The 'official' line, Andrew is that not everyone has the opportunity or the contacts to hook up with a shoot, and especially not a shoot that will let them bring along assessors and maybe other trainees etc for a test day.
However many people wishing to take it HAD done a huge amount of gundog training and had a wish to *do* something 'non competitive - so pass/fail' with their gundog to check their progress and so on. But did not have the opportunity to do it on a shoot (which was the main problem in the two stage certificate - as mentioned, shooting season, small amount of certified assessors, only allowed groups of 2 or 3 at a time, hell to try and get someone to come and assess you for stage two).
But that all aside, yes, I do subscribe to the 'working gundog certificate needing to be tested on game' theory too personally. But I do know people who have obtained it on dummies and only did so because they fancied a bash in the summer and know their dogs pick game all winter anyway. Of course there might be the odd one who takes it on dummies because they know their dog sings on game - or won't pick birds or something like that - but I suppose that might be called clever gamesmanship
Di
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The boys!
Read: Wylanbriar Dog Blog on the website: Updated! 1st February 12´!
But it's like comparing a working test to a trial is n't it? They both are equally valid in their own way, but the results are n't comparable, and in the main, people understand that.
Andrew
PS Sorry Alison, don't want to take this off on a tangent, just intrigued by the apparent inconsistency.
From what I gathered from the sporting press the KC were caught between a rock and a hard place; restrict it to shoots only and it would probably die out, use dummies and then get grief for not being a representative test.
However its still an excellent achievement. Also worth pointing out (unless I missed it) that it is not specifically aimed at show dogs, but was designed as a non-competitive benchmark of achievement for gundogs generally.
Thanks for pointing that out Matt - when I looked through those successful in the FT Newsletter - there were very few "show" dogs and indeed it is in no way a show connected achievement.
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