The Evolution of the Mondioring Decoy
By combining various European dog
sport traditions, Mondioring decoys
have developed their own system of
suit work. Much effort has been put
into the Mondioring rule book to guide
decoys from different dog sports into
developing a uniform decoy system.
The Mondioring system allows the
decoy to use a wide array of stressors to
assist the judge in evaluating the dog’s
working ability. The simplicity of the trial rules allow the decoy to remain true
to the core values of dog sport, to test
the inborn character of the dog, and
the quality of the dog’s education. However, the Mondioring program goes a
step further by aiding the judge and
decoy in evaluating the dog’s over-all
adaptability in changing circumstances.
In this article, I will describe the various
influences on Mondioring decoy work
and the development of Mondioring’s
own unique tradition.
A Level Playing Field
In order to understand the concepts
behind Mondioring decoy work, it is
essential to understand the multiple
traditions that came together to create
Mondioring. The Mondioring founders
combined elements from French Ring,
Belgian Ring, and Campagne into one
sport that can serve as a level playing
field for dogs from all systems including, IPO and KNPV. In order to bring a
competition based on the Ring Sport
tradition to the world stage, the founders of Mondioring added rules that
would ensure fairness and safety, and
allow sleeve-trained dogs to have an
arm presentation at the Mondioring
one level.
Some of the compromises that affect the decoy include prohibiting the
decoy from esquiving (dodging) the
dog on entry and striking the dog with
the baton. These compromises remain
controversial. However, rather than seeing them as limitations on the decoy’s
ability to perform his test, I see these
rules as an enhancement to the consistency of the test.
by Francis Metcalf
By prohibiting the esquive on entry,
you are encouraging the decoy to
remain on task and face the dog, rather
than trying to escape and avoid the
charging animal. By encouraging the
decoy to stand and fight, the Mondioring decoy is adhering to the core
principle of the exercise, which is to
test the dog’s courage, not to test his
reflexes. Since the Mondioring decoy
is prohibited from hitting the dog with
the baton, he is forced to find other
methods of intimidation rather than
repetitive baton blows. The Mondioring
decoy must learn to probe the dog’s
character using only his knowledge of
dog behavior and his force of character.
The Ring Sport decoy is all too often accused of crossing the line from testing
to abuse. Since the Mondioring decoy
has voluntarily given up the use of
baton strikes during public expositions,
he ensures the good name of the sport
and its participants.
Founding Traditions
Campagne
The word Campagne literally means
“country.” The sport has acquired this
name to articulate the environment
in which it is played. The Campagne
program never takes place on an official
ring field. Instead, the competition is
held in a rural environment. Campagne
utilizes elements of the landscape to
provide difficulties that the dog will
encounter. The basic thesis of the
Campagne program is to never use any
elements that have been developed on
the Ring field proper, but rather to use
natural elements found in the environment. Campagne dogs are asked to
swim through rivers, search forests, and
jump over pasture fences in pursuit of
the villain.
Campagne practitioners have developed the use of a trial theme, which is
used to give context to the competition. For example, if the trial is to take
place in a pastoral setting, the theme
of the entire trial might draw from the
daily lives of people in farming com-
munities. All aspects of the competition, from agility to protection, will
incorporate elements from the chosen
theme. From the theme, the judge
derives scenarios to choreograph the
decoy and handler into an exchange
that mimics real-life situations. While
theme and scenario run through the
entire program, the use of scenario is
most important to the Defense of Handler exercise. During the Defense, the
decoy must follow certain procedures
that are constant and never changing,
such as the friendly meeting of handler
and decoy and the eventual attack on
the handler by the decoy. The scenario
comes to life through the judge’s arrangement of variables. The variables
are almost limitless in their expression,
but once the variables are set for the
particular trial, they must remain the
same for each dog in the competition. Every competition uses different
variables, and thus the Campagne dogs
ability to adapt is tested over time.
