Saturday Storm easily passed a challenging Seasoned test.  However Sunday she crashed and burned, going out on an uncontrolled break on the first mark.  Sunday’s test was the last for us this season, so her title will have to wait until Spring.  Stinker Storm.  🙁

On Saturday she just smashed the test and was one of the cleanest to run the test that day.  I guess this is what made her performance on Sunday such a surprise.  That is the thing with dog training, every day is an adventure.

On Saturday the field for the land portion had a lot going on in it.

I was standing up in a hill that sort of circled one side of the field, (almost like a giant berm).  Due to the terrain of hills and trees, the field for the land was sort of down in a bowl.  This made it tough for the dogs because the wind was swirling and the marks were thrown close to the blind which drew many dogs off the line to the blind.  The test was set like this:

I tried to mark the berm with a green line.  The handlers had to walk their dogs down the side of the berm to the test.  It was quite steep and narrow which made it difficult for the handlers to get to the test.  Remember they must have their dog on lead next to them so they had to manage getting down the hill with their dog attached.  Some handlers had a tough time with that walk due to their physical limitations.

As soon as the handler was called to the line, there was a walk-up bird and on the way back a diversion bird.  This required the handlers to fire very quickly because the dog was not going far to pick-up that walk-up bird before the handler had to fire at the diversion bird.  As a result there were several gun warnings mostly due to the handler not shouldering the weapon.  The judge commented on Sunday (we had the same judge), that he probably would never set a walk-up with a diversion again just because it resulted in so many gun warnings.

Once the dog completed the walk-up and the diversion, then the dog ran a blind.  The blind was short, maybe 25 yards, but many dogs had trouble with the blind and wanted to head on over to the dead bird station.  Also, there were a lot of dogs who were out-of-control on that land blind.  Not stopping on a whistle and just generally hunting rather than taking casts.  It was probably due to the swirling wind and the scent blowing all over the field.  If a dog had a problem with the marks, it was due to them switching and trying to go back to the “go” bird from the “memory” bird.

Storm did fine on the walk-up and diversion.  However her handler had a bit of trouble receiving a gun warning for not shouldering the gun and he was given a spent popper so the gun did not fire on the diversion.  Using the gun is great, but since it isn’t your gun or your shells, it seems there are a lot of misfires and handlers sometimes have to spend more time dealing with the gun than handling their dog.

Storm did very well on the blind.  She wanted to head over to the dead bird station, but her handler stopped her and put her back on line and in a couple of casts she was behind the bird.  Her handler gave her a “come in” whistle to let her know she was close, but past the bird.  She headed back, picked up the bird, and brought it back.

Storm did really well on the marks.  She had to hunt the “go” bird a bit.  But easily found the bird in the cover.  She was a bit slow picking up that bird.  We aren’t really sure why.  But she did pick it up and brought it back.

After Storm brought the “go” bird back, she got the “memory” bird.  No hunt on this one, she knew right where it was.

With that she was passed to water.  Come back tomorrow to read about the water series which was an interesting set-up.