Saturday was a beautiful day. Sunny and warm. A bit too warm for so early in the season, but I’m not complaining.
We went to state land to do some training. This land is designated Field Dog Trail Area which means that you are allowed to train dogs off lead, use starter pistols, and use dead training birds on these grounds.
These grounds have some very nice fields with hills and cover. The only problem is that there is no close parking to some of the areas and they do not maintain the grounds at all. It is fine in the Spring, but once everything starts growing, the cover can be too high. The ponds are also only so-so depending on how wet or dry it has been.
We got there fairly early, but there was already a group there with pointers doing some training. That was OK because there was another very nice field just down the road with close parking.
The field we picked was nice and big with some hills and was tree-lined on all sides. The cover was medium high. We walked around a bit before we set up checking for holes, but there were not many that we could see. At least none that would effect our set-up.
We set up a triple and a blind.
Thunder and Storm ran the triple and Freighter ran a double of Mark #1 and Mark #2.
Thunder was test dog and absolutely nailed the triple. No hunting, just down and back with all three marks. We figured we had a good set-up.
Storm could not do that triple to save her life. She muffed it the first time, so we put her up, ran Freighter on the double and then ran her again. Still a mess. Maybe she was having an off day?
Freighter did a very nice double.
We took a bit of a break after the marks because it was such a warm morning and the dogs were pretty heated up.
We have been trying to stretch out Freighter’s blinds. Our trainer would like him at 200 yards. He has been doing blinds on flat land in our local parks at close to 200 yards, but where it was set in this field, it ended up at 153 yards.
Freighter ran a very nice blind. I have video of it which I will get up later this week. He is still a bit squirrely when he gets out at a distance. More on that when I post the video. He actually ran this blind twice and did a really nice job the second time. He was much more confident.
Thunder did a beautiful job on this. His land blinds have always been better than his water blinds. 🙂
Then there was Storm. She ran this twice and was a hot mess both times. I’m not sure what her issue was. As I said, maybe an off training day. She is entered in a test next month. Hope she gets it together.
Before we knew it we had been out there 3 hours. I was out in the field throwing marks and setting blinds, which gave me a good spot to take pictures. It was getting pretty warm for dogs who still have winter coats, so once we finished the blind, we packed up and headed home.
Congrats Thunder! I wish we had such an area here too :o)
Well nice you have sunny weather now and well done to Thunder. Sounds like Storm was indeed having an off day. We all have them. Have a marvellous Monday.
Best wishes Molly
Hi Y’all!
Maybe Storm is suffering spring allergies like me and my Humans.
Talk about HOT! and fur coats! It’s been in the 90’s here lately! It’s startin’ to look a lot like summer!
Y’all come by now,
Hawk aka BrownDog
Maybe Storms was thrown off by the nice warm weather!
I do wonder what throws them off. I guess they can have off days just like us~
It was a very nice warm Saturday here as well. I agree, after that winter, I will not complain about warmth and sunshine! 🙂
Wow! Everyone had a good workout during this training day! Too bad that Storm was having an off day.
Oz
Every dog can have an off day, just keep it positive and try again another day.
Your dogs look SO HAPPY! I love their focus!
Looks like a really nice day, we had rain Sat but did get out Sunday for a bit. Can’t blame Storms hot messes on being in heat anymore can you. Great pictures.
I love seeing gorgeous, active dogs in motion.
Too warm? I’ll take it! Moses is about done his spring shedding and Alma is in the middle of hers, so I’m hoping that means we’ll get similarly nice temperatures for the foreseeable future.
But it looks like it was a fun, successful day! Storm may have been off, but it sounds like Thunder was showing off!
We got snow overnight. Broke the annual snow record from 1880-81. So much for that…
lol! April [snow] snowers! We’ve got that in our forecast, too.
I’m sure Storm was just having an off day…maybe because it was so much warmer all of the sudden? It sounds like it was a good day for the other two dogs at least, and a nice one to be out there. We had one very warm day, then back to snow and barely above freezing!
Glad to see you had a warm and sunny day. What a nice place that looks to be to take the dogs for some training. Amazing pictures! Hugs and nose kisses
Glad to see you finally got some decent weather to be outside, but sorry Storm couldn’t get it together. Oh well, don’t we all have some “off” days?
Too bad Storm had such an off day. Our guys do that occasionally and seem to come back even better the next time out, maybe it was because you were in a different area for training?