In a quest to bring the difficulties of the
Campagne tradition to the Mondioring
field, the founders of Mondioring have
borrowed many elements from the
Campagne decoy. Both systems utilize theme and scenario. Both systems
utilize accessories in the Face Attack
and obstacles on the Escort. By adding
a second decoy, the variables in the
Mondioring Defense of Handler are
increased. While Mondioring derived
its Defense of Handler from Campagne,
the Mondioring program has developed this exercise to a greater extent
than its ancestors. In my analysis, the
Mondioring decoy and the Campagne
decoy have more in common than
decoys in any other sport.
Belgian Ring
The similarities between Belgian Ring
and Mondioring have less to do with
the decoy’s work and more to do with
the obedience phase of the trial.
Since this article focuses on the bite
work exercises, some of the major
similarities between Mondioring and
Belgian Ring will not be discussed.
Belgian Ring and Mondioring are similar in the use of the obstacle in the Face
Attack, but in Mondioring, the decoy
is expected to barrage the dog with
his baton and then vigorously defend
himself from the attacking dog. The
Belgian Ring decoy works the dog methodically to allow the judge to view
the quality of the grip while the dog
is being stressed by choreographed
environmental events. The Belgian
Ring decoy wears a costume that has
jute cuffs on the arms and legs. The
jute bite surface is more advantageous
to the dog when trying to fill his mouth
compared to the Linen costumes worn
by Mondio decoys. The jute cuffs allows
the dog’s bite quality to be showcased.
The jute on the Belgian suit also slows
the decoy down by making movement
more difficult. The Mondioring rules
specifically state that the decoy should
be active and realistic. This comment
I believe is aimed at decoys from the
Belgian tradition who work in a much
calmer fashion than Mondio or French
Ring decoys.
Belgian Ring and Mondioring both use
environmental factors to test the dog,
but in different ways.
In Belgian Ring, stress is calculated by
watching how certain environmental
events effect the animal’s bite quality, while in Mondioring, environmental stress is applied primarily in
the Defense of Handler scenario and
manifests itself by causing confusion
and conflict. One sees this confusion
and conflict affecting the dog’s ability
to focus and respond to cues. Unlike
Belgian Ring, Mondioring has no point
deduction for bite quality, but the decoy is expected to test the proficiency
of the bite by fighting the dog as if he
is not wearing protection. Both Belgian
Ring and Mondioring utilize obstacles
on the Face Attack. Belgian Ring obstacles are typically more elaborate than
Mondioring obstacles. This is because
Belgian Ring relies on the obstacle as
the sole stressor in the Face Attack and
Mondioring divides the use of stressors
between the obstacle and the decoy.
In Belgian Ring, if the dog goes around
the obstacle, the decoy is allowed to
esquive the dog. Once the dog has
bitten, the decoy becomes passive
and allows the judge to evaluate the
dog’s grip. The Mondioring dog incurs
severe point loss for going around the
obstacle, but the decoy is not allowed
to esquive on entry. Instead the Mondioring decoy must use his baton or
accessory to barrage the dog and keep
him from biting. If the Mondioring dog
bites and then loses his grip, the decoy
is allowed to esquive the dog.
Belgian and Mondioring share many
partial similarities. Both systems use
other hiding spots besides the traditional blind for the Search and Escort
exercise. Both systems use the accessory on the Object Guard and the
obstacle on the Face Attack. However,
during these exercises there are key
differences between the two sports.
The Belgian Ring Escort gives the judge
another view of the dog’s bite quality,
while the Mondioring escort tests the
dog’s vigilance. The Belgian Ring decoy
must always present an arm and a leg
for the attacking dog. The Mondioring
decoy is instructed never to present a
target for the dog, but rather to behave
as if he were not wearing protective
gear and fight the dog off. The decoy’s
behavior during the Object Guard in
Belgian Ring is aimed more at seeing
if the dog will defend his object, while
the Mondioring Decoy behaves more
like a French Ring decoy and uses
cinematic behavior to try and steal the
object. One can almost think of Mondioring as a combination of Campagne
decoys working on a Belgian Ring field.
