Happy Friday!

Thunder has been doing some short marks and handling this week.  He isn’t released to swim yet so his training has been on land.  I am told his marking was good and his handling is still really nice despite the layoff.  We have training scheduled for this weekend with both Thunder and Storm so we will see.  I hope to snap a few pictures and maybe we can find some water for him where he won’t “belly flop” into it.  He can swim a bit, but just not blast into the water.  We also want to increase his distances gradually so as not to overdo it too soon.  I think however, the heat we are supposed to have next week will slow down our training more than Thunder’s health because he is recovering very nicely.

I understand Storm is doing “big dog” stuff with the trainer.  Hopefully Storm is getting her hunt test form back because she has a test next weekend.  I think I said that I didn’t get any pictures of her at her last test, but I did get these crummy pictures of the water portion of the test.  I was trying to keep out of sight, so I was behind the pop-up which was set up for the judges.  Storm was down a hill and the mark was across the pond.  At hunt tests, you don’t always have the best vantage point for taking pictures.

Storm picked both her marks up cleanly.  It was the handling that gave her problems.  We have been working on that, and the trainer has been working on that, so are anxious to see how she fares in the next test.

We hope to enter Thunder in some tests starting in August.  We also plan to run some with him in September.  We would like to try Storm in some HRC tests, but she is due to come into season so we will have to wait until literally the last-minute to enter her, (which you can do with HRC provided the flight is not full).  Mother nature is in charge of her test schedule for at least the next couple of months.

Have a nice weekend and stay cool.