I know there are at least a couple of other people on this site who are either interested in WT or compete.  So this thread is partly for them - but it's also to explain to people what the sport is (as it took me 2 years to figure it out - I though it was something to do with gundogs).

Basically Working Trials is a bit like 3-day eventing for horses as it tests a wide variety of skills and really tests the bond between dog & handler.  There are 2 particularly good things about WT - firstly any dog can compete whether they are pedigree or cross-bred, secondly it's a friendly sport as the name of the game is to gain enough or lose few enough points to 'qualify'.  After you qualify at a particular level (called a stake) you can move up to the next stake.

The 3 elements of Working Trials are:  Control, agility & nosework.

Control:  heelwork (working style - not a precise as obedience), recall, sendaway (dog needs to go away from to you a point designated by the judge), retrieve (of a dumbell), and stay.  Later on there is also a steadiness to gunshot test and a 'speak' test where the dog has to bark on command

Agility:  3 jumps here - the clear (like a show jump - easy to knock down), the long jump (not high - but long!), and the scale (vertical & solid).  Each is jumped and scored individually - rather than tackled as a round as in agility.

Nosework:  Search - dog needs to find and bring you 4 human-scented articles (eg; cork, piece of hosepipe) which have been placed inside a 20yard square.  Tracking - you have the dog in a harness and on a line - in an ideal world the dog takes you smoothly around a track which has previously been laid.

So that's all there is to it!!  Obviously there is loads more detail & intricacies - but I've tried to keep it simple as I was extremely confused when I was first introduced to the sport.

All questions are very welcome - I really think it's a fantastic sport and would love to encourage more people to get involved.  But I'm only just beginning - so hopefully more experienced people will be able to help out.

Great post, i am a complete beginner at WT's but loving it !! I have a question (if someone wouldn't mind answering it). When you teach a sendaway, does the dog have to get to the designated spot and turn and face you or is it ok for them to be facing away. Also, do you instruct them to 'down' when they get to the spot?? I taught a sendaway with my girl before i started WT's recently and think i may have taught it wrong, i taught her to run out to a traffic cone and when she reached it i command her to 'down' but she turns to face me first???

Heelwork - i taught my dogs a very formal obedience style heel, will this be ok???

Am sure i have a hundred more questions too!!

Hiya Lucysmith

Crikey - am really only a beginner myself.  But will have a go at answering your questions - please - anyone more experienced do feel free to correct me.

For sendaway I would definitely teach your dog to turn & face you.  Even though you don't strictly need this in the lower stakes, once you move onto re-direct for the higher stakes the dog will need to look at you for your signals.  Easier to train it right from the start - rather than have to re-train something different later on.  

Yes - do command your dog when they reach the spot.  Again - the reason for this is that in the later stakes you won't necessarily have a target for your dog to go to (actually I have heard of CD competitions where there is no target which puts the fear of god into me!).  Also, later on you will need to train the dog to re-direct & so will need to signal when to stop on each 'leg'.  Few if any people train their dog to do a diagonal.  Therefore to get to a spot at 2  O'Clock (which might just be marked by a thistle) - you send the dog out at 12 O'clock - stop it level with the thistle, and redirect it right, then stop it again (hopefully fairly close to the thistle the judge indicated).   I would move on to using a whistle as a stop command because it might be windy & the dog might be a whole field away!!!

In terms of what position the dog should adopt - here is my take on it.  Many/most people train the down.  Some of that is because of the dogs they have (collies and GSDs like this position), and some of it is because it's a good steady position.  BUT - I have a short-haired gundog & she prefers a sit (esp. if the sendaway is on stubble or it's wet).  In addition, if your dog is very small & the grass is very long it might be difficult for the dog to see your re-direct signals.  Some people do stand - but I think it could easily lead to the dog wandering around and in my mind it's too imprecise.

Heelwork - although the rules don't call for obedience style heelwork, it seems unlikely you will get penalised for it.  However - bear in mind that you will get penalised for adopting an 'unnatural' position - so get used to doing heelwork whilst looking ahead & swinging your arms.  I have heard of people being asked to do heelwork over logs & down ditches - so don't assume it will be level ground & short grass.

i am really intresed in wt,i have 2 cross breed gundogs ,gspx springer   4mnths and 19mnths would love to have go with them,my pointer is bit thick at times,i live in north ayrshire in scotland would also like to get my cross breeds trained to gun

The dog does not have to turn and fact you however I have never seen a dog NOT do this as of course it is waiting for you to tell it to do something else, either redirect or recall.

