Yesterday I wrote about the land portion of Freighter’s Senior Hunt test last Saturday.  Today’s post will be about the water portion.

The water series was a water double with a water blind.  First the dog ran the marks and was invited to run the blind provided it did a decent job on the marks.

Senior tests are intermediate tests so the blinds are set well away from the marks.  In Master tests they may be run in between marks or under the arc of the throw of a mark which makes the blind more difficult.

The above set-up is a pretty typical set-up for a Senior test.  Sometimes the marks will fall up on the bank of the pond, but these marks fell in the water.  There was a little island of plants which divided the areas where the marks fell.  If dogs had trouble with these marks, it was with Mark 1 which was the first bird the dogs watch fall.  Some of them swam past it and got up on the bank and if they did not hook back around, they totally missed the mark.

The walk just to get to the test was a bit of a challenge.  In Seniors, dogs come to the line off lead.  To get to the line the dog and handler had to walk past the rack of ducks and under an easy-up.

Hubby kept a good eye on Freighter as he was watching the marks just in case he might decide to break his sit.  But Freighter was a good boy and held his sit.  First he retrieved Mark 2.

All was going as planned and then the mischief happened.

Freighter has a giant water entry and when he launched to retrieve Mark 1, he ended up on top of some decoys which were right in front of the line.  He got tangled in the rope attached to the decoy.

Now some dogs would have panicked and some dogs would have quit, but Freighter is a Chessie.  Chessies can be very determined.  They also have a lot of heart and Freighter was not going to give up.

He swam the entire length of the pond with the decoy wrapped around his leg.

By the time he got to the other side of the pond and turned to pick up the duck, the decoy came off.

On the score sheet there is a category for “Perseverance”.  The top score is 10, but one of the judges commented that he wanted to give Freighter higher than a 10.

The water double complete, all that Freighter needed to do was the water blind.  He did a very nice job on this blind.  If dogs had trouble on this blind, it was because the handlers let them get up on the bank of the pond where the cover was very high.  At that point it was very difficult to get the dog back into the water to get to the bird.

Hubby used about 4 casts to keep Freighter from straying from the direct line to the blind and he made sure not to let him get close to the bank.  On Sunday, Freighter was on his way to lining (not needing to be handled) on that water blind, but hubby was not taking any chances losing that blind and stopped him just before the bird and directed him to it.

Some handlers like to let their dogs line blinds, but in the long run that may bite you in a future test.  I have seen dogs get within feet of a blind and veer away from it because their handler did not direct them all the way to the bird.  Once the dog veers away from a blind, it can be very hard to get them back.

Happy Freighter earned a pass and a big ribbon.