>I always liked a runnin' dog. Still do.

Me too! The guys I broke in with in southern Ohio were all race. One find in shtg dog stakes to show that the dog was broke was all they wanted. A dog better run or go home. Derbies were just older puppies, placed on race. Dogs weren't broke 'till the summer after their derby year. Nobody ever hurt a young dog by summer breaking after it's puppy season.

When I first started judging I got in trouble by placing a dog first with one find and a big race over a dog with a half dozen finds that never got more than 50 or 60 yards from the path. The owner of that multi find dog told me that my first place dog was running off but birds stopped him. "Proved he was hunting not just running to hear his ears flap." I said. Funny, that club never asked me to judge again. (I once judged with a guy who got invited back the next season when I wasn't. He was kidding me about it at a trial so I finally told him that it was all good, now they'd find out who the screwed up judge really was. )

I always remembered what Ken Honecker told me. "Doc Zoll and I are often asked to judge together but we always refuse. We're pretty good friends but we like different kinds of dogs and we know that we'd never agree on placements." Ken liked a running dog while Doc had two sons of Wayriel Allegheny Sport that were bird finders but ran short. I remember Don Morrison being furious because one of Doc's dogs had a half dozen finds on one hedgerow. Doc finally stayed off his horse and just walked from one find to another. Doc was first, Don was second with a big running Setter that had two or three finds. I just laughed at him and told him that was the trouble with judges today, "They don't know a damn thing about bird dogs!" :-) I hadn't placed with one find and so had little sympathy for him.