Sunday, March 23, 1997 was the day my black lab Sam became SHENANDOAH AT MIDNIGHT SR JH.

It all happened at the Labrador Retriever Club Hunt Test at the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal in Delaware. It was probably a typical March day in Delaware, the morning was sunny and mild but quickly turned into a chilly overcast day with 30 - 40 mph winds. I was really worried about the weekend. This was our fourth leg in his junior series, and he would go four for four and title if he did well.

Sam had torn off a toe pad off on something in a local resivoir ten days earlier, and even though it was healing nicely, he would sometimes still pick it up if he was not concentrating on something, and we had not done any training since the accident. To make matters worse they had pheasants at the test for the land birds. Sam had hunted exclusively on pheasants for the first two years of his life. There was a local hunting preserve that specialized in pheasants and the big dog learned to love the big colorful birds that would make a futile attempt to run from him before flushing in a marvelous display of brown red and green feathers. It was only after going quail hunting that I realized my mistake of only hunting such a bold bird. Sam would run right past the camouflaged meek quail. It took many, many birds to convince him quail were a worthy game bird also.

This particular Delaware day the pheasants were blowing wildly in the wind before they were shot or launched by the club's Strong Arm. There were many scent pockets all over the field, since the birds were coming down all over. Sam made his first mark well; the thrower was about 55 yards away throwing at an angle away from us over the crest of a hill on the far side of some medium height cover. Sammy ran to the mark and scooped it up like clockwork.

Mark number two was a walkup with the bird shot about 80 yards away through moderate grassy cover. Our flyer was shot but very alive and that spelled certain recovery from my big rambunctious retriever. The return to hand went well also even though a "professional trainer's" dog that was right before us had not been aired properly and had left us a pile of doggie surprise right in front of where I was to receive the bird.

We moved on to the water marks after the callbacks and it looked like an easy test. We were at the line about 20 yards up on the bank, the first bird was a flyer about 40 yards in front of us just to the right of a finger of land. Bird two was about 50 yards away, it was to be launched from a strong arm and land on the back side of a point as a "hunter" was walking up to the water. There was some suction since the hunter continued to walk halfway to the mark, but it did not look like a big deal. Mother nature was getting really ticked off, the wind kept growing in intensity, and the shot flyer was abandoned in lieu of a dead bird since there was just no way to make sure that the bird landed in the drink.

Sam and I were almost the last dog to run and we watched dog after dog get sucked up onto the finger of land and lose the mark. Sam did the same but after a few minutes of hunting I handled him to the mark. When he brought back the duck Sam looked a little sheepish about missing his mark, but I gave him a heart felt "atta boy" and he perked up and nailed his second water mark. Now it was my turn to look a little sheepish and tell the judge the time honored "gee he never does that..." but they assured me that his 3 marks were by the book and he handled just fine so we had nothing to worry about.

After the awards were handed out I made the long drive home to Virginia with an empty dog crate in back of the truck and a wet, tired, but happy Labrador retriever sleeping on the seat next to me.