Earlier this week at training, I had an interesting conversation with a fellow dog sport enthusiast. As a total beginner to the world of gundogs, she asked me why I don’t compete in multiple gundog disciplines with Hail. To clarify, Hail is what’s known as an HPR (Hunt, Point, Retrieve) breed, meaning that she could compete in both Retriever trials and Pointer and Setter trials if I wished. While my fellow enthusiasts question was specifically around why I don’t do Pointer and Setter Trials, in truth, this could apply to any one of the many dog sports that are on offer.
I can see the appeal.
As someone who loves spending time with my dogs, I can completely understand why people would want to find lots of activities they can do together. For others, the appeal might be about trying to gain titles in multiple sports, or as a breeder you may want to show the versatility of your lines. I get that. And I’m not saying that it’s wrong. It’s just not for me.
I understand that it might sound odd, but I think it’s important to explore the drawbacks to training and competing in multiple disciplines. This is what’s lead me to decide that having a multi-sports dog wasn’t for me… and it might not be for you either.
My Philosophy
Don’t get me wrong, I love spending time with my dogs. But, as I’ve discussed in previous posts, I’m also fully aware that I have a competitive streak! This is one of the main reasons that I have decided to stick to one discipline which is retriever trialling. I’m sure we’ve all heard the phrase, “Jack of all trades, master of none”. That’s in essence what I’m talking about. Focussing on one sport, training bloody hard at it, and making progress in one direction appeals to my competitive nature.
Now, you could argue that I’ve chosen poorly, given that my current breed of choice is not your typical retriever. And, yes, I’d agree. But, I have spent enough time working on this discipline to know that I enjoy this type of trialling, and in the future, I might make a different breed choice knowing what I know now. Remember, I started out in Agility, and found gundogging by happy accident.
While I may not have a typical retriever, Hail and I have worked hard at our craft. If we’d spread ourselves too thin, by trying to compete in multiple dog sport disciplines, I wouldn’t have experienced the success I have had in the time we’ve been trialling.
Factors That Influenced My Decision
As in all aspects of life, there are trade-offs to all the decisions that we make. The idea is that you spend time weighing up your options, analysing the potential trade-offs, and then deciding which one’s you’re prepared to make in order to achieve any of your goals. Dog training is no different.
Time
Despite what we tell ourselves, there are only so many hours in the day. Once you take out the hours for all the necessities like sleep, family, and work, there aren’t that many hours left to use as you wish. Training multiple dog sports places increasing pressure on those remaining ‘fun hours’. Remember it’s not just the time for training that you need to factor in. There’s time spent traveling to training and trials, time spent volunteering for your club, weekends spent at competitions… the list goes on.
Another aspect of time that is often overlooked is training progression, and the time it takes to cycle through the various stages of training for any sport.
High skill sports require structured progression:
- Foundation
- Skill-building
- Proofing
- Generalisation
- Polishing
If we have constraints on our time, because we’ve over-committed to too many sports with our dogs, we often rush through or skip over some parts of the training progression. This isn’t always a conscious decision either.
Field trialing requires lots of repetition across different setups, seasons, environments, and distractions. If I spread my time too thinly, mastering any of these is unlikely.
Financial Considerations
Anyone who does a dog sport knows that once you’re hooked, the list of gear you can purchase gets out of control. When I started in gundogs, I thought all I’d need was a bumper, a lead and a whistle. Now, we have remote bumper launchers, e-collars for tracking and training dogs, a dog trailer, multiple whistles, and buckets of bumpers. Other dog sports are even more equipment heavy. For example, in agility, you could purchase contact equipment, jumps and tunnels at considerable cost if you wanted to.
While you don’t have to buy the gear, you can’t help but feel the pressure of not having it. It can become a case of keeping up with the Jones’. You can end up being encouraged to spend beyond your means because your dog might be better if you just had that (insert expensive piece of training kit here).
In other parts of the world, shipping probably isn’t as crippling as it is here. But, for us, even buying something as small as whistles often ends up costing more in postage to get them here that the cost of the items themselves!
On top of the gear you have entries, travel, seminars, memberships… I could go on. If you’re doing lots of sports, you multiply that out… and the total spend gets scary! And I don’t know about you, but I didn’t get into horses for a good reason.
Mental Bandwidth
I’m a simple creature and I only have so much cognitive space. On top of that, I’m not coal… I don’t blossom into a diamond under pressure.
