Our weekend tests turned out to be a bust.

Storm broke again so she did not get to pick up any birds.  She got a bad break for her test.

The first series of the master test was a land triple which included a shot flyer.  It also had a double blind and an honor.  The field for this series had very high cover.  They set the flyer station in a spot where a lot of the birds were falling behind a big bush.  It just depended on where the gunners shot the bird.

The judges said before the test started that if the bird fell behind the bush they would call a “no bird” which means the dog had to get back in line and start over.  The problem was that they were having trouble deciding on the “no birds” because it kind of depended on where they were standing/sitting in relation to the bush.  At least that is what happened to Storm.

The dog before her did not pick up any birds so Storm had to wait until they found the birds in the thick grass and re-set the test.  She was pretty calm while she waited and it was a fairly long wait.  She was steady for the first bird.  She crept out front a bit for the second bird but put herself back at heel position.  The third bird went off and there was a delay before the judges called a “no bird”.  Then when they called it the judge said, “I’m gonna have to call a no bird”.  Too much talking for Storm, she went about the word “have”.

Normally the judge would only say “no bird” because it is hard to make a dog sit there.  But for whatever reason the judge used more words and Storm broke.  The judge apologized for the delay but since she broke she would not get a re-run.  True, she should have sat there, but it was a tough situation for a dog like Storm.

Several people came up to us to say she got a raw deal.  Maybe, but technically until they said the words “no bird” she was required to sit there.  Oh well.  I don’t have any pictures of Storm because the cover was extremely high in that field and even if she ran, it would have been pictures of grass.

Off to Seniors we went with Freighter.  Freighter was the last dog to run.  It was a double with a diversion shot, an honor, and a blind.  They were using all dead birds for this stake because there was a parking lot nearby and they could not shoot toward it.

I knew we were in trouble as soon as hubby took the lead off Freighter.  When the lead came off, he was free and he wasn’t going to listen.  In training his obedience has been very reliable.  Not so at the test.

The memory bird was falling in some cut grass just in front of a pond.  The go bird was very close to the line in tall cover.  Freighter broke again on the memory or first bird.  In Seniors (unlike Master) you can have a controlled break.  So he was called back and re-heeled.

He retrieved the go bird and when he was sent to the memory bird, he kind of got in the woods that ran down the middle of the field.  He got out of the woods and picked up the memory bird.

The blind was set in an adjoining field which was a short walk .  I did not follow because I wasn’t sure how much room there was to stand and watch.  Hubby said that Freighter did a nice job on the blind and only needed two whistles.

The last thing for the land series was the honor.  The honor dog had to sit right behind the running dog.  That is a tough position for a fired up dog.  It took hubby forever to get Freighter to sit for the honor.  It was like he tuned him out.  Freighter was an excited mess.

Once he sat down, he remained seated for the entire honor which was a big improvement from the last time he had to honor at a test.  Last time he kept spinning around and barking and he broke right at the end.  This time he finished the honor.  An improvement…tiny but we will take it.

Freighter was called back to water.  His line manners were so atrocious that if they had dropped him, I would have been OK with it.

The water series was a really nice series.  A walk-up, two water marks (the birds falling in the water and not on land which is not always the case in Seniors), and a water blind.

Normally Freighter is good on walk-ups because you are allowed to blow a sit whistle when the bird is in the air.  He was not good at this test.  Again, he broke on the first bird despite the sit whistle.

We are sort of at a loss what to do with Freighter.  He can do the work.  In fact, despite his unsteadiness, most judges comment that he is a very nice dog.  But if he isn’t steady there is no sense entering him in any more tests.

He has been steady in training, even with dead birds.  We have tried to devise ways to trip him up and haven’t been able to get him to break at training.  His heeling in training has been good too.  This test was a very fair set-up.  The water marks were not different from what we run when we train.  One difference though is the gunfire.  We can not train with gunfire and maybe that is the issue.   Gun = Go to Freighter.  But who knows?  Unfortunately our trainer is not available at the moment and Freighter won’t be running any more tests until we can get his breaking under control so the whole thing is frustrating and disappointing.