Section 07
The Line
Dated notes from Marks & Blinds: rulebook changes, revisions to the stakes and levels table, reading notes and the turn of the season.
The Line is where this publication speaks in the present tense. It carries short dated notes rather than articles: a rulebook that has been reread, a row of the stakes and levels table that has been corrected, a term added to the glossary of the line, or a seasonal reminder that changes how a page should be read.
It also exists for a less obvious reason. A correction on this site is never a silent edit. When a figure changes, three things happen together: the page carries the new edition and the new date of reading, the claim behind it is updated in the evidence file, and a dated note appears here saying what changed. That procedure is described in full in sources and method, and this page is the visible half of it.
The other doors of the publication: Trials & Tests, Training, Gear, Waterfowl, Breeds & Health and Grounds. Every one of them points back to the stakes and levels table.
Dated notes
Readings, corrections and outstanding questions, newest first.
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Hunting test regulations read at the source
Reading
The AKC regulations and guidelines for hunting tests for retrievers were read in full today, in the edition amended July 2021 and issued November 2025, including the green insert effective January 1, 2026. Chapters 2, 4 and 5 produced the requirements for Junior, Senior and Master, the number of qualifying scores each title takes, the scoring floors and the callback procedure. Every figure taken from that reading carries its chapter and section, and the edition is printed beside it wherever it appears.
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What the numbers on the front page count
Method
The band of figures on the home page is data, not decoration. Each column exists only because a figure behind it was read in a governing document, with its edition and its date of reading recorded. Today that means the AKC hunt test ladder: three levels, and four, five and six qualifying scores for the three titles. Columns for the field trial stakes, for the HRC program and for NAHRA will be added the day their rulebooks have been read the same way, and not before.
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Corrections are dated, never silent
Correction policy
A correction here is three gestures rather than one. The field on the page changes and carries its new edition and its new date of reading. The claim behind it is updated in the evidence file that supports the site. And a note appears on this page saying what changed and why. That is the whole reason this section exists: it is the visible half of the revision record, not a stream of announcements. The procedure is set out in full in sources and method.
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The field trial rules are the reading still to do
Outstanding
The registration and field trial rules and standard procedure for retrievers have not yet been read at the source. Three things depend on that reading: the conditions attached to each stake, the championship points behind the FC and AFC titles, and the question of whether the rulebook says anything at all about distances. Until it is done, no stake condition and no point figure is printed here. Naming what is missing is cheaper than publishing a number that came from somewhere else.
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A distance is a judgment, not a requirement
Rule and practice
A large part of what circulates about field trials quotes distances as though a rulebook set them. On the ground, a series is built by the judges from the land and water they have, the wind on the day and the cover as it stands. Every row of the table therefore keeps two fields apart: what the rule states, with its section, and what the sport habitually does, marked as an observed habit. Where a reading does not confirm that a value is left to the judges, the row says so rather than assuming it.
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The clearance that expires, and the ones that do not
Reading
Working through the screening pages produced one distinction worth stating on its own. Structural evaluations of hips and elbows are issued once, on a mature dog, and stand. Genetic tests settle a question permanently from a single sample. The eye examination does neither: it describes a moment and has to be repeated. A certificate with an old date on it is therefore not a current result, and reading it as one is the most common mistake made with a litter paperwork.
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No season dates on this site
Policy
Waterfowl season dates change every year, and a page built on them is wrong within twelve months while still ranking. So none appear here. What is published instead is the mechanism that produces them: federal frameworks first, flyway councils in the middle, then each state choosing inside the frame it has been given. A reader who understands that chain can find the current dates themselves in one place, every year, which is more useful than a figure this site would have to chase.
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Why no HRC or NAHRA point figures appear yet
Outstanding
Point schedules for the Hunting Retriever Club program and level names for NAHRA have been seen in secondary sources, which is not enough to publish a number on a reference page. Both rulebooks have been located and neither has yet been read at the source. Until they are, what gets written is only the part that is certain: those programs count accumulated points rather than a fixed number of passes, and the schedules are in their own rulebooks.