DOERUN, Ga. — Mark McLean, from Doerun, got his first job training bird dogs when he graduated from high school in 1984 and started working for a plantation near Albany. He has continued to train dogs, either as an amateur or professional, for the last 34 years and this year has won two of the highest awards given by Purina for this field trial season.

Field trials are competitions between hunting dogs, which are judged on their performance, speed, endurance and their ability to find birds. Each dog has its handler and a scout. The handler gives the dog verbal commands telling him what to do and in what direction he wants him to hunt. The scouts job is to keep up with the dog if he gets out of sight, and to report if the dog points. The handler and the judges will then go to the dog, observe the point, and verify that the dog has pointed birds.

Field trials have been going on in America since the 1870s and are very competitive.

McLean handled Touch’s Mega Mike, an English pointer owned by Eddie Sholar of Leesburg, Ga., and Ted Dennard of Haddock, Ga., who has won the Purina 2017-2018 Top Dog Award.

The award is given to the dog that has the most wins or placements during the current field trial season.

Mike’s first placement of the season was in Canada where he won runner-up in the Dominion Championship. Mike continued winning with placements in North Dakota, North Carolina, Florida and Georgia. With each win the dogs are awarded points, depending on how they finish. Points are given if they finish first, second, or third and multiplied times the number of dogs entered in the field trial. Most field trials, will have 30 to 75 dogs entered in the competition.

During the season, Mike won or placed in eight field trials, beating out more than 400 other dogs and he earned a total of 3,219 points, beating his closest rival by more than 1,100 points. This is the 55th year that Purina has given this award.

In addition to being the handler for Touch’s Mega Mike, McLean also had three other dogs that placed in seven field trials in North Carolina, Florida, Mississippi, Tennessee and Georgia, giving him a total of 15 placements this season. Winning these 15 field trials gave McLean enough handlers points to win the Purina All-Age Handler of the Year Award, by more than 1,000 points over his closest rival.

McLean gives a lot of credit for having such a successful year to his son Cody, who has been his scout in the majority of these field trials.

Winning either of these Purina Awards is a great accomplishment, but winning both of these awards in the same season is quite a feat. This places McLean in a class with the top dog handlers in the country. Only 13 other handlers have won both awards in the same season in the last 30 years.

McLean will receive his awards in June, during the Purina Award Dinner, at Purina Headquarters, in St. Louis, Mo.