Our second qual of the season

[Anna Scott]

M ran her second qual for the season yesterday. I knew this one would be a tougher test than last weekends and it was. The triple had two birds to the right and then a wide swing to the memory bird. The two on the right were thrown as a hip pocket and the long one was thrown up hill landing on the slope (thrower had a great arm). All the marks were up hill. M did a good job on the go bird, hooked the gun on the middle bird(she was not the only one to do this as they were tight marks) and then a real nice job on the memory bird. A lot of the dogs were getting out to it but then falling down the hill into the gunner station. When they first set the test up the judges planned to retire that mark but after seeing the problems had by two test dogs decided to leave the gunner visible. This mark was almost 300yd.
The land blind was next and it consisted of a mark thrown at about 100yds on the same line as the memory bird and then a 200 yd blind run between the marks. The dogs were getting suction from both sides of the line to the blind. M's initial line was off to the right because of the influence from the right hand marks. Again this seemed to be the path of most of the dogs . She needed an angle over and then the rest of the blind took about 4 whistles to keep her on line. I was pleased with the way she took her casts.
Now for our downfall. The dreaded water blind. I thought we might be in trouble when the handlers started coming to the line with their binoculars. It was a 300 yd channel blind back into shadow. I don't think M has ever swam that far. She took a good initial line and carried it for a good distance and then started drifting left towards some reeds. The channel narrowed here and the dogs were fading either to the left or right. I got her through this area with a couple of whistles and back to where the channel widened again. At this point the dogs were sucked to the right following the curve of the bank and spotting the canoe. M didn't have trouble here but I lost her in the shadows. The blind was planted at the base of 3 trees between the 2 outside trees. The dogs had to swim passed the outside tree and then hook around between the two picking up the bird as they came through. This is where I lost her. I now have to practice keeping my eyes on the dog, my whistles in my mouth, focusing binoculars with one hand and handling with the other. No mean feat. I was just pleased that she handled as well as she did and proved that she can go the distance. A long time pro that was there told me that she was working really well with me and our time will come.
The water marks were no gimme either, a tight triple.
Later in the evening I was talking to one of the judges ad he said her work was good but I needed to slow her down on the line even more. He also said that 5yrs ago they would have never expected qual dogs to do the work that this test presented. It was a big test with difficult concepts.
Our next one is in 3 weeks.

[TuMicks]

Way to go Anna and M.

I guess the main reason I do HT's is 'cause they have to whittle the field of really good dogs down to 4 (and JAM's.) Still, at the end of the day, whether it's FT or HT, you want to see improvement. Are we doing better today than we were a week or month ago.

300 yards. Crikey!