The Master test this past weekend was pretty tricky.  Saturday was hotter than blazes with temperatures in the 90’s, bright sun and high humidity.  There were 44 dogs running in our flight so the first series took a long time to run.  Thunder was far down in the running order and did not run the first series until the full heat of the day.

The first series was a walk up to a land triple–2 dead birds and a shot flyer.

First Series

The triple was a bit tricky because the walk up bird was 38 yards to the left.  New AKC rules have shortened the distance to that mark and there is no duck call.  The dog must walk at heel in the direction of where the bird will come out and then the handler either says “sit” or blows a whistle to sit the dog while the bird is in the air.  It can be difficult for a dog to stay steady for a bird launched this close to them while they are moving.  Once the first bird is down, the handler must turn his body and hopefully the dog, to see the middle bird which was a shot flyer.  This bird was quite a way out in the field, down a hill.  The dogs had to break through some heavy cover of sorghum and sunflowers to get to it.  A few dogs broke on this bird.  Once the middle bird was down, the handler had to turn all the way to his right so the dog would see the third bird which was on top of the hill.  The gunner station was below the hill and not really visible to the dog.  Dogs had a lot of trouble marking that third bird.  Some went out to that bird, but then switched to get that middle bird (mark #2) when they could not come up with mark #3.

Thunder got a bit of a bad break on this series because he got a “no bird” on the shot flyer when the gunners missed it.  He had to go back three dogs and do the walk up and watch the marks again.  No birds are really tough for Thunder and tend to get him over excited and scramble his brain.  I think he would have had a good shot at picking up this triple clean but with so much going on, he needed to be handled to that middle bird (#2).  He did an excellent job picking up the first bird he was sent to retrieve (mark #3).  He pinned it and did not need to hunt that one at all.  But he hunted a lot for that middle bird (#2 shot flyer) and eventually his handler put him on the bird.  When he brought the bird back, it was in poor condition.  The gunners had really shot it.  I guess they wanted to make sure it was dead, but Thunder is not used to retrieving something that resembles road kill.  Mark #1 was close so no problem for Thunder.

Some pictures of the first series:

Getting Ready For The Walk-Up
At Heel
Mark #1
Watching Mark #1
Mark #2 Shot Flyer
Going To Mark #3
He Has Mark #3
Bringing Back Mark #2

Thunder did a good job on a tricky test and was through to the 2nd series.  More on that tomorrow.

21 thoughts on “Tricky Test”

  1. Goota love Jim’s gun. He was lucky he hit any of the birds (LOL) with this gun. Thunder looks great!

    1. Yeah it was flat…lol. They are supposed to use breaking handler’s guns, but I guess they did not have one. 🙂

  4. We don’t know what No Bird means either. Buuuut, we are glad Thunder did a great job! And now I know why that curtain is set up there as well! Does the same person shoot for each dog or one handler for each dog, etc?

  5. That looked like some really thick cover for the dogs to be working in along with the heat, you should be very proud of Thunder. I’m sure many dogs did not do as well.

  8. Wont be long and it will be hunting season! Great pics and it was hot on Sunday….. humidity was horrible! Supposed to be hot this coming weekend again… sigh… Great post! 🙂

  9. Good job sweet Thunder it could not have been as fun as it could have been had it not been so hot. We would not have been in any hurry to retrieve something resembling road kill either. Hugs and nose kisses

  10. It sounds like a tough test and tough conditions with the heat.

    1. Hey Murphydogs. I have been leaving comments on your blog which I think are going into your spam folder because they disappear. Can you check?

  11. I am always in awe and have such a respect for all the time and devotion put into training–It really looks like it’s paying off, with or without a bird, what a good start! 🙂

  12. Wow a hot day and it looked like a complicated test and looked like a lot of thick green to run through. I didn’t understand how they handled the “no bird” but Looks like Thunder did an impressive job in this test. Great job Thunder:)

  14. Wow that’s a lot of dog in your flight. Sounds like they did great. Very talented dogs.

  15. This sounds like it was a pretty tough test especially in that heat! Thunder did a great job. Good series of pics!

  16. Glad that Thunder did his job despite the bird being all shot up. I feel bad for the birds on these tests. Are they just thrown away afterwards?

    1. They are reused unless they are in really poor condition. Every night after a test is a ritual. They are hung and dried overnight. Then bagged up in the morning for use that day. After two days, they can be in rough shape.

      1. At least they try to get a few days out of them. Too bad they couldn’t cook ’em up and feed ’em to the dogs after each test. It would give the dogs an awesome reward for their hard work. 🙂

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