Registered: May 2011
Location: kentucky
Posts: 10

Not to long ago in UKC hunts we scratched dogs after a warning when they babbled...It was real simple to do ....If you was a judge / guide you warned the babbling dog....then u made sure you cut them loose in an open field next drop...Therefore setting up the dog and handler to be scratched...
We used to scratch people for not calling there dog on or before the third bark .....Now folk get a warning instead...

Which now brings me to the current 15 min ' dog not hunting rule' ..A lot of young dogs or close hunting dogs can easily be set up for this ' disqualifing ' scratchable offence...
The ole check dog will often come check back in when other dogs leave the country on junk and he's not found a coon in the immediate area...Henceforth he's waiting for you to leash him to go to the next woods or deep etc..
I'm not suggesting we promote ' walk our dogs over a track '
Whereas that's tough in hill country....
But keeping folks in a cast as long as possible ...As our sport is indeed dying and finding more ways to use a rule to scratch someone should be limited ...

Henceforth I'd submit gross missconduct , fighting, cheating etc would be examples of zero tolerance ; as thats currently the present stance....
The old rule of two coons an appearing to be no part of the cast I thought certainly sufficed ....

Again, one of the ways to use this rule as I recently witnessed is something like this....Score on a tree walk away to releash..Two dogs strike and run something inevitably not a coon...
OK the two dogs have gotten deep so let's go out in the middle of this big field so we can hear them....After several minutes one dog checks in to handler out in the field ....Judge says we can't walk toward deep dogs cause there in different directions... ( in which they indded are one mile one way one mile the other)... OK let's start the 15 min on this dog....Howbeit it wouldn't honor the trash runners and at least in the nearby area they seemed to be no more coon.
I also seen a young boy on his first hunt with a young dog they tried this same ploy.. I wonder if he's still hunting the hunts....Was on a hunt last year when the judge was totaling the
Minutes up every drop which caused a big time back to club heated exchange..... There are those few unfortunately that look for ways to scatch folk as a way to win as a matter of a regular playbook for all kinds of reason s...so then you get down to one or two dogs, big score ,and on it goes....
The bottom line is UKC has amended or added some mercy reguarding disqualifications...
I hope this one is another....
Dean Staton

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