Freighter ran back-to-back Junior tests this past weekend and earned two passes.

A Junior test is a basic marking test.  It consists of a land series of back-to-back singles.  One mark is usually a shot flyer and the other a dead bird.  There is also a water series consisting of back-to-back singles, usually dead birds.  The dog is  brought to the line on lead with a flat buckle collar.  The dog should be tractably at heel.  The dog does not have to be steady and the handler can hold the collar until he releases the dog to retrieve.  The dog must deliver the bird to hand.

An example of a Senior Test  and a Master Test to compare.

I thought both tests this weekend were excellent Junior level tests.  There was some difficulty to them, but they were not set up with so many factors so as to trip up a young dog, (by young dog, I mean one that is just learning).  The only small complaint that I had was with the first mark of the land series on Sunday.  There was a kind of narrow patch of mowed grass in between a field of high grass and a stand of tress with a pond behind the trees.  The flyer fell about 60-70 yards out in the open in the mowed area.  When I saw the set-up, I figured the visual of the corner of the field and the corner of the tress would mess a few dogs up and they wouldn’t push far enough past those corners to get out to the flyer.

If you can only train in a local park or even your local field, you can never set up a training scenario with these kinds of features.  In the past, I am sure this set-up would have messed our dogs up and it did knock out several dogs.  I much prefer to see junior tests set up in open fields because I would hate to see a day when people must have access to training grounds or a professional trainer in order to run what should be a basic marking test.

Freighter had no problem getting out to this mark.  He has been trained by a professional, and Darrin has done a fabulous job with him.  We ran both Thunder and Storm in Juniors without the level of training that Freighter has had.  Big difference.  Let me get to the tests to explain.

Saturday’s land was very straight forward.  The marks landed on an uphill.  The shot flyer was first and to the left in short cover and the dead bird was to the right in medium cover.

The land series:

Freighter pinned these singles.  He had no issue with the cover, or breaking through strips of cover to get to the birds.  He was out and back quickly with each bird.  The thing we did not anticipate was that Freighter kind of lost him mind after the first bird.  All of his obedience went right out the window.  At training he is excited, but not crazy.  At the hunt test he was crazy.  He just wanted birds.  He absolutely refused to sit between marks.  That is not something he has ever done in our training with him.  At a test you pick your battles and there was no way to reinforce the sit so stinker got his way and stood to watch the second bird.

It was difficult to get pictures because the sun was in our faces and there was a lot of cover in between where we were allowed to sit and the dogs.  As a rule, I do not stand up at tests unless I can really hide because I don’t want to mess up the dogs.

Freighter passed easily to water.  The experience Freighter got while he was with Darrin really served him well for the land series.  He has had experience in this field.  He has had experience hunting much more difficult marks in fields with more cover and steeper hills.  This is something we had trouble giving Thunder and Storm when training in parks.  Freighter knows that when he is sent to retrieve that he must do so (not that he had any issue with it).  That is what force fetch does for a dog.  The dog learns it must retrieve when sent.

The water test just happened to be in the pond that we trained in a couple of weeks ago.  They even put one of the marks close to where I was throwing a mark,  (teehee sometimes things just work out).

The water series:

Mark 1 was close to where I threw the mark for Freighter a couple of weeks ago.  Mark 2 was a hand thrown mark at the edge of the pond.  Freighter’s mark was not thrown correctly and landed in some cover on the edge of the bank.  Poor bird thrower had hand thrown about 20 birds before Freighter, he was bound for a misfire.  Sometimes they call a “no bird” which means that you take the dog off line and come back so they can throw the mark again.  They did not for Freighter, so I indicated in gray the approximate location where Freighter’s bird landed.

This pond is not really banked at the edges like some ponds.  It is more of a drop off.  Some of the dogs did not want to leap in.  Not a problem for Freighter.  Any excuse to launch into the water is fine by him.  Many many dogs ran around the bank to the birds either on the way there, or the way back.  One of the things Freighter learned when he was with the pro was that he is not to get out of the water on the way out or the way back.  He must take a straight line out to the bird, turn around and come straight back.  This served him well in both water tests last weekend.

Some pictures of Freighter retrieving Mark 1:

Freighter has also learned that sometimes he must get out of the pond to find the bird.  When it came time to retrieve Mark 2, he got right out of the pond, hunted a tiny bit, picked up the bird and got right back into the pond to come back.  The audience clapped.  No bank running for Freighter, (thanks to Darrin).   I do not have pictures of that because at Juniors you need to sit far away and it was impossible to get a good picture.

So Freighter slammed this test until the last five feet.  He decided he wanted to cause mischief and not deliver his bird to hand.  He messed around with it in the water  at one point he turned around to swim a bit more in the water.  He became deaf to the command “Here”.  His handler was getting very frustrated. The judges allowed his handler to continue to call him and finally Freighter decided he had caused enough mischief and brought the bird back.  People clapped again. 😆  This is something Freighter did last year as a puppy, but not something he has been doing for us in training.  Surprise!  No way to reinforce “here” at a test.

Freighter earned a pass but we figured this messing around would only get worse at the next day’s test.  Normally we do not train in between tests, but his handler decided a refresher was in order.

Come back tomorrow and see how Freighter did and what is next for him