Wonderful day in the field today. A long day, for sure, but my what a wonderful day. Trickett blew me away. We had worked with Joe Cheryl DeMarkis back in November to start to steady him but after a few hups (sits) he got it in his head that the game had changed from hunt for birds to run by and sit, run by and sit. So we decided to enter him in the December hunt tests to try and open him back up to hunting and stop the sitting on every pass. And it did. So today he had five birds to work. He charged through the field, hunting like a hunting dog, and when his bird flushed he sat! I did not hit the hup whistle, he sat of his own choosing. And sat there until I called him name to retrieve. I was stunned, How did he know that was exactly what I wanted. So bird two, huntem up, strong flush, sit, call his name, and off for a nice retrieve. The rock star did it on all five of his birds! Even a flyaway (at which point I actually did use the hup whistle when he was already sitting to reinforce the good boy sit. And then said leave it and he came back to me, On his final bird he flushed and sat and the bird went a long, long way. I thought it was another flyaway but then it tumbled into the tree after being hit and dropped to the ground. I was a distance from Trickett and he just sat there waiting to be released. And when I did he tore after it. I went behind him because it was a very long retrieve way into the woods, Guess I could have stayed put. He went into the woods, found the bird, it took off running Trickett in hot pursuit, caught it and ran full tilt back to me. At one point I heard Kathy Pierce say, thats disgusting. We are working hard to teach our dogs to sit and Trickett jut figures it out that sitting before the bird was not what I wanted, maybe sitting after. I was happy so I guess he decided he figured out the game. Kathy said he was channeling graham out there. Could be! And Maru had a clip bird to find and Havoc had a dead to find. Both boys are moving along the learning curve. Thanks the Cathy Vinzant for picking up the birds, the gunners (Al and Roger) for hitting the birds, Kathy Pierce, Michelle Gossett, Mary Thoroman and Cathy Pullian for helping where needed today and having dogs ready to run so we could get through all we did today. It was definitely a team effort. We had some great land and water work today and we did a lot of dogs who all got more than one turn in the field. I could not have asked for a better group of people or a better day. Off to hug Trickett as I am still grinning from ear to ear.
Posted on: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 00:07:01 +0000
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