. The last I knew the same rules were still unchanged.
I know some folks have a problem running for money but I do not. I also dont care how many formats a KC has. Everything can be kept seperate if need be and if someone wanted to do so. Personally I do not feel Beagles is where PKC wants to be thus it shows in thier program and can not be blamed on how many formats they have.

Redtick,
If your so against the way that these associations hold different types of hunts, then why don't you hunt the one's that you like. There are different types of beagles that fit different formats. I run my dogs in the formats that I think they fit the best. There are some things I don't like in some fomats, but the way to voice your opion is to use state representatives,they are there to bring it up at the rules committe for a change.

WELL SCOTT SPICER, SAM WELLS, MYSELF AND SEVERAL OTHERS TRIED TO START A NEW REGISTRY SEVERAL YEARS AGO AND WE NAMED IT PBC. PROFESIONAL BEAGLE CLUB WE HAD SEVERAL MONEY HUNTS
AND EVERYTHING WAS GOING GREAT WE HAD ALOT OF INTEREST AND SEVERAL DOGS REGISTRED UNDER OUR NEW FORMAT. WE RAN WITH LITTLE PACK RULES AND EVERYONE SEEMED TO LIKE WHAT WE WERE
DOING AND IT JUST BECAME TO MUCH FOR US TO KEEP UP WITH.
WE HAD JUDGES THAT WERE APPOINTED AHEAD OF TIME THAT WOULD JUST JUDGE AND NOT RUN DOGS IN THE HUNT, AND WE WOULD PAY OUT ACCORDING TO THE # OF ENTRIES WE DONE A FEW THINGS WRONG LOOKING BACK OR I BELIEVE THIS WOULD HAVE REALLY TOOK OFF.THIS WAS WAY BEFORE PKC EVER STARTED MESSING WITH BEAGLES. JAMES MCCLURE

PKC...Professional Kennel Club?
What's so PROFESSIONAL (conforming to the technical standards of a profession) about a cast of handlers turning a group of hounds loose to do what they were bred to do? I've yet to see any checks made out to the REAL professionals.... the hounds. Where's the CLUB (an association of persons participating in a plan or common object) in all this where folks constantly bicker and argue over what's the best format or what a rabbit beagle should be, let alone a "PROFESSIONAL" one. Where are all these PROFESSIONAL beagles that this CLUB, KENNELS? I'd have to say that this aught to be called the PROFESSIONAL BEAGLE HANDLERS CLUB as the real Pros don't get a dime or very much of the glory and the real object is personal glorification or winning the money and not the best dog running a rabbit. As long as there is a human element involved, a totally unbiased test, meeting a scientific basis, for a truely Champion beagle will never happen and without that there are NO PROFESSIONALS, just ametuers trying to live up to a biased opinion in the eye of the beholder at that specific time.

ummm......PKC.....I think it's just a name, chill out wardog.

dk[/u]

I have read most of the above threads and I really like what has been said so far. There are some things I strongly disagree with and I will post my points of view tommorrow. I made a long drive to pick up a beagle female I bought and will be going coonhunting in less than an hour.
It looks like there IS an interest, that is very encouraging. The PKC Beagle Program does need a leader and a spokesman, someone that has experiance with a number of different formats and can gleen the best things of them and meld them into 1 format. Certainly not me, I am well aware of my many faults. I am hoping the owner realizes this and chooses someone that can put this interest in PKC Beagling to good use.

warddog don't get so bent out of shape man you use to many big words for me ...my little burnout mind can't keep up with the likes of you...
i guess your trying to say you don't agree with what we were trying
to do or something like that oh well who cares......we did't say we were professional nothing it was just a name . sorry not to have ran it by you first my bad...james mcclure