It matters not what position the dog is in at the sendaway point, sit, down or stand, as long as it maintains it until the judge says you may recall the dog.

It is perfectly natural for your dog to run to a traffic cone and then turn to face you.

If your dog has formal obedience style heelwork it MAY get penalised by some judges, but I would not worry about it.  You will certainly get penalised if you adopt the "I am clutching my hernia" approach.

HTH

Thanks Tohme for clearing that up for me, it's good to know that i have got some of it right so far.
Lol as for the heelwork, hmmm i think i may fall under the 'clutching your hernia' position. What exactly should i be doing with my arms instead? My dog walks to heel very close in a typical obedience style, looking up at me, should i be encouraging her to look ahead instead?? She is a gsd so am thinking maybe she should not be as close to my leg otherwise i can't swing my arms (just thinking out loud here )??

Any tips would be great, i have literally just started in the last month or so and want to get it right from the get go as would also like to get my other Sheps involved too.

GSD naturally try to "work" you that is their natural "style", I would not worry about swinging your arms, just have them out further more from your body so that you do not hit her head as you move them! :)

As long as the dog is not walking along sniffing, has left the field etc you should get some marks for heelwork. They are only worth 5 marks out of 200/220 in any case so I would not fret about it.

There are far more things to worry about in the scheme of things.

Good luck

Great, thanks. Could you or anyone recommend any good books or websites that might be helpful for us newbies??

http://www.workingtrialsmonthly.co.uk/societies.html

WTM is the only publication solely for triallists, the best recommendation I can make is a) to go and watch some Championship Trials (hopefully this link will identify any near you) and find a good club and/or 1:1 trainer.

http://www.thekennelclub.org.uk/item/270

Books:

The Beginners Guide to Working Trials by Wendy Beasley
Nosework for Dogs: Tracking and related applications by John Cree
How to train a Working Trial Dog by Peter Lewis

HTH

Whilst the Terry Hadley tracking book is out of print you can sometimes get one second hand on Amazon.  Also the Working Trials World website has a pretty good guide to teaching tracking (not sure if you need to be a member of the site to download it).

I second the Wendy Beasley book - it seems to take ages for the whole structure of Working Trials to sink in & it lays it out so clearly that I often go back to it.

Also the WT rules are on the Kennel Club website.

I would definitely try to find a club - the help and encouragement given by the more experienced members is absolutely invaluable.  Again - there's a list of clubs on the WTW website.

In American and Australia the Tracking at least is a seperate entity. 

This is an ideal thing to do with my breed (other than big game hunting of course) as it goes with their traits as a tracking hunting dog.

One of the pups I exported to Australia gianed her Tracking champion title last year at the age of 12, so making her an Australian Dual Champion (T). 

I got a nice certificate from their KC as the breeder.

You can get tracking titles only in Schutzhund too, the FH1 and FH2.

> You can get tracking titles only in Schutzhund too, the FH1 and FH2.

That's interesting. Do you have any links?

http://www.wrdvg.com/fh1.htm

http://www.dvgamerica.com/FH2Rules.html

OK - here is my first competition report!!  Yesterday I took part in the Banbury Working Trial (which is my club - so an easy start - except you know exactly who's watching).

We entered in Intro as the jumps were smaller than CD and I knew we hadn't cracked the scale.  As it happened I decided not to do the scale on the day as I didn't feel she was ready for even the 5' scale that is in Intro.  She is obviously more than physically capable - but hasn't had enough practise and isn't as confident as I would like.  Over 1/2 dogs that fail to qualify at all levels fail over the scale - so I prepared to put in lots of foundation work on this one.

However, I was pretty pleased with her overall and we came 4th.  Unfortunately we didn't qualify as it's not possible to do so if you don't do the scale (which I knew).

Most things were as expected - great search square (3 articles in 42 seconds), good sit-stay and down-stay, poor sendaway (she hasn't learnt the exercise - which I knew), poor heelwork (again, I was aware of this and am working on it).  However, I don't think Working Trials is complete without at least one 'She's never done that before' episode.  And ours was on the recall.  I recalled her & looked down expecting to see her smiling face - only to see her snuffling about by my feet - after which she took herself to heel.  I have absolutely no idea what the issue was as she has never done it before - so I am chalking it up to experience.

I would encourage people to have a go - everyone was exceptionally friendly.  I really do think that this is because people are trying to qualify, rather than compete against each other.  It's lovely to see the wide range of dogs, and also to meet owners from far and wide.  In my Intro class there were 2 cross-breeds, an English setter, a Doberman, a Hungarian Vizsla, a beagle, and a couple of collies.  Only one dog qualified - and it was the Beagle!!

