Great Outdoor Games staff
NORTHFIELD, Minn. — There is no home-field advantage in Minnesota, at least not yet.
After the opening round of the Super Retriever Series at Oak Ridge Kennels, there is a decided southern slant to the top dogs in the competition. The top five dogs after one round all hail from the south, while many of the northern dogs struggled.
Not that it mattered much to any of the competitors. The round was for seeding purposes only. The 24 dogs in the event will compete for the next three days, paring down the field to 12 on Friday, and to six on Saturday. With the final six retriever/handler teams competing Sunday for the final two spots remaining in the ESPN Great Outdoor Games.
The current odds-on favorites are dogs that have competed in the Super Retriever Series in earlier events. And interestingly enough, there are only two handlers in the top four.
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| Paul Jackson of Dyersburg, Tenn. and Maddie are in third place after the first day of the Super Retriever Series in Minn. |
Rounding out the top five is Stella, a black Labrador, handled by Derek Randle of Prairie Grove. Ark.
"We're a long way from home," Allison said. "But it's obvious our dogs didn't know it."
A big reason for that was the test presented to these dogs on day one. To the casual observer and all the handlers it seemed excessively easy. But it proved otherwise.
The tests of Day One
The test consisted of two water marks (75 yards on mark one, 125 yards on mark two) with both making huge splashes on either side of the line. In almost every instance, the dogs lined those marks. But the blind was much trickier.
It was 125 yards across water to the front of the line and required the handlers to push their dogs past a bank shaped like a backward "S."
Making it tricky was a headwind, that along with the first point of land continually sucked the dogs off line and towards land, while the judges line to the blind required that the dogs stay in the water.
"A lot of the handlers struggled and fought with it all day," Lyles Rudder, head judge of the Super Retriever Series said. "Almost all of the dogs had two or four points going into the blind and some of them just lost it.
"We really thought this was going to be easy. We thought we were putting together a test where everyone could work out the kinks and get settled in before we start cutting dogs tomorrow."
The easy test, though, never completely materialized. Of the 24 dogs in the field, four of the retrievers were unable to finish the test. And many racked up points well over the expected high of 50 points, going as high as 125 points.
Handlers are scored on their ability to guide their retrievers through the course and pick up the training dummies without making mistakes. Each whistle was assessed two points, with points added to the overall score for a variety of other mistakes. Points were added for leaving the hunt area, refusing a cast or whistle made by the handler and "popping," a five-point penalty where the dog becomes confused and sits down or stops swimming before the handler blows the whistle.
Experience counts
Jackson and Allison have both played the game before, competing in previous Super Retriever Series events.
"That was a real key," Jackson said. "On the first one (SRS event) I didn't get very far because I didn't know how to play the game. This time I came prepared for anything."
And anything is just what these guys might get. The day one test was all water. Day two will be mostly on land with a little water, while the day three test is expected to take place all on land and the final going back to the land/water combination. Those things aren't too unusual for field trial and hunt test dogs.
But this Super Retriever Series event is known for coming up with unusual ideas. Last year, the event introduced a diving duck to the mix. That duck is expected to return in some form in the next three days. However, this generation of duck comes with an additional twist, the dummy will not only dive but also swim across the water.
