RMC members

RMC tests usually have a long wait list. So as you may have heard by now, the RMC Board decided this year to expand our fall test to 3 days – to give our members a better chance to test their hunting companion close to home. With our final training day now behind us, it’s time to get ready for our test.

Test days are Friday Aug 18, Sat Aug 19 and Sunday Aug 20 at Cobb Lake State Wildlife Area in Wellington.

Our chapter is known for hosting smooth-running tests, but these three days will test us, for a change. Friday is all Natural Ability. Saturday has a mix of NA and utility dogs, so we will need to set up and support the maximum number of test events. Sunday is all UT, so it will feature the maximum run time.

We need help setting up and packing up, bird planters, pheasant runners, someone to manage lunch for judges and volunteers and good-will ambassadors who can make sure handers’ questions get answered quickly. In short, we need your help.

For those who have volunteered before – please see if you can pitch in on at least one day. If you are testing with us in two weeks, please consider volunteering on days you are not running. If you have not volunteered before, here are several reasons to come out and help.

• Volunteering gives you a great opportunity to watch other dogs and learn from other handlers.
• You’ll hang out with experienced chapter members – and pick up valuable observations about dog behavior and tips on handling skills while you build friendships with fellow chapter members that you’ll be training with in the years to come.
• By watching dogs in the field and later hearing their scores, you’ll better understand judging criteria.
• Chapter events you’ve participated in have been run by volunteers. Pay it forward.

If you’ve volunteered before, please indicate your experience. Don’t worry if you haven’t volunteered before – you can learn on assignment!

Click on the Signup Genius link to help us give a bunch of handlers just like you a day they’ll always remember.

http://www.signupgenius.com/go/409044fa4aa2ba5f85-call

Thanks and hope to see you there!

Theo Stein
RMC President

Director of Testing Phil Goodwin waits with Milburn Markle and his Pudelpointer Levon before the NA water event.

Running a volunteer organization like the Rocky Mountain Chapter of NAVHDA takes – you guessed it – volunteers who are willing to give their time and their energy to help others succeed in training the hunting dog and companion that will be with them for years in the field, and give them memories for a lifetime.

RMC NAVHDA’s tests are always full. We feel a responsibility to run NAVHDA tests that take the pressure off handlers and give their dogs the best chance to perform. And we could not do it without the selfless help of volunteers. So thank you Rick Huber, Dan Sprague, Jake & Sara Heesacker, Don Andrews, Michael Autrey, Ross Sibley, Andrew Hoezel, boatman Allen Kidd and Tom Swezey.

Judges prepare the drag event for Sunday’s UT handlers with the snowy Front Range foothills in the background.

A special thanks to:

• Test Secretary Phil Goodwin, for doing all the hard work behind the scenes that make a test run smoothly,
• Colin Hornbeck, for taking photos on Saturday and
• Sheryl Dierenfield, for throwing down two absolutely scrumptious lunches for the judges and volunteers.

And a puppy picture, just because.

Ridiculously adorable German wirehaired pointer.

Here are the results of the Rocky Mountain Chapter’s Spring Test. Our thanks to the handlers who presented their dogs and the judges who assessed their performance.

Thanks in advance for helping us run another great test!

Wild bird, public land. That’s why we do what we do.

In just a few weeks, the Rocky Mountain Chapter of NAVHDA will kick off its 2017 schedule, so I wanted to take just a few minutes to update you on your Board’s recent annual meeting.

As we entered 2016, former president Phil Booghier outlined three big challenges for the chapter: financial stability, fundraising and membership. We had also seen some significant turnover on the Board. It seemed to me the Chapter was at an inflection point – I was concerned about where the next generation of leadership was going to come from.

Boy did that change in a hurry!

Membership doubled. Our financial picture stabilized. (That allowed us to leave dues unchanged for 2017.) We quickly found we were swamped at training days. And a cadre of young, very energetic members and new blood stepped up to help us deal with the growth. We’ve got a large ( and growing) group of handlers who have completed Natural Ability training and are moving to developing the advanced skills that characterize a fully functional versatile hunting dog.

Congrats to Rick Huber, who handled his Griff Norton to a VC at the 2016 Invitational!

For the cherry on top, super-volunteer Rick Huber, who does double duty as the president of the Frontier Chapter, handled his Griff Norton to a Versatile Champion title at the NAVHDA Invitational in Ohio. Congrats Rick!

Looking ahead

Now we have another challenge – Making sure we serve your needs as you work to train up the hunting dog that you want.

To that end, we’re offering three new training opportunities in 2017: An indoor training day on Feb. 25, a force-fetch clinic in June and an advanced skills training clinic in July.

We’ve also been gratified by the number of you who have stepped up to volunteer at our training and test events – and those who have expressed interest in learning about leadership roles in the Chapter. So we’re going to create a Volunteer Corps to formalize some of the training and help spread the workload in an effort to avoid volunteer burnout.

But to be fully successful, we need your help. First, we’re using an online application to build training day rosters. Please respond to invitations from Signup Genius to help us build training day plans and wrangle enough volunteers to keep handlers training and not standing around waiting.

Second, we need you to understand that we’re here to help you learn how to train your dog, but that you need to become your own training director. No one knows your dog like you: Is he/she soft or a knucklehead? Did your dog just blink a bird or did it miss the scent? What’s worked in the past? What hasn’t worked? For Utility handlers especially, you need to be training at least once a week on birds – and a couple times a week at home on other skills. From experience I can tell you it’s so much easier and more effective if you can work birds a small group.

So as you look around you at our March training day, try find a partner or handful of handlers to work with this year. Don’t be araid to ask one of the more experienced handlers if you can meet with them for training. Your dog will love you for it.

That’s all for now. If you haven’t updated your membership, please do. Training season is just around the corner.

See you in the field!

Theo Stein
President
RMC NAVHDA