Sunday morning was very foggy.  We pulled into where the test was supposed to be held and there was nobody there.  We waited and a few other people pulled up, but we still did not see the judges or the equipment.  Finally the fog started to lift and there they were, on the far side of the field.  They had been there all along, but we couldn’t see them due to the fog.

The land test was fairly straight forward.  The field was hilly and the line was in the higher part of the field which sloped down to the marks.  The blind was off to the left and also sloped down.  The judges stated that they had measured the blind…100 yards from the line to the bird.

Even though Thunder was not listed as the first dog in the running order, the dogs ahead of him were not there when they started the test so he got called up first.  Being the first dog is a tough spot, especially when you are going for title, but them is the breaks.  The sun was shining directly in the eye’s of Thunder’s handler, the fog had not completely lifted, there was a heavy dew and absolutely no wind.  All of that can make it tough on the dog.

The marks went off and Thunder was out like a bullet to the shot flier and….he could not find the bird.  He hunted and hunted and hunted the area of the fall and he just could not find it.  His handler decided that he had better handle him to the mark.  Thunder took the casts and continued to hunt the area and still could not find it.  Some dogs would have given up.  Thunder tried to move to another area to hunt, but his handler stayed cool and sent him back to the area where the bird was supposed to be.  He hunted some more.  His handler sat him and just let him breath and finally he winded the bird and came up with it!

Thunder spent a lot of time on that first bird and still had to retrieve the memory bird.  Sometimes when a dog has an extended hunt on the first bird, they forget where the second bird fell.  The memory bird in this test was not an easy mark.  The dogs had to push through some heavier cover to get to the area where the bird fell, (remember no wind).  They could not see the bird until they busted through the cover and then it was visible.  Thunder had a very short hunt in front of the cover, circled around the gun station, found the bird, and brought it back.  The blind was no problem, 3 or 4 handles to the bird.  Whew!

In all nine tests Thunder has run, he has never had that kind of trouble coming up with the bird, especially a shot flier.  We still do not know why he had such a hard time.  It may have been that it was a bad fall (in a clump of grass or in a little dip in the ground).  Maybe he stepped over it while clearing cover and with no wind, he could not catch the scent.  Who knows?  Just as Thunder finished, the wind picked up and the sun burned off the haze so the rest of the dogs did not have the trouble Thunder had with that mark.  If they had trouble it was with the memory bird.  We were not sure that the judges would call Thunder back to water, but they did.  They made it clear that he had to be clean with no handling on the water marks.  He was still in it!

On to water.  Since the morning was just a land double and a land blind, there were still a lot of parts of the test left to do in the afternoon series.  The afternoon was a walk up, a water double, a diversion shot, a water blind and an honor.  All of the hard stuff and Thunder had to be clean!  To make matters worse, a thunderstorm blew in and there was about an hour delay in the test due to lightning in the area.  Thunder doesn’t mind storms, except when lightning is close by, and the lightening was within a few miles we guessed.  He was getting a little spooky.  Luckily he was one of the last dogs to run, (first in the morning and in the last five in the afternoon, don’t get that, but oh well it gave time for the storms to move off).

The water test was set like this:

The marks were falling in the water, but the land sort of sloped down to the water, so the dogs really only saw a splash.  Also, as the day wore on the ducks were really wet and started to sink.  Many dogs had to be handled on the marks.  Some blew right over that first mark and ended up in the field behind the pond and had to be called back to the water.  Others had a hard time with the memory mark and again exited the pond and were out in the field behind the pond.  They also had to be handled to the mark.  The blind was also troublesome because some dogs wanted to dock early on the land at the point or on the land before the blind.  Once the dog got on that land, it was tough to get them back in the water and to the blind.  The bird was put in between some dead branches so it was sort of obscured from the dog’s view.

Thunder’s turn…the walk up was fine.  Thunder stayed at heel and sat right on the whistle…nice and steady.  The marks went off.  He got the Go bird and then went to the Memory bird.  He got up on the edge of the bank, but quickly scented the bird and picked it up.  He turned when the diversion shot went off, but didn’t see a bird fall so continued on his way to his handler with his bird.  Next the blind.  The dogs had to start the blind fairly far off of the edge of the pond.  Thunder’s handler aimed him in the middle of the channel toward the blind.  Thunder took a nice straight line from his handler into the water and started swimming.  He carried that initial line a good long time.  His handler noticed that he was starting to curve toward the blind and being super conservative to make sure he “challenged the blind”, he stopped Thunder and cast him over to the bank on the right side of the pond where the blind had been placed.  Once Thunder got over there, he stopped him and cast him back.  Thunder had a bit of trouble understanding that he needed to get the bird out of the middle of the dead branches, (don’t know why since he had to get a mark out of a similar place the day before).  Finally after a couple of casts, the light bulb went on and bingo!  He got the bird!

All that was left was the honor and that was fine.  Thunder was perfectly steady.  The judges even told his handler “good job”.  Of course after waiting for a ribbon the week before and not getting one, we weren’t taking anything for granted. 🙂  Since Thunder was early in the running order, we would know pretty soon after the judges started awarding the ribbons whether he qualified or not.  When they started calling names, Thunder’s was the first name called!  A pass and his title!  (The dogs on the list before him must have either scratched or not qualified.)  Between AKC and HRC Thunder passed 7 out of 9 tests and all since the beginning of August.  He certainly had a good run although by the end of the last test he was getting a bit sloppy dropping the birds, (which was aggravating).  Now he will take a break from testing for hunting season and we will work on that bird dropping and his heeling which could still be better.  He just gets so excited at the test I guess all that heeling stuff goes right out of his head…