This is a sport where dog and man bond and work as a team
After many hours and miles of walking and following dogs, everyone had a great weekend and loved Parys and what it had to offer – they will be back for sure.
Last weekend, Parys had the pleasure of hosting a maiden field trial event for the Natal Field Trial Club. The sport of field trialing involves finding ground game birds with dogs. Birds are found and pointed out by working dogs like pointers and setters.
The dog owner claims the bird by shooting a blank. The dog/owner who finds birds and makes the fewest mistakes wins the trial.
No birds are shot, injured, or killed; it is simply the find that matters.
The competitions run over one or two days, and the winners are found through a series of rounds and a process of elimination.
Dog/owner teams are drawn in pairs to compete with each other.
This is a sport where dog and man bond and work as a team, enjoying the best that nature, the veld, and game birds have to offer. It is a sport for people who love the outdoors and don’t mind getting up very early.
The seasons for the sport are almost exclusively autumn and winter, as the dogs cannot compete in summer’s hot weather, especially with the added risk of snakes, and also to avoid disturbing breeding birds.
A maiden stake is a trial for all dogs that wish to qualify for championship stakes. Participants work hard and enthusiastically to try and get their dogs qualified, but as it is with inexperienced or younger dogs, there is also a lot of fun involved as dogs and handlers make all sorts of mistakes.
The Natal Club in Parys organised this event, as the town has excellent conditions for trailing. Club members helped survey the area, and the trial organisers arrived from Kokstad and Richmond for this event.
The organisers thanked local farmers for making their farms available for this trial. Twenty-five dogs from as far afield as Mpumalanga, Free State, North West, KZN, Gauteng and the Eastern Cape participated. The judges arrived from Gauteng, KZN and the Eastern Cape.
After many hours and miles of walking and following dogs, everyone had a great weekend and loved Parys and what it had to offer – they will be back for sure.
The only dog to qualify for championship stakes was Louis de Jager`s setter, Sadie (from Wepener). Congratulations!!
See you all again next season.
