And then it was Thunder’s turn to run the Mock Hunt Test…

All and all he did very well.  He nailed the marks and needed just a couple handles for the blind, (but more importantly, he took every cast!).  A few things could be improved, (of course there is always training to do!).  Thunder has been nice and steady at the line during training and was solid when he ran as test dog last year for the WDX; however, he was anticipating a release command and left when the judge released him rather than when his handler released him.  His return to heel has been really good in training, but the circles around his handler came back with all of the excitement of the winger, the poppers and the ducks.  🙂  He was slow to pick up the first duck (the second was fine however), and his whistle sit could have been crisper.  He was the last Senior level dog to run so he had to honor a Master level dog.  He did fine until a diversion bird was thrown, with much fanfare, about 15 feet in front of him.  He wanted to go for it, but he was told to “SIT” and he did.  Normally, in a Senior test there would be no diversion bird thrown (but there will be if he runs a HRC Seasoned test so it is good practice for him).

Any mistakes Thunder and/or his handler made were all small ones that will be worked on in training.  The most important thing is that his performance was sufficient so that he was called back to the water portion of the Mock Hunt Test! (OK all dogs were called back, it was a mock test after all, but his performance was sufficient so that he earned his call back along with all of the other Senior dogs.)

A  couple of pictures of Thunder boy…

After all of the Senior level dogs ran, it was time for the Master Dogs.  They ran the same doubles and blind, but the Master dog handlers were required to send their dogs to the blind while standing away from them (a remote send).  Unfortunately, I did not get any pictures of the Master dogs.  I love watching them work and got a bit caught up and forgot all about my camera.  🙂

After we finished the land portion, we moved to water which will be the subject of tomorrow’s post…