French Ring
French Ring is the largest and most
competitive of all the founding traditions of Mondioring. The French Ring
program specializes in selecting dogs
through decoy pressure. The use of the
esquive in French Ring is a technique
that allows the decoy to slow the entry
of the dog. The dog, once deprived of
his velocity by missing the initial bite,
is then forced to face the decoy without the aid of inertia. The French Ring
decoy is a specialist in the use of the
baton. His exquisite timing in barrage
and esquive techniques allow him to
peer deep into the animal’s character.
By prohibiting the decoy to esquive
and hit the dog with the stick, Mondioring has distanced itself from French
Ring. By switching from hits with the
baton to the accessory, the Mondioring decoy causes maximum amount
of mental stress on the dog and the
minimum amount of physical stress.
Just like French Ring, the Mondioring
decoy is required to use barrage and
lifelike movements to defend himself
from the attacking dog. If, after biting
on the entry, the dog lets go, the decoy
is allowed to use esquive , barrage,
tricks, and menaces to keep the dog
from biting and thus test the animal’s
resolve.
In Mondioring the obstacle is designed to do the job of the esquive in
French Ring. As the dog approaches
the obstacle, he is forced to alter his
gate and navigate the obstacle. Once
the dog has landed, he is confronted
with a decoy wielding either a baton or
accessory. Since the decoy risks behaving differently from one dog to another
while attempting to esquive, using
inanimate objects to break the dog’s
entry speed lends an air of impartiality
to testing the dogs. The French Ring
judge relies solely on his decoy’s ability
to help him evaluate the dogs. Mondioring is not so heavily centered around
the decoy as French Ring. While the
Mondioring decoy plays an important
role, the environmental factors arranged by the judge and the difficulty
of the scenarios have a strong effect on
the outcome of the trial.
Even though the Mondioring program
has seemingly borrowed more from
the sports of Campagne and Belgian
Ring than French Ring, a similarity
remains that is very important. This
similarity is the use of increasing levels
of difficulty throughout the echelons.
French Ring and Mondioring share the
use of the Brevet as an entry test and
then progress through echelons one,
two, and three gradually increasing the
number and difficulty of the exercises.
Both Campagne and Belgian Ring jump
right into the whole Ring Three program, making these sports less accessible than French or Mondioring.
The Mondioring program was specifically designed not to conflict with the
French Ring program, so that trainers
could easily compete in both sports
with little extra training.
Conclusion
Mondioring’s detractors cite as the
sport’s weaknesses the regulations that
prohibits esquive and stick hits. We will
be better able to evaluate the removal
of these two techniques on the selective process when we access the future
generations of dogs produced by
Mondioring. It is my position that the
removal of stick hits and esquive on entry will not have a significant impact on
the character or working ability seen in
subsequent generations of Mondioring dogs. I believe the addition of the
accessory, changing environment, and
scenario will have greater selective
effect than the removal of esquive and
stick hits. Environmental stability is of
more practical importance to a working dog than entry speed. Moreover,
the Mondioring accessory makes up for
the use of stick hits as a testing device.
Besides viewing dog sports as a breeding test for working dogs, one can
make an assessment based on which
sport is more entertaining to compete
in--and train for. Mondioring’s use of
variation makes it a clear choice for me.
Anyone who has trained a dog in the
higher levels of any sport can confirm
that, after you do your foundation
work, you spend most of your training
time polishing details. If these details
become boring for you or the dog, they
take fun out of your experience. The
same thing is true for the decoy. But
since the Mondioring training decoy is
responsible for providing a well-rounded foundation by constantly exposing
the dog to new training environments,
these variations can be a breath of
fresh air for decoys and trainers tired of
the minutia of their sport.
Mondioring is the latest evolution of
the Ring Sport tradition, as this tradition evolves, I am convinced that the
Mondioring decoy will perform with
fairness and selectivity to create the
working dogs of the future.
Francis Metcalf pictured above, can
be seen on you-tube via http://www.
youtube.com/user/masterofhounds