Seventh Series Land Quad

 Our first test dog, “Hobbes”, ran on a double retired land quad at 7:45 a.m. with a Northwest wind blowing towards the handler.  This dog had some difficulty with the marks, so the Judges moved two of the gunners to different positions.  When “Tess”, our second test dog, also had problems, the test was scrapped at 8:30 a.m.
 To give them credit, the Ottawa crew managed to break down that test, move everything elsewhere on the property, and set up a replacement test in an hour and ten minutes!!  The gallery, meanwhile, chatted over breakfast at the old chuck wagon.  By the way, breakfast for all for Thursday, Friday and Saturday was paid for by Purina!

 The new test ran in the opposite direction, across the path of the previous land blind/”poison” bird.  This one began, with “Hobbes” again, as a double-retired quad, with both back guns retired.  After “Hobbes” had difficulty, the Judges decided to go with only a single retired, which is the test that “Tess” ran as second test dog.  The wind swirled everywhere out there!
 The first dog to run what the gallery called, “Death Valley”, was Number 12, FTCH AFTCH Justin Time Zoe’s Nine One One”, handled by owner Barb Younglove, who began this series at 10:00 a.m.  “Tess” honoured for Barb’s dog.

 This was a very tight quad run from a rise down through a valley of heavy cover and up a huge long hill.  The order was long retired, right gun, left gun and short “go-bird.”  The long retired, out 391 yards, was a drake Mallard thrown left-to-right, after which the gunners retired behind a tree. The right hand gun, at 250 yards, was a cock pheasant thrown right-to-left.  The shorter left-hand bird, at 242 yards, was a hen pheasant, thrown left-to-right and, finally, the short right-hand “go-bird” at only 94 yards, was a hen Mallard thrown left-to-right up a very steep hill.

 There were very few problems with the “go-bird” for our 22 dogs.
The line to the left-hand gun was about 10 yards down a steep hill, then through extreme cover, which meant that most dogs deviated from the proper line to that mark.  One dog punched through nearly impassable cover more left of the true line and, unfortunately, got lost in there and returned to the handler.  A few dogs over-ran that mark then hunted.  Some blew past it with the intent of going for the long gun, whereupon they either returned to the shorter gun or were handled. Some covered so much territory on that hunt that they ended up in the area of the right-hand gun.
The right-hand gun was thrown into fairly deep cover.  When the dogs punched through the cover en route to this mark, they completely lost sight of all gunnersso when they emerged from the cover and spotted the left-hand gun, some of them changed their hunt.

The long, retired gun was definitely the “money” bird.  A lot of dogs, having successfully punched the cover and made it past the left-hand gun, then kicked left and drove up the hill.  There was an infinite variety of routes to this bird!  Suffice it to say that only two dogs got through this test without a handle.  Heard from the gallery, “I feel like I’m going in front of the firing squad!”
There were four pick-up’s and 9 dogs were dropped, leaving 13 to go to the water blind.

 

Eighth Series Water Blind

The water blind began at 4:15 p.m. with the first test dog, “Hobbes”.  The second test dog was Pete Plourde’s “Miss T.” The dogs ran in bright sunshine with a fairly steady northwest crosswind.
This 229-yard water blind began through a narrow corridor of land with a slight slope up to the right and an opposite slope to the left, after which there was a short, but fairly steep, drop to the water.  Not visible in the photo (or from the mat) was a boat and decoys, to the right of the water entry.  The blind began with the handler signalling for a dry shot, emanating from the gunners in the boat.  This suction did pull a lot of the dogs off a nice straight initial line.  The point, about halfway to the blind, was scented, so some handlers had cast refusals until they managed to kick them off the point.  If they weren’t successful at this, the dogs went left and disappeared.  The latter half of the swim did not present too many problems, unless the handlers had difficulty seeing the dogs, in which case there were a few successful (or not!) “Hail, Mary” casts.

The blind took 10 minutes per dog and the eighth series ended at 6:50 p.m.  Tomorrow will be the first of two sets of water marks.  Dogs # 19 and 34 were dropped, so we will continue with 11 dogs, beginning with Number 44..

I must mention, while you’re still all interested in reading this, that this Ottawa club has put on a spectacular trial!  I don’t think they have made a single error, either of omission or commission, all week, and - if they did - none of us knew any better!  Great work! Great organization! Great judgment! And great humour!

Jane and Dave Thompson also threw for us this week, as did most of the guy handlers, and even some of the chicks!  And I think you can count the “No-Birds” for the whole week on one hand!  But I must also make special mention of a very popular pair – Denise & Eloi Levasseur!  Denise worked hard and was available to help at every turn, but Eloi was a star!  When he picks up a bird with those paws of his, the guys tell me, you can’t see a single feather! He throws like a monster, and today he planted the water blind, wearing only his drawers, wet to the ying-yang, and the guy still BBQ’s steaks for the workers at night!
On we go to the Ninth and Tenth water marks tomorrow!  Hope you all make it through!