Well I suppose I'm going to have to say this but you are probably 20 years younger than me Di. I may have to ration my entries a bit or get one of those motorised thingies to take me round .
From a field trial point of view, you (as the owner) make the entry under your own name, and list the handler seperately on the entry form. You will both need to be members of the appropriate club. Tests work pretty much the same way.
On the day of the trial it doesn't matter if you (the owner) turn up or not, as the handler will be responsible for the dog on the day. Any payment / expenses I guess would purely be discretionary between you and the handler. If the handler is already going to be at the competition then they may (if they know you well) be happy enough to do it for little or nothing, although to be honest competing with more than one dog at a competition can be a bit of a pain.
With working tests the societies are generally happy for all the entries that they can get, but some field trial societies try and put rules in place to prevent handlers from having multiple dogs in the same trial.
I think most frequently the dogs are generally kennelled with the handlers - certainly some of the bigger names. Some dogs will happily just switch over to another handler on the day, whereas other would need much more time.
In your case Jill, I could see the benefits of retaining a dog/bitch in your own name, but having it living, trained and campaigned by someone that you know and trust.
When FTCh Pocklea Tide of Middlegate won the Championships her owner was unable to run her, and she ended up with David Garbutt handling. Apparantly he only had her for a very short time before winning the Championships with her.
I think Matt has probably hit the nail on the head and I need to give it some more thought for the future. This year should be ok as it is mainly Puppy Tests but I can see things getting more complicated after that.
I had to make a decision last year about a very promising young cocker dog that I own. I could see that he had the potential, and I knew due to my circumstances I would n't be able to devote enough time to him, or shoot enough game to him, to realise that potential.
Having got the basics in place, I let a friend of mine, who is a good trainer and handler of cockers, take him in on.
Obviously there is a cost involved in this, but thus far I think it's been worth it.
The dog is doing well in his first season trialling, we have had a COM, two 3rds and a 2nd so far, and still have two trials left. We both have our fingers crossed for that elusive win, which will put is in Open for next season.
The dog, Flash, will be 2 in March, and there's no way I could have achieved this with him, within this timescale, if at all.
I do get the odd tinge of regret when I see him running, but then again I think that with me as the pilot, he might never have got anywhere near realising his potential, and that means something to me as well.
Thanks for that Andrew. It is a help and it is definitely what I am thinking about.
If I am being absolutely honest I love teaching all the basics to a young dog, but I am not always as enthusiastic as we get further along. It is not something I could consider for Darcy as she is a sensitive bitch and would not work as well for anyone else, but certainly may be worth thinking about for one of the lads in the future.
I think this is something which we will see more and more in trials: owner and handler being two different people.
As already mentioned this is very common in the horse world being it showjumping, Dressage or racing (God, I would love to see some of the 'fat cats' on the back of their racehorses ).
The truth is that 99% of our dogs and horses adapts very easy to another handler/rider, maybe easier than we like to think One of my dogs have gone to another handler with the sole purpose of trialling her as I just know that I will struggle time wise. Also from a practical point of view, I need as many of my home bred dogs to be out and about as it is in the shooting field or at tests or trials that people will notice them - not when they sit in the kennel .
Another thing to bare in mind is how competitive are you? I shall be the first to hold my hands up and admit that I'm not really that competitive which often means that I'm not that ambitious when it comes to try and make up that once in a lifetime FT.Ch. - I'm just happy to get a run where as 'the big boys and girls' will only be happy if they go home with a win. In my experience, an ambitious 'jockey' is - 9 out of 10 times - the difference between a win and a COM
Natasha
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WLF All the Way!!!!
"Handle every stressful situation like a dog. If you canīt eat it or hump it. **** on it and walk away..."
To be honest Natasha, taking this step with Flash has caused me to take a serious look at how I manage my time with the dogs, both in terms of training and working them.
I've decided that I am going to cut right back on my shooting next season, and concentrate on training my young cockers with a view to trialling them myself.
So instead of being in 3 syndicates, it will be down to one.
This will also give me more free time to work the other "non-trialling" dogs.
My main period of working the dogs effectively ends in October when the shooting takes over.
Just a further thing to keep in mind are the number of dogs that anyone can effectively 'own' when competing in field trials. Realistically it doesn't matter how many handlers you have available, it is the owners name that goes into the nomination draw for the trial. Consequently you won't get any more runs for your dogs, other than perhaps if you got two runs on the same day.
Therefore with retrievers there is a realistic limit to how many dogs that you could seriously campaign at any one time. I'm in about twenty societies, and that seems to give me enough runs to give a novice trial dog a few chances during a season. I could maybe stretch that to two dogs, but I would really be relying on getting a win early during the season to give the other dog a chance.
Possibly those that are members of 50-60 clubs could campaign more novice dogs than two, but I doubt even the really big names seriously hope to do much with more than two or three novice dogs in a season.
Once the dogs get to Open (hopefully!) then even trying to get enough runs for two dogs is a stretch.
With spaniels the situation is a bit different, and I would imagine more dogs could be seriously worked.
Ian, I guess it depends on who's asking and which dog.
I myself have borrowed an older dog from a friend to have extra help when out picking up. She has been staying with me for a few months already.
If he would ask if he could borrow one of my dogs I wouldn't have a problem with that.
However, I'm very selective and there are maybe 2 or 3 people I would give one of my dogs to and a dog in training will always stay with me, no matter who asks.
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but you are probably 20 years younger than me Di. I may have to ration my entries a bit or get one of those motorised thingies to take me round 
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