Yesterday I posted pictures from Freighter’s Senior Hunter Title run.  Today I have pictures from the land portion of the test he ran the next day.

Freighter earned his title the previous day so this test was mainly to reinforce some things and to help get Freighter ready for Master tests.

Freighter tends to get over excited to run and has had a problem leaving to retrieve before being sent.  The plan was to run Freighter in the test, but if he got too rambunctious heading to the line or left before being sent to retrieve, then hubby would pick him up and no ducks for him.

Master tests are run over the course of two days so Freighter needs to learn to keep his wits about him on day 2 after picking up multiple ducks.

All things considered Freighter did a nice job.  On Sunday the weather was still hot.  Maybe not as humid as it was on Saturday, but still very warm.

The land series was a dead bird walk-up, and a shot flyer which fell in cover down a hill and a land blind.  A walk-up is where the dog walks at heel next to the handler and at some point the mark goes off as a surprise.  The handler can either blow a whistle or say “sit” to stop the dog.  Hubby made one change this year with Freighter.  Rather than blowing his whistle to stop Freighter on the walk-up, he says “sit” and that has worked much better to keep him steady.

Freighter needed a bit of a hunt to find the shot flyer, but he got it.  His memory bird, (the first bird he saw during the walk-up) fell in heavy cover.  It was supposed to fall in a cut area but it fell short in the high cover.  The judges told hubby rather than call a no-bird and start all over, he was to send Freighter and do what he needed to get him to that bird.  That meant to handle him if needed.

But Freighter did not need any help.  He can mark most falls.

So off he went:

I was sitting away from the line in the gallery and I did not hear the judge’s instructions to hubby.  I was also trying to take pictures of Freighter so I did not see where the bird fell.  When Freighter headed for that heavy cover I was thinking: “oh no”.  People sitting around me must not have seen where the bird fell either because they all said: “Where is he going?”

Sometimes you need to trust the dog because:

Freighter did a decent job on the land blind so it was off to water.  I will have those photos tomorrow.