Four-legged pheasant fetchers (ducks too)
National retriever competition held in Mission Valley
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Dog trucks, specially outfitted with kennels in the bed, louvered panels and perforated metal doors, ceilings and floors supplying ventilation for their canine occupants, packed the parking lot at the KwaTaqNuk Resort. The pricey vehicles housed retrievers participating in the National Amateur Retriever Championships.
Held mostly west of Ronan during the week of June 19 through 25, the NARC was making its debut in Montana.
The NARC is “like the World Series for retrievers,” Chair Roger Fangsrud, Missoula, said.
The event showcases the best 115 retrievers in the United States, he explained. One Chesapeake Bay retriever, one golden retriever and the rest Labrador retrievers were competing for the title of best Amateur Retriever in a series of 10 trials, half on water and half on land.
There were two categories of trials: marking, where dogs must sit on the line next to their handler and watch as birds are shot and “mark” where they fall, and mechanical, when the handler uses hand signals and whistles to guide the dog to birds.
Three judges, Mary Howley from Wisconsin, Mitchel Brown from New York and Pat Nichols from Nevada, evaluated the participants. Basically, the fewer times a handler has to whistle or signal his or her dog the better. Line manners, obedience and stylishness are also considerations NARC board member Arnie Erwin said.
Red NARC signs guided traffic west of Ronan so participants and spectators could catch the action.
To qualify for the NARC, a dog must be handled by an amateur and must amass a total of seven points, one win at a weekend trial counts for five points. Trials are held almost every weekend in four or five times zones all over the United States, and a retriever competes against an average of 80 dogs so they’re difficult, Fangsrud said.
A retriever’s most competitive years are between five and eight, Erwin added. The average price of a dog with this level of training is $20,000 or more. Puppies with the most superior breeding sell for as high as $4,500 while most purebred puppies cost $1,000 to $1,500.
Headquartered at the KwaTaqNuk Resort, the NARC participants began at 8 a.m. or earlier and competed as long as the light held. The number of retrievers was whittled down for the finals on June 24.
Gay Fruehling, Ketcham, Idaho, a marshall at the event and whose husband Bob competes, noted that Fangsrud was instrumental in bringing the NARC to the Mission Valley.
Breck Howard, who won the nationals in 1983 and is the radiologist at St. Luke’s Community Hospital in Ronan, agreed. He said Fangsrud stepped up and volunteered to be the chairman, which meant finding places to hold the trials as well as a myriad of other details.
The trials are a “huge economic injection” for the whole area, too, Howard said, since competitors come to the area at least a week ahead of the trials to do some intense, last minute training. Howard explained that the sport aids in the conservation of game and enhances the qualities of retrievers since each dog is checked for hips, eyes, etc., to prevent bad traits passing to another generation of dogs.
He added that the sport is one of the few where the average guy with an average income can compete with the very wealthy because the dogs equalize all.
“Your dog doesn’t care if you are Breck Howard or Steve Bechtel,” he said.
The purpose of this sport, Erwin said, is to produce a better hunting dog that will save game. For the dogs, it’s just plain fun.
For the record, congratulations go to dog #85, FC-AFC Cody Cut A Lean Grade “Grady” and Chad Baker, who won the NARC.
