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| Abbey, day one, on a successful water retrieve |
The Hunt Test in Southern MO, for the most part, was a great success. The guns were excellent. The bird planter did a great job. I don't remember any traps. The cover was enough to hold the birds yet you could see the dogs do their job. The weather was superb. Jackets in the morning short sleeves in the afternoon. The only thing that lacked was scenting.
You could not ask for a nicer group of people to hang out and enjoy the event with. Don't know if I should mention it here, but the grilled steaks for our Saturday night dinner. It was the perfect finale for the perfect event. All the dogs from our St. Louis regional group, that entered the Hunt Test that day, received ribbons. Day two however, went a little bit differently.
I don't believe any other dog gave us as much drama that second day as John Forbes' Abbey. She seemed to be getting better and more confident with each event. She handled difficult situations in the field well. Made a retrieve of 100 yards or more, needing to be handled only once. I believe it was the longest retrieve of the HT. She quartered from gun to gun with no whistle. I was in total awe of this pup. She had come so far.
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| Abbey retrieves chucker in land series |
I was wishing John could be out here to see this. He was able to get to the event with
his wife Merne and two daughters. But not having recovered his strength from his recent illness, he could only watch from his vehicle.
After Abbey's field performance, that left me in awe, we were told "See you at the water". Now, the only thing left, was to swim across a green, moss covered pond and retrieve a chucker. It wasn't as easy for an inexperienced pup as you might think. There were leaves pushed up by the moss which gave bigger visual images than the chucker.
As Abbey crossed the pond she noticed the other objects and turned to check them out. Once her focus was off the chucker she could not find it again. The moss quickly filled in the hole left by the chucker hitting the water. Making it more difficult to find. She checked out the leaves and other objects floating in her search for the chucker. She then swam to the other side of the pond and ran the bank. But there was no chucker to be found. After much coaxing I was able to get her to swim back to me. I tried to put myself in line with the chucker so that she would swim by it. But distracted by other objects in the pond, she veered off coarse, missing the downed bird.
Once back to me I had a hard time convincing her to reenter the water. She started several times and then backed out of the water and returned to my side. I gave her every command I thought John might have used for retrieving objects and motioned with my hand the direction of the bird. I could tell she was listening. So after I had exhausted all commands that I could think of, I stopped speaking to give her time to figure it out. And being the smart and thinking dog that she is, pondered it for a few seconds, turned around, walked calmly into the water, and purposely swam back out. This time she was not distracted by the leaves. She finally saw the chucker off to the side. She swam over and picked up the bird. I wanted to start cheering at that point but held back instead. She continued on her path, choosing not to return the way she came. Not a big deal, I thought at the time. She then got on shore and looked back at me with the chucker firmly in her mouth . I called her to me. She refused to come. I called her again and again but it was becoming obvious that the naughty pup, that resides in most dogs, had come out to play. There were at least three times that she seemed to have a change of heart and entered the water to return, but then she would back out again. With the chucker held firmly in her mouth she would just stare at me from across the water. Head lowered, feet wide apart as if bracing against some unseen force. Defiance was written all over that sweet Springer face. Finally the judges had seen enough and politely told me,"Thank you". The men that were helping with the event, offered to assist by corralling the naughty pup. Upon seeing the nice men coming, Abbey promptly dropped the chucker and bolted for the road where her family was there to catch her.
After accomplishing so much in the field and finally finding the bird on the pond, then to have it end in that fashion was a terrible disappointment. I got the impression that John, disappointed too, was ready to pack it up and go home. Neither of us had the confidence that Brodie, Johns other pup, could find the chucker with all the moss on the pond. Brodie lacked the experience that Abbey has had over her short life time. But Brodie surprised us both. The moss never fazed him. He never looked to the left or to the right. He swam straight out to the spot found the chucker and brought it back in. Broddie did himself proud getting two ribbons for the weekend.
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| Brodie in the land series |
Glen's Roy and my Acey both got 2 junior passes as well.
They have three under their belt now, needing one more for their Junior title.
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| Roy, swims to retrieve the chucker |
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| Acey, marking the fall at the water. |
Sunny got her forth Master Pass. She is 4 out of four needing 6 total.
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Sunny, Master level, completing the blind retrieve
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A young man from Iowa, with a rustic hat, holding a cute English Cocker, was an image that left a smile on many peoples' faces.
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| An American Cocker, mindful of the camera, captures her bird |
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| and swims away...back to her handler :-) |
A great weekend with many wonderful memories. Thanks to Shannon Pettit who showed up just to watch the event and take these wonderful pictures for us to remember it by. Thank you again Shannon.