Also for those who suffer nerves about performance it was all pretty informal, and as it's not a great spectator sport there wasn't much or any of an audience.  The judge was very friendly and gave tips to everyone.

Well done you!

Some people talk about stuff but you have actually done it, and now you will never be a "first timer" again apart from in different stakes and/or with different dogs.

I do think the Introductory Stake is a nice way to dip your toe in the water.

Your post aptly demonstrates that it does not matter what breed of dog you have, success can be achieved.

Congratulations.

Up the HPRs!

Well done! I had a friend at my last club who kept trying to persuade me to do some trials with my girl, but I haven't really got any spare time between showing and rally, plus I suspect I'd be laughed at with a Cavalier! But I've always loved the Joyce Stranger books, and I read Wendy Beasley's article in DW with great enjoyment each week, it all sounds so interesting and exciting. Look forward to hearing more reports from you! :-)

Hi Lucydogs - you definitely wouldn't be laughed at.  To be honest I did wonder how the lady with the beagle would fare & she won!!!    If your dog is small the jumps are lower which also helps.   It's a very good all round sport and I was really encouraged how helpful and friendly people were (it was also really cool to see all the doggy vans in the car park - everything from regular small cars through to customised vans with dog crates in the back and human living quarters in the front).  The only thing I would say is that I reckon you either need a club or a more experienced friend - it's not impossible to train for on your own - but easier with someone else.  One lady had a small cross-breed dog rescued from Ireland - she lived in Wales and trains on her own - she said it was the most people her dog had ever seen!

Jenny Orchard has competed with a Cavalier in WT and so has anothe lady who used to travel from the IoW.  Other breeds which have competed (some very successfully ) in WT are:

Yorkshire Terriers
Lancashire Heelers
JRT
WHWT
Papillons
Border Terriers
Glen of Imaal Terriers
Beagles
SBT

and many more.

Nobody laughs AT you, they might laugh WITH you and of course if you cannot take a joke you would not own a dog (of any breed) in the first place.

>Nobody laughs AT you, they might laugh WITH you and of course if you cannot take a joke you would not own a dog (of any breed) in the first place.

Haha that's very true, they are great for showing you up! Sometimes as I swap mine around at classes the trainer will say 'will your dog do xxxx' and my answer is usually 'she probably will unless I say yes in a confident voice'. :-D

I would love to have a go at WT - are there any classes in the North East?

Have a look at this website:  http://www.workingtrialsworld.co.uk/societies.html - this is a list of Working Trials Clubs - there's also another page with some adverts offering training.

These people offer an introductory day & they are great (depending on where you live):  http://www.caninesolutionsdogtraining.co.uk/2012-EVENTS.html

I reckon the hardest thing is to find a place where you can 'have a go' (it's really good if they have a trained dog so they can do a demo - I was really wowed by seeing an 18 month old dog doing a very long sendaway and several re-directs - very inspirational!), and it's also hard to find ongoing training.

My club is Banbury & District Dog Training Society - I can't recommend them highly enough. 

Good luck - it's a really friendly sport - challenging too!

http://www.dogfriendly.demon.co.uk/
The Olleys near York do loads of types of training courses and I found them excellent for help with my hard to manage dog.
Louise

Hi Louise

Many thanks for this suggestion - I had never heard of the Olleys.  But I've booked a place in September, and having spoken to Jenny she was very friendly and encouraging.   In addition to ongoing classes, they hold a week long course near York covering all aspects of Working Trials.  I've booked a place on their September week - I believe there is one place left.

Jenny tells me there will be 12 dogs - ranging from very experienced and competing at a high level, through to those which haven't competed yet.  The emphasis is on motivation and building confidence.

If anyone else on this forum books the last place and fancies sharing a self-catering cottage please pm me as I'm currently investigating!

Good luck! You will enjoy it and so will your dog. It is some years now since I partly trained Della and do not practice much but she can still enjoy a search or track . I would have continued but the 200 mile round trip was too much to bear.
It is also thanks to Dave that they gave me the tools to manage a very strong dog who could have ended up PTS in a different environment.

I couldn't remember for the life of me who recommended the Olleys.  But I have just got back from a week with them.  It was fabulous - very motivating and I learned so much.  I've booked for July next year.

So many many thanks for the recommendation.  I had been looking for ages for someone who works with dogs' drives, and Dave Olley is a real master.