Dam – AFC Sniksoh Evolution ( Eve)
Sire NFC Sniksoh Worthy Expense (Spenser) Dawn Droel bought Spencer’s half brother Sniksoh Slippery Slope ( Slick) who is doing well as a show Brittany.
Whelped 06/12/2019
I have to learn to spell Deuce all over again, as I continually type Duece.
Sire: Sniksoh Worthy Expense ( Spencer ) – Spencer won the ABC Central All Age Futurity. Excellent hunting dog with lots of point, nose, style, and desire to please.
Dam: AFC Sniksoh Evolution (Eve ) – Eve has been easy to train. Excellent nose with lots of point.
View complete pedigree
FC AFC SNIKSOH LITTLE RASCAL
GFC FC AFC SNIKSOH SPANKS HANK
AFC DECANS BLAZIN BYE
Sniksoh Worthy Expense
FC AFC SNIKOSH FREE BOY
FC AFC MKS MY LIL AMMO
FC AFC CHIEFS NUBBINS MY LIL LADY
FC AFC SNIKSOH LITTLE RASCAL
GFC FC AFC SNIKSOH SPANKS HANK
AFC DECANS BLAZIN BYE
AFC Sniksoh Evolution
FC AFC SNIKSOH FREE BOY
FC SNIKSOH SUPER SNOOPER
FC AFC SNIKSOH SWEET HERSHEY
A note about field trials and field trial type training of pups with Jeff
This is a living memoir and journal of reminders largely for my daughter, who enjoys the bird dog training with me, and she especially the pups which I hope she will continue later in life. We have spent quite a few days afield with Jeff and we enjoy his methods which are very similar to our dog trainer’s of 20 years, Gary Ruppel. But they are uniquely his own, which is not surprising as we all pick up things here and there that we believe work.
Puppies start in this excellently designed “rabbit hutch” after whelping and before they go to individual runs. They get out daily to train and play. They are very happy pups.
Jeff has a training method and handling calls that are uniquely his, as most professional and amateur field trial handlers do, and it is not based around the e-collar, which he only uses for tracking. He likes to train dogs a lot with his homing pigeons and a quail recall box at his place, but he also believes in changing the locations for training a lot, as dogs behave differently in different locations. He was influenced heavily by Bob Whele’s books and methods, hence his kennel name of Sniksoh, similar to Elhew Pointers. He also went to a Ronnie and Rick Smith Seminar early on, as well as of course having seen and judged fellow competitors. Gary Ruppel comments, Jeff is doing things the right way and I like the dogs he is producing. They are good friends as well and he has become a good friend of ours. My daughter is having fun learning his methods and seeing how they compare to Gary’s and how the pups develop vis-a-vis his or her siblings. It’s a fascinating journey to watch, not having raised litters of puppies before on our own.
When the dog points, Jeff likes walk around the dog in decent sized a semi-circle to flush the bird back at the dog if possible, to “show him that it is a team effort, at least that’s what I think.” I like the idea of this philosophy, not only because I’ve been a semi-circle fan, which discourages the dog from creeping as you creep by it if you were to walk straight past. The semi-circle approach also discourages the dog from following you, by walking right past it, which Gary advises against as well, as it will encourage the dog to break or creep. The team effort thing though is a really interesting concept, which I quite like the idea of it.
He also likes his field trial dogs to know “you only have a short time in the field, so you better make the most of it,” which may be different than the pace you want to set for hunting dogs who spend much longer periods or even all day afield and have to learn to pace themselves, but again I like the idea of it, as I love hunting behind hard charging Brittanys, which my first one could keep up with the best English Pointers. He emphasizes physical fitness of his dogs, even more than Gary does, and his dogs spend at least 30 minutes every day either training on birds or roading, another concept I really like, as my best hunting dogs were incredible athletes (and thinking back on it, I took them out a lot more running, rollerblading, etc., when I was younger without really noticing, so of course they were more fit than the more moderate regime I follow today.) My daughter wants a trike like Jeff uses, but for now she’s happy to walk, use her hoverboard or exercise them off horseback or our golf cart. Jeff also uses and ATV for roading, but he says he likes the exercise of the bike. He likes to use nylon harnesses from www.gundogsunlimited.com, which is where he likes to shop, as he is friends with the owner.
Jeff uses an interesting “hoaaaa, hoaaa” for Try over here and only uses a whistle for encouraging them forward, which is an interesting twist. I’m trying this “Hoaaa, hoaaa,” calling out, as it works on his puppies, but find it unnatural given my upbringing by Gary.
