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Quartering
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A dog that's "quartering" a field is not dividing it up into
fourths, despite how the term sounds. Recall that a circle is 360 degrees
around, and that a quarter of a turn around that circle is thus
90 degrees -- the arc, for example, from twelve o'clock to three o'clock.
A dog that's running, and makes roughly 90-degree turns, zigging and
zagging its way out ahead and around objectives, is quartering the field.
The "out ahead" part is important, here. Ideally, the dog is
not looping around in large circles, or passing back behind the
handler/hunter as she works. She's staying out in front (where we hope
she'll come across a bird), and allowing the hunter to see what she's
up to.
Many handlers will use a toot on a whistle or a loud, musical-sounding (and
always upbeat and happy) vocal "woop!" call, to get the
dog to turn its head and see what the handler is up to. With good timing,
the handler will do this in a way that allows the dog to see that the
direction through the field has changed, and the dog will move to head
out ahead of the hunter in the general direction that hunter is going. Of
course, the dog's nose knows, so if she's clearly engaged in a
cast towards or around an
objective, then the
handler will wait until the dog is done with the work in that area. The
last thing one wants to do is call the dog away from a productive-looking
cast, which can convey to the dog that the hunter dissaproves of that
all important hunting urge.
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