First a bit of follow-up:  We appreciate all of the nice comments.  Some of you commented that your dogs would not be able to handle the gunfire at a test.  Of course every dog is different, but a gun dog should equate gunfire with birds.  It is very important that a dog be introduced to gunfire properly.  There is a method to do this and our dogs were introduced to gunfire with the help of trainers.  An inexperienced trainer that just goes out an starts shooting over a dog (or puppy) may end up with a gun-shy dog.  It also helps that our dogs were bred to be hunting dogs with a lot of drive to the birds so they focus on them and ignore the  gunfire.

Now to Saturday’s Seasoned test.  I mentioned that a Seasoned test has a lot of parts and each part is judged separately.  The judges on Saturday explained this and stated right out what would constitute a failure.  On the blinds, they pointed to “boundaries” along each side of the blind where if the dog entered, it was a fail.  Hmmm this is quite different from a Senior test where the entirety of the dog’s work is scored.  Certain things would have to be scored a zero, but they do not really indicate boundary lines like they did in this test.

Marks

This test took place in a cut rye field.  The longest mark (to the left) was 75 yards, the second mark was about 50 yards and the blind was around 60 yards.  The marks and blinds were pulled in a bit due to the extreme heat and humidity.  It was stifling hot in that field!  For this particular series, the dog was judged on its heeling as it approached the line (white arrow).  The line was in a sort of alcove thing, (supposed to be a duck blind) and required the handler to sit on a bucket, (which I have shown with a circle and the dog is the x).  Once the handler was seated, he signaled the start of the test by blowing a duck call.  The mark on the right was thrown.  Then the one on the left.  (The dashed arrows show the direction of the throw.)  The handler fires the gun at each mark while the dog is seated next to him.  When the last mark is down, the handler sends the dog.  (In a Senior test, the judge releases the dog.  Seasoned test, the handler releases it.)  The dog could pick the marks up in any order, but I numbered them in the order most dogs picked them up.

Thunder Land Mark

After sending the dog for the second mark, the handler had to move to the side of the blind to receive the bird, re-heel the dog, fire the popper and send the dog for the blind.  Once the dog retrieves the bind, the handler then moves in the direction of the yellow arrow (#4) for the walk up.  The walk up was thrown as a separate mark.  The dog is walked off-lead at heel and when the bird is thrown, the handler fires the popper and blows the whistle (or says “sit”) to sit the dog.  When the mark is down, the dog is sent to retrieve the duck.  Once the dog has delivered the duck, the handler puts the lead back on and is done.  Easy, right?  It was a lot to take in, but it was fairly straight forward.  It was a lot of moving and handling the gun, but since Thunder and Storm’s handler is a hunter, it was a bit second nature to him.

Storm Having Her Lead Taken Off At The Line

Storm was our first dog up.  Heeled nicely on lead.  Sat her next to the bucket.  She was a bit uncomfortable trying to fit in that alcove thing with her handler (who is tall) and the first mark goes off and….break.  Darn!  She was called right back, but she did not see the second mark at all and of course her handler did not fire the popper while she was in front of the gun.  She was sent to retrieve the marks out of the normal order since she only saw mark #2.  She was out and back for that mark.  Now to pick up the mark to the left that she never saw.  Her handler lined her, sent her and she started to hunt on the right side of the gunner station (bird is on the left).  She only hunted a bit and figured out that the bird had to be on the other side.  This isn’t her first rodeo so she cued off the gunner station in the field, hunted a bit more and came up with it.  Whew!  (Her handler could have handled her, but she had to be in the area of the fall for that and the other side of the gunner station wasn’t close enough.)  Now to the blind…one handle.  Piece of cake.  Next the walk up.  Again she was a bit ahead of the gun so her handler fired in the air and re-heeled her.  She retrieved that bird, but the judges told her handler that she was on thin ice due to her breaking on that first bird.

Thunder Land Mark

Thunder’s turn.  His heeling was not as nice to the line.  He had a tough time fitting in the alcove with his handler.  Big dog.  Tall handler.  He was not at all comfortable.  But he was steady as a rock and absolutely pinned both marks…no hunting needed.  Two handles to the blind.  Excellent.  Great walk-up…right at heel.  Nice sit!  He was warned because he was sticky on the birds (meaning he was not giving them up easily).  We haven’t run him in a test in two years, so the stickiness was a bit of a surprise.

Water Series

The morning series took forever to run 27 dogs.  We started at 9 am and didn’t start the water portion until 2:30 pm.  But since both dogs made it through the morning we were anxious to see their water work.  The water series was a water blind, a water double and a diversion bird thrown as the dog returned with the second bird of the double.  The water blind was a 46 yard channel blind.  A channel blind is just what it sounds like: the dog swims down a channel.  This channel had the edge of the pond to the right and water lilies to the left.  These were not any water lilies.  They had the most gigantic leaves I have ever seen.  The leaves looked like cabbage leaves, so we called it “cabbage”.   The cabbage leaves were so big that the dogs ran the marks from a dog stand to help them see over.  In order to get the “go” mark (#2), they had to bust through the cabbage.  Needless to say we don’t have this water feature to train in around here.

Seasoned Pond 8-6-11

The water blind was run first because they were dumping the mark in very close proximity to the blind and these dogs are not at the level yet where you can put a blind and a mark right close to one another.  That would be a Finished test.  The judges warned us that if the dog docked on the land to the right or entered the cabbage, they would be failed.

Storm was our first dog up.  She was not very focused and choose her own line rather than the line her handler gave her.  OK stop her cast her toward the water blind.  She got back on track and then about half way to the blind she took a hard left.  Two sit refusals and she was in the cabbage.  Fail!  Once in the cabbage, she could not see her handler and her handler could not see her.  She got twisted around and ignored a couple of recall whistles and ended up in the open water in the center where they had been throwing the mark.  There was no duck there, so finally she returned to her handler.   Now she got a bit of tough love.  She could have run the marks, which are Storm’s favorite thing to do, but between her breaking in the morning and the whistle refusals, her handler picked her up and no marks for her!

Storm Waiting For Water

Between Storm’s turn and Thunder’s turn five dogs ran that test and four of them ended in the cabbage.  When Thunder’s turn came up, he was right on line, but about two-thirds of the way down, his nose went up and two whistle refusals…right in the cabbage.  Fail!  Obviously there was a lot of suction from the scent of the marks being thrown so close to that blind and the dogs dragging the marks through the cabbage back to their handlers.  Thunder’s handler gave him a couple “backs” and Thunder ended up about 15 feet to the left of the blind.  One over and he had it, but it was too late.  Thunder was allowed to run the marks and diversion.  He was perfect on them.  Darn that blind!

Black Lab Returning With A Water Mark

Since we had never seen a Seasoned test before, we thought we had been training all wrong for the water blinds.  However speaking to some of the professional trainers, they said that blind was more like a Finished blind because it was so close to that mark the scent just sucked the inexperienced dogs over.  Many dogs failed that blind.  OK we didn’t feel so bad.  Maybe if it had been the 2 brown dawgs fourth test rather than their first test, they would have fared better.  Of course their handler was thinking how he could have attacked that blind differently.  But there wasn’t a lot to do and our dogs just don’t have the experience yet for that kind of set-up.

Oh well there was another test the next day….