A very light south breeze blew occasionally throughout the morning, picking up very slightly towards noon as some intermittent clouds appeared, giving a bit of welcome shade to the last dozen or so handlers.
Our test dogs ran the water blind at 7:15 a.m. and showed the hazards of the blind very well.
Dog #20, Fortway’s Darling Clementine, handled by owner, Marlene Benn, led the pack again, starting at 7:30 a.m. The test took approximately 10 minutes per dog to complete.
It was a 195-yard shoreline blind in a wonderful stick pond. Initially, the sun was shining from the right side of the handler. Black dogs, particularly the early dogs, were somewhat difficult to see on the latter half of the blind, so most handlers chose to use binoculars, except Billy Cumming, who threw his down in disgust! (I do exaggerate sometimes, you know). The mat was placed on the top of a small rise, which gave the handlers an excellent view of the dogs at all times, unless they were clearly off-line. Very few dogs actually went out of sight and most of those did so only momentarily. The initial land portion of the blind sloped gently downhill from left to right and the blind had about a 25-yard downhill entry to the pond. A slight mound, about 15 feet in front of the mat, was directly on the line to the blind.
Handlers were allowed to move up a few feet to a Juniper bush on the left hand side once the dog had cleared the mound. Once the dogs were in the water and nicely on-line, they generally did well, until they approached a critical point about 145 yards out, where handlers clearly had to challenge the line by threading the needle between a partially protruding dead tree and a tree stump. Then, after crossing a couple of half-sunken logs, most dogs indicted their intent to head either left to shore or right to some dead trees at the far shoreline. The duck was lying on a float board just in front of a row of reeds at the far shoreline, but the dogs had to get over two more submerged logs to reach the bird.
The gallery sat in a lovely cool spot on a hillside situated behind and to the right of the handlers, but that location didn’t give them a very accurate sense of the true line to the blind.
The last dozen or so dogs experienced a very slight increase in the breeze and some intermittent cloud cover. So far the handlers and dogs have sweltered through three very hot days.
The last dog, Number 19, completed the blind at 1:30 p.m. There were no “pick-ups” and the majority of dogs had no serious trouble with this blind, and some, of course, did excellent work.
It was obvious that the Ottawa Club members had put in a Herculean effort to clear both this and Tuesday’s sites and they had built a veritable highway of logs and nailed down boards to help the handlers (mostly the old birds like me) to navigate some pretty treacherous rocks, little hills, and valleys of wet goo that had to be traversed to get to the line and the gallery! Credit for these many hours of work goes to the landowner himself, Steve Rymel, and to Ken Crosby, Bill Kennedy, Trevor Dickens, Bill Howe and Bobby Moulton.
Three dogs were dropped from this water blind. They were Numbers 16, 17 and 32.
Test 4 - Land Blind
At 3:30 p.m., the same two test dogs ran the new set-up, a land blind with a “poison” bird. Neither test dog “passed” this test; both went a little out of control at the top of the hill (the first time they didn’t give us a stellar performance). However, the test dogs both appeared to have difficulty seeing the casts, most likely due to the presence of so many handlers under the canopy at the line. They were also receiving very little scent from the pheasant that had been planted for them. The judges originally asked for a third test dog (me), but changed their minds and went with the test, with a minor change! They replaced the cock pheasant on the blind with a hen Mallard. (Too bad I missed my big opportunity, because for sure my dog would have lined it!)
Our first dog, Number 28, FTCH AFTCH Kilowatt Skipper Dan, owned and handled by Ron Malton, ran at 3:50 p.m.
The mat was placed at the top of a huge hill; the dogs had to run down that hill, then up another enormous, panoramic hill to a hen Mallard planted in between two Juniper bushes, one directly in front of the other. Prior to being sent for this 243-yard blind, the dogs watched a “poison” bird (a cock pheasant) that was thrown from left to right towards the blind. The pheasant landed about 135 yards from the mat and was a reasonable distance from the line to the blind. No dogs picked it up en route to the blind, although one dog did switch birds on its way back from having run a successful blind. (The gallery actually assessed the blind at closer to 300-320 yards, because of the configuration of the hills.)
Several Juniper bushes were directly on line to the blind and I believe only two dogs actually jumped any of them. There was a steady west wind blowing all afternoon, with cloud cover beginning shortly after 4:00 p.m. The blind only took 1 to 1-1/2 minutes per dog. A lot of handlers had some really good success with this blind. In fairness, the later dogs did seem to wind the bird from a greater distance than had the early dogs, because of the increase in the strength of the wind. The test finished around 6:30 p.m. and everyone headed for a shower and the Workers’ Party, which was scheduled to begin at 7:00 p.m.
Five dogs were dropped from this series. They were Numbers 25, 29, 35, 36 and 45. I believe tomorrow, our remaining 35 dogs will do land marks but haven’t yet had the official word on that and don’t know which number will begin the test.
Gallery 3
Handlers waiting for callbacks