Every dog sport comes with its own cognitive load. That’s things like:
- Rules
- Equipment
- Strategy
- Judging style
- Entry processes
- Culture
When you work full-time, like many of us do, keeping up with even one sport takes considerable effort. I only have a certain number of mental spoons each week, and keeping up to date with multiple disciplines would see me well over my quota.
Instead, I choose to use my spoons where I am going to see the most benefit. For me, that’s training smarter, working on my handling or using any leftover spoons for mental rest to get into a better competitive headspace.
The Dog’s Learning: Clarity and Consistency
Most gundogs do best when they have consistent criteria.
If I was to train in multiple disciplines, I’m likely to muddy the waters for Hail. This is because each discipline places a different emphasis on different behaviours and levels of independence.
For example:
- Obedience emphasises precision and focus on the handler during heelwork.
- Agility emphasises speed and independence from the handler.
- Field trials emphasise steadiness, distance control and a calm mindset in the dog.
Switching between disciplines can create confusion for the dog and handler. It can create more errors and slower training progression if the dog struggles to contextualise which set of expectations apply in the different training environments.
This is why I have chosen to protect Hail’s clarity and confidence by only competing in one dog sport discipline.
Protecting a Healthy Dog-Handler Relationship
Some dogs genuinely love to work, but every dog has their limits.
Health constraints aside, I know that Hail loves doing what she does. But even if I didn’t have to manage her activity levels for medical reasons, I’d still only compete her in one dog sport.
The more you do with your dog, the less time they have to rest. Science tells us that our bodies do all of their major repair works when we’re sleeping or resting, and our dogs are no different.
When we do multiple sports, especially physically taxing ones like field work, agility, tracking, or bite work, we increase the risk of our dogs potentially sustaining an injury. Even if they don’t have some sort of accident that causes a specific injury, they might develop chronic soreness or overuse injuries if the work they do is particularly repetitive. The more sports they do, the less time they will have for proper rest and recovery if the unfortunate happens.
All this activity also puts our dogs at risk of developing physical or mental fatigue. Same too with handlers! Burnout is a real risk, especially if you’re burning the candle at both ends to attend and participate in dog sports all over the place.
To mitigate the risk here, I’ve chosen to focus on longevity with Hail. I want to have a sustainable partnership with her and with our chosen sport. This protects both our mental and physical wellbeing.
Why Field Trialling is the Right Fit for Us
Once I considered all the factors above, I made the decision that we were a one-sport partnership. I chose field trialling because it feels like it ticks the most boxes given other aspects of our lives. It feels like a good fit.
My first consideration was the breed of dog I’d got. I wanted a sport that was going to give her the most breed-specific outlet for her natural drives. Fetching dead stuff has always been her jam. Anyone who’s been on a forest walk with us can attest to that!
As Hail is particularly biddable for a Weimaraner, her temperament also makes her well-suited to field trialling. She wants to be a good girl, for the most part, and she enjoys working with me. When left to her own devices, she will show her independent streak, which often gets her into trouble. Hence why Pointer and Setter trials had less appeal… too much room for unplanned protein collection (aka bunny hunting).
Field trialling also suits my nature. My brain is often a spaghetti soup of chaotic thoughts, and the calm and quiet style of handling that’s needed at the peg is a welcome change to all that. It’s made me get real about my headspace, and as a result, I’m now seeing that overflow into my everyday life… much to the relief of all those who deal with me, I’m sure!
While I did go on about equipment, access to field trialling works for me. I like driving out to wild locations to train, but I also like that if I can’t, I can still train the basics in my small garden at home.
I’m also quite fond of the way that field trialling keeps me grounded with the seasons and with other aspects of my life. My partner and I do enjoy a hunt when time allows, and field trialling gives our dogs a useful set of skills that enhance that part of our lives too.
The Truth: Commitment Creates Progress
If you add it all up, what I’m really trying to say is that if you commit to being really good at one sport, your progress and sense of accomplishment in that sport becomes really satisfying. As a raving Essentialist, I would rather make sustained progress in one direction that a millimeter of progress in a thousand directions.
By focussing on one thing, I can grow to a level where I might actually, one day, be able to say I’m at a mastery level. We all know that training feels great at the beginning because progress seems to come in leaps and bounds. As you get better, making any progress becomes more difficult as your really tightening the screws on performance.
I think it’s impossibly hard to master any skill if you’re trying to do this in three or four different disciplines. To me, that’s the difference between competing in the top grades versus having a Champion or a Grand Champion. It might sound like a small distinction, but I think it’s an important one.
So, what works for you and your dog? I’d love to hear your thoughts, whether you agree with me or think I’m barking mad. drop us a comment below.
Field Notes & Follies 
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