Qualifying for the Retriever Trials of the ESPN Great Outdoor Games looks like the real thing, but it's actually tougher. The courses are designed to find the best retriever/handler teams in the world.

Is it live? Or is it Memorex?

That might have been the thought that went through the head of Labrador retriever Moon as handler John Blackbird sent him on a series of marks during the recent Super Retriever Series competition held at Oak Ridge Kennels in Northfield, Minn.

Moon evidently thought it was real. The retriever fared well enough to win the trial and receive one of two berths in the upcoming ESPN Great Outdoor Games.

Moon and Blackbird posted a final score of 24 to edge past the team of Dusty and Jason Smothers, which finished second with 33. Despite the second-place finish, the team also received an invitation to Lake Placid.

The Live-versus-Memorex slogan was made popular for the sale of audiocassettes a few years ago. Lately, though, the retriever/handler teams at the Super Retriever Series got to see first hand how the slogan applies to a retriever trial, Great Outdoor Games style.

Specifically, those teams received a first-hand look at pseudo-duck hunting in as close to real fashion as possible.

	“	We're not interested in the retriever's style, bloodline, pretty coat or who his handler is. Our test is without a doubt the most objective to find the best dog in the world. We don't care how the dog does it, within reason, we just want to see if he can do it. ”
		— trial organizer Justin Tackett

When the organizers of the retriever trials of the Great Outdoor Games began to construct trials to accurately simulate a real hunt, they were faced with building a trial that would not only test the dog's ability to respond to a variety of manufactured factors in a realistic way, but to do the same with a handler's ability as well.

Perhaps no trial has done that as well as the preliminary events for the Great Outdoor Games.

"Basically, this was just a taste of what the Games will hold," said trial organizer Justin Tackett. "These aren't ordinary trials. We are there to find the finest hunting retriever in the world." To do that, the Super Retriever Series and the Great Outdoor Games puts retriever/handler teams in extraordinary situations to see which ones come out in extraordinary fashion.

To offer a glimpse of one of a couple of those situations, take for example a couple of the retrieve during the finals of the Super Retriever Series.

In every test there is a blind retrieve, which is a retrieve hidden somewhere on the course. The dog can't see it, and has to follow the direction of the handler without leaving the hunt area.

At Northfield, "The blind was about as difficult as you could possibly have in only 146 yards," Tackett said. "It was set not more than 10 feet from the bank and the judges wanted everyone to stay wet."

If a dog decided to push to dry land for an easier run, the team was penalized. Inevitably, the dogs had to be handled to the blind and away from the bank, which of course resulted in penalties as well. The blind retrieve tested the handler/retriever relationship. Where the trial began to test the resolve of the retriever was with the initial mark.

	“	You could tell the air was taken right out of the dog as they got close. Only the best, most experienced retrievers showed the courage to stay in the area of the mark and hunt. ”
		— Tackett, on the trial's difficult diving duck test

The mark was a single, fashioned like a diving duck. The mark was thrown and splashed down 242 yards from the retriever/handler. For the caliber of dogs that compete in the Great Outdoor Games, a mark that distance offers no huge test. But this one had a realistic twist to it.

As the dogs got within inches of the mark it was jerked under water, like a real duck diving to get away.

"You could tell the air was taken right out of the dog as they got close," Tackett said.

To make matters even more confusing for the retriever, the handlers had to follow a count of seven before they could direct the dog to the diver that reappeared about 25 yards behind the initial mark.

"Only the best, most experienced retrievers showed the courage to stay in the area of the mark and hunt," Tackett said.

Which is the whole purpose in finding the best dogs for the Great Outdoor Games.

"We're not interested in the retriever's style, bloodline, pretty coat or who his handler is," Tackett said. "Nor are we interested in how many ducks he picked up this year or the fact ducks don't fall more than 100 yards from the blind very often.

"Our test is without a doubt the most objective to find the best dog in the world. We don't care how the dog does it, within reason, we just want to see if he can do it."

Those that do "do it" have an opportunity for Gold in a test that will likely leave them reeling with the thought "Is it live? Or is it Memorex?"