[/img]http://rds.yahoo.com/S=96062883/K=geek/ ... s/geek.jpg

Guys, I'm not bent out of shape just expressing my opinion of trialing in general, let alone PROFESSIONAL. I competed for years with coon hounds both UKC and PKC and have been cheated every way there is to be cheated. I've even seen cheating in a little ole club hunt for a few bucks thrown into a pot or a trophy or for as little as their dogs name put up on the bullitin board for Dog of the year. In alot of hunts I saw many and many dogs struck and treed on someone elses dog, trash burners that fell off on a coon, alligators that would eat other dogs alive at the tree and judges that would go deaf and blind when it suited their purpose. I saw grown men cheat young boys and friends become enemies over a night hunt for a lousy trophy. Guys, I'm no longer a part of that and what it takes to champion out a dog, as that title is just NOT that important to me. What I was trying to say in my post is regardless of what format or registry is hunted in, the only TRUE Champion is one in which any form of bias has been eliminated so the hound is scored on IT's merits alone and not the handler, another dog, a judge, the judges buddy or the judge's buddy's buddy. In order to do that the TRIAL would have to have unbiased PROFESSIONAL judges, judging by the technical and ethical standards of that format and getting paid to do so. I doubt this will ever happen because the registries would have to raise their fees, the clubs would have to raise entry fees and the hosting clubs would have to furnish highly trained, paid, unbiased,Professional, non-hunting judges.
I trust what I'm trying to say is understandable as the only big words I used was PROFESSIONAL and my reference to PKC was a sarcastic analogy. I know exactly what AKC, NKC, ARHA, UKC and PKC are as I competed for years and I could care less about doing it again. I merely stressed my opinion and what I have witnessed on many occasions. Oh yeah, and good luck with the non-hunting judges as I've seen many a time that the club I used to belong to wanted to have a hunt with non-hunting judges but could not get enough of them to do so.

I do agree that there are alot of people that take this sport and many others way to far.This is suppose to be about people doing something they enjoy doing and meeting people that enjoy the same thing as we do.
I have been around hounds all my life growing up my Dad hunted coondogs he has fooled with them all my life he has trialed all over the country in UKC and PKC and I remember going with him and all you have mentioned is true. I have seen grown men fistfight and pull guns on one another over a trophy and to me thats crazy.My Grandfather had always had beagles and growing up I was always more into them more than the coondogs my dad had .I would look forward to every november when rabbit season came in here in Kentucky . Since then my grand father has passed and in 1990 I got some beagles of my own and have been as die hard as anyone ever since that year I started field trialing in ARHA LP and Have been a lisenced field judge and have had very good success in the time I have been envolved.I have also ran in several AKC trials and enjoy them also. But most of all I enjoy putting time in a sport that I really enjoy.I don't attend as many trials as I used to but I still enjoy the sport as much as anyone and the many friends I have made over the years,and to me that is what it is all about .One of the biggest problems with money hunts is that the judges must be fair and you know as good as I do that some are and some are not and i feel that to have a successful program that is a must and it is up to the clubs to assure that everyone gets a fair shake.But on the other hand how many people are going to put that kind of time into something and not be rewared for it ?
We didn't,to make this happen a bunch of people would have to be willing to do alot of work for little reward...judges were judgeing alot of casts and most of if not all where doing it for little or nothing just to get it started.Most of the entries were put towards prise money and resistration
fees were not adding up to much either.so what it boiled down to was to go spend most of your time off chasing hounds all over the country for someone to bitch and complain because there so called unbeatable dog
just got beat and for what nothing but maybe gas money to get you there.
and not even get to hear your own dogs run.So we finally called it quits
but from what I know about PKC and I have attened a few of these hunts they are doing what we tried to do with more success than we did and for that I say congrats and good luck.They have the right idea and it is not something thats going to happen over night. When Everitt Morgan started ARHA they didn't have as much to compete with as PKC does today they were a bunch of guys that had an idea and got together and it paid of for them.But now you not only have AKC but you also have NKC,and all thier differant formats but now we've got UKC so I say keep up the good work PKC and when you do find something everyone wants then you will have something but there will always be some people that will always have there negative opinions and will always dissagree with what your trying to do... Thanks James McClure

yeah wardog, i see what you're saying........ and agree with lots of it. There are those that take trialing way to seriously, to the point they forget what it should be about, which to me is having fun and meeting folks that share an interest in what I enjoy. Being new to an area trialing was the only way I could meet new beaglers to visit with and run dogs with. That's the primary reason I enjoy it. I talked to tons of guys I saw with dog boxes in their trucks and asked em' if I could tag along with them.....everyone kinda' said yeah' but noone ever followed up or called or showed any interest. I posted on forums like this when I saw people lived in my area......no response. I attended a UKC trial and met some real nice fella's that were more then happy to have me hunt and trial with them and I've developed some nice friendships through that. All that and I've never won a single cast.

The more bias you remove the more acurate the results will be,,,, I agree with that but I also realize that human biases won't be fully removed from field trialing, gun hunting, my family, my Church, my family, Wal-Mart etc........ none of which I'm going to quit doing. I'm going to remember why I'm attending or am a part of each one, stay focused on that and not the negatives that are a part of all of them.

I'm sorry you had such bad experiances, I have no doubt at all they were true and happened to you. I respect your opinions and desire not to trial or be a part of trialing anymore. But there are some who enjoy it for good reasons, aren't so bent on winning that they'll cheat and are pretty good folks.

Have a good Turkey day.

dk