I think the good Lord is hearing prayers because we have gotten some rain. Very weird to get ANY moisture in July, so even though it has not been much, we are hoping it is a harbinger for a true "Donner Party" winter in the Sierras this year. So that heretofore flat featureless field that was mowed in strips is still flat but less "strip-ish". All the grass is pretty high.

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For the young dogs this was done with #3 being a single then the two right hand birds as a double. Boy, Rocket Dog looked really good on all of them. She's starting to understand that sometimes in life there actually is more than one bird at a time. Since the beginning of spring she has completely quit putting her nose down and hunting into the fall. Now she trusts her eyes, going to where her eyes tell her she saw the bird go down. After all... isn't that quicker? And RD is ALL about QUICKER.

The little bush indicated on the far side of the water was critical. If a dog squared the pond they were going to emerge and see the long bird and blow past the short one. If they cheated the water and took the right hand corner, they would emerge and go behind the gun. (Which is what Bridget did.)

The blind was a very tough one for the young dogs since they had to go under the arc of that shorter, attractive mark. Rocket Dog struggled with this, and rightfully so. She squared the pond (like a good, young water-forced dog), and the pro stopped her and gave her a right-hand back. RD went toward the far right shore (down the "channel" as it were.) She was stopped and given a left-hand back. So she spun and went toward the left hand side of the pond (i.e., down the "opposite channel" so to speak) and this went on for a while. Finally she took a back, got out, knew she wasn't supposed to go to the old fall and flared to the left of the true line (AGAIN... a good sign indicating a youngster who is thinking and wanting to do the right thing) but eventually she got past the mark under the arc and ran to the blind.

Our set ups this spring have tended to be pretty simple mainly because of maybe 18 dogs in our group, only two are true Master dogs (if you count Bridget.)

But the take home message is that both my girls are marking even without sage-brush clumps to "help" them out.