He uses a quail recall pen very similar to this one, which seems to work very nicely and the birds seem to recall easily to it. The trick is to flush a few birds from it, leave the house open to the run area of the pen, so the birds can call the other ones back. Then you can put the board back in the next day to secure them up from predators scaring them to death in the pen portion and to keep them more warm.
Jeff field trials because he loves it and his dogs. And he has the best Brittanys around.
He likes using homing pigeons carried in Dog’s Unlimited bags and put slightly on their sides into DT remote release traps as well, which work excellent. To me, field trialing is about prestige, honor, and good old-fashioned bragging rights. And, it is the best place for a hunter to find a puppy that will likely be a good to top notch hunter. But, it turns out, field trials are really mostly, if not entirely, about the dogs. Not just competing them to put titles on them so that puppies sell for more. It’s really about seeing if your dog can be the best. Not just on one lucky day, but on a lot of days against a lot of dogs that are also top performers. It’s a game for people who love seeing how well the dog can actually perform, time and time again. To see if there dog can be the best. And then there are a hundred other things that go into it from the breeding to training factors, to see what you can maybe do better the next time. Jeff can tell you about traits that the grandfather dog passed down to his pups and that part is really fascinating to me. It’s a lot like everything that goes into breeding and training our English foxhound pack of 100 dogs at the foxhunting club.
Once pup is finding and pointing birds well, as Duece is now at 4 months of age, Jeff suggests scattering the birds more, so that he has to hunt to find them, which increases his range. He also likes to switch to pigeons as this point as well, so you can start teaching whoa (or at least not to try to chase the flush) otherwise you start having problems with a penalty for this that they call “delayed chase.” I like both of these ideas and they are concepts not in our bird dog trainer’s program, as he starts to teach WHOA at this point in the yard, but I think both methods have merit, so we are trying both out now.
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A Note about Field Trials
T. Edward Nickens wrote for Field & Stream about the National Championship:
During the opening ceremony, the roughly 40 competing dogs are paired in a random drawing of brace mates. Once the contest opens, two of these braces–one each in the morning and in the afternoon–run per day in a three-hour “stake” on a course that unwinds across 11½ miles of broken farm country. Behind the running dogs are mounted trainer-handlers and scouts. Next comes a trio of orange-jacketed judges–again, on horseback–who keep track of the dogs’ performances. Following all this action is a gallery of spectators. It’s not uncommon for 400 or more horses and riders to follow a pair of quail-crazy dogs across miles of west Tennessee. It’s a bit like a moving Kentucky Derby. Except there’s a lot more camo.
The animals are judged on the number of birds they find and the style and stamina they display on the hunt. Notes are made on how well the dogs work cover and whether they back (go on point) a brace mate on point. Penalties and sometimes disqualifications are assessed for bumping birds without pointing, pointing at birds that aren’t found, breaking point when birds flush, or displaying a “flagging” tail that isn’t rigid while on point. It’s as much an endurance test as a skills course; contenders are asked to run like greyhounds for up to three hours, over as much as 25 miles of cover.
Field trialing in America began in the 1870s, after British hunters derisively challenged Americans to produce a dog “broken highly enough to compete with our English celebrities.” America’s first National Field Trial Champion Stake was run at West Point, Miss., in 1896. “It’s the greatest sport in the world,” says Trimble, a retired district court judge says of field trailing, “and I’ll tell you why. It’s the only sport I know of where I could be out there trying to kick your butt this morning, and this afternoon, I might be scouting for your dog, trying to help you kick mine. This competition isn’t about the owners or trainers. It’s all about the dogs.” And one thing is for sure, Jeff loves his dogs. He spends most of his spare time training, breeding, competing, exercising and just being around his dogs.
A note on Garmin collars. Field trialers cannot use stimulation collars, but they love their tracking only collars, usually Garmin Alpha with T5 collars. Garmin has become synonymous with navigation in almost everything they do.We have found that Garmin is easiest and fastest to read when paired with a Fenix 5X plus watch—for tracking, recording and guiding. While I always carry one or more backup navigation systems when hunting (a compass, iPhone, etc.), I trust Garmin with my own personal safety as well as that of my dog. And did I mention, the Garmin Alpha is compatible with the dog tracking widget on multiple Garmin smart watches?
Skyline Brittany Club
