SRS History

A buddy of mine and I were leaning against some trees in the fall of 1998. It was mid-morning and the "White" was on the fall, the hunting was slow and the conversation turned to dogs.

While flippin' peanut butter crackers to fat Labradors we had a number of earth shattering, world changing ideas. In that conversation we came up with 11 different boat designs, 14 different places to open hunting lodges and 35 new ways to decoy ducks.

During the four hours of looking up and telling lies to each other we also thought about the perfect retriever competition. A competition that tested a dog's ability to go long, a dog's ability to handle short stuff and everything in between, plus the ability to test a dog in a true hunting scenario where everything isn't perfect. A competition where you have to finish a blind with a 40 mph wind in your face and the dog has to lie down to finish the birds. A competition where your buddies are screaming and hollering with excitement and guns are blazing all around you. A competition where you run from a boat, a ground blind and sometimes you are asked to do things just to see who can do it and who can't. We created a retriever event where as a judge you truly have the freedom to test a dog without reproach.

Twelve years after that goofy idea, SRS is in it's 11th year. We have gone a long way to help expose some incredible trainers, handlers and dogs. SRS has changed the way that most hunt test people view field trial dogs and vice versa. We've also proven time and time again that a competitive retriever can play hunting dog too.

But, maybe the best thing SRS ever did was expose great dogs to the world. Although our sport is still very small from a participation standpoint, we have shown great retrievers to over 100 million people through networks like ESPN and Versus.

The SRS has evolved a tremendous amount and continues to change a little bit every year. I'm amazed how the judges continue to be incredibly creative in their set-up and design and the trainers and handlers continue to prepare incredibly well.

Now that individuals, kennels and clubs are running their own SRS events, I think we will see an even wider group of handlers and their dogs compete in what I think is the most fun and challenging of retriever games.

Here's to the thousands of judges, bird boys and handlers who helped make SRS what it is today. Good luck and continued success. I hope we all have as much fun the next eleven years as we did the first!