2010 June Buckeye Retriever Club Hunt Test

This past weekend was the Buckeye Retriever Club's spring hunt test, at Hambden Nursery south of Cleveland. Gryff finished his JH there, earned his 1st SH leg there, and his 2nd MH leg, so I'm quite familiar with the grounds. The Ohio hunt test crowd is simply great. Great people, fine judges, excellent workers, and super grounds.

I'm bummed to say Gryff and I went out in the 2nd series of thes Master test, the 1st time we haven't gone on to the 3rd series (this was our 6th test). His morning land series was great - a walk-up triple with a double blind. He picked up his go bird on the right and the left bird with almost no hunt, and got the middle bird efficiently. He lined the left blind (which was between the left and middle marks, just outside where the left mark landed and only took 2-3 whistles on the 2nd one.

The 2nd series was deceptively simple - a water double with a diversion bird. The diversion bird was thrown when the dog was just reentering the water on the return from the 1st retrieve, AND it was thrown in-line with the memory bird. Gryff got the go bird and the diversion bird just fine, but instead of getting in and swimming past where the diversion bird had splashed, he chose to run down the bank on the left and then all around the pond to the bird. And then he didn't get wet on the return. The judges said if I'd handled him into the water (successfully, of course), it would have been okay. The pond was small enough that it simply didn't occur to me to handle. I kept thinking he'd get in, and then he was beyond where that was possible. One other dog did essentially the same thing and he was also dropped. I think the failure was a combination of zero work on in-lines since last summer and his cheaty nature that hasn't been addressed lately. He did some pretty significant cheating during the Steady Singles at the National as well as in training during the past week. Bad me for not addressing it better during training.

I do know what I'll be working on in the coming months with Gryff. WATER! Lots and lots of water. Since Ty's water is weaker, this will be good for her, too.

Ty had super land marks in the Senior test on Sunday. It was a walk-up double, with the memory bird thrown from the right hedgerow, angled back, and the go bird thrown from behind a bush, landing just to the left of a big pine tree. She walked out with nice focus out into the field, and sat promptly on my whistle. She turned well to mark the 2nd bird, and dashed off right to the bird on my cue. She lined up and delivered it well, and got the memory bird with only a short hunt. The blind was about 180 degrees from the left bird, toward the corner of the field. We had to send directly into the corner of high cover, with tempting mowed paths to both left and right. There was another mowed path in the middle. Her blind was decent, though I have some homework ideas from the experience. She wasn't sitting at all crisply, and in fact, didn't sit a couple of times. She stopped and gave me her focus, but not completely. She was standing with her body facing down one of the paths, her head turned toward me. I waited a LONG time for her to sit, and to her credit, she didn't 'auto cast' and take off on her own. I finally gave a come-in whistle and another sit, and finally got a sit from her. On my next cast, she did go into the next strip of cover and made it back pretty close to the duck. We had some horsing around in the trees, but she finally came up with it.

Here's a short video showing the land marks as they were thrown for the first dog.


Both judges complimented me when we finished the land series. I haven't watched Senior much lately, so I've forgotten the leniency of expectations compared to Master .

Water was in the dumbbell shaped pond relatively near the entrance to Hambden. She took a great line to the go bird - I was really proud of her effort there. I wasn't sure how hard she'd work on it, but I needn't have worried. She drove out to the bird through some cover and over logs and plucked the bird out of the water promptly. She did a bunch of hunting into the woods on the memory bird, but she came up with it (it was on the shore in the little pocket on the north side).

Here's a short video showing the water double. I was a bit late in starting the camera, so you have to look fast as the memory bird lands just as the video starts.

The blind was a swim across the right end of the dumbbell, with a bit of an angle entry. The duck was 10-15 yds from shore, under the left side of a bush. The start was rocky. She got in and went along the right shore line some. She took a cast that I let her carry for a while even though it wasn't superbly on line because I didn't want to totally tear down her momentum. She finally took a brilliant over back to the center of the pond (she swam like she spotted something on the far shore that she headed for), and then a great straight back almost to the end of the pond. We had some horsing around at the end, but I was relatively pleased with the ending. Her training water blinds last week weren't super confidence inducing for me, so I was happy with the results.

In the end, we did indeed pass, so now Ty has 2 Senior legs. We won't run another test until late July (Ft. Detroit @ Omega), so we have lots of time to work on the problems this weekend showed me. That's what these tests are for: showing me where our strengths and weaknesses are.

FCRSA 2010 - Let the games begin!

Note: this is the first installment of what I plan to be a thorough write up of my week at the 2010 Flat-Coated Retriever National, held in Auburn and Albion, Indiana, a mere 2 hours from home. It is lengthy and detailed because I want to be able to look back and remember what happened.

This year, I missed day one of the FCRSA (Flat-Coated Retriever Society of America) National because my younger son graduated from high school the night before it started (yeah, Ryan!) and my husband and I both worked the 12:30-3:00 AM shift at the All Seniors All Night party.

Gryff was entered in 9 events over the course of 5 days, and Ty in 5. At least the dogs were in good shape. Me? Time would tell! First up was the hunt test on Saturday, June 5. Gryff was in the Master test (going for leg 3 of 5) and Ty in the Senior test (going for leg 1 of 4).

The 1st series of the Master test was a land-water triple with a blind between the two land marks. We were running from a hillside that was mowed in what is becoming a familiar and crazy fashion - with generous patches of cover left all over the place. The marks were thrown left (left to right, angled back), middle (right to left, angled back) and right (right to left, angled back into the pond). The test started with a walk-up, meaning the dog and handler are in motion when the first duck is launched. Gryff picked up the right and middle marks promptly, but had a bit of a hunt on the left one. He took the path most of the way to it, but then bounced a patch of cover and hunted to the right, as did several other dogs. The hill sloped down left to right, which I think was also an influence. He headed back to the left and his nose led him to the duck. The blind went fairly smoothly, with a nice initial line carrying him quite a ways before I needed to whistle sit him. When he was about 1/2 way to the blind, I realized I was holding my breath, which wasn't going to help when I needed to blow the whistle. After the blind, we moved to the honor box. (For the honor, the dog has to stay while the next dog's marks are thrown and that dog is sent.) Gryff was solid on his honor.

I watched a few more dogs run at Master, then headed to the Senior land test. It was a walk-up double, with the left bird thrown into/near a patch of cover, right to left, and the go bird on the right thrown right to left. Earlier in the week, I had worked walk-up drills with Ty, because she was having a bad time with them, and not seeing the mark fall. She had a very good long look at the walk-up memory bird, and when she returned from picking up the go bird, she refocused intently on the area of the memory bird. She had a bit of a hunt, but came up with it reasonably prompty. Interestingly, the lines to the marks in Senior were through cover patches (which many of the dogs bounced around), whereas the Master marks all had a pretty definitive path. The blind was almost 90 degrees to the left of the left mark, and Ty took a very decent initial line - something we've struggled with in the past. It was great to see her improvement. As I had in Master, I realized I was again holding my breath and had to huff and puff to be ready to blow my whistle. I was very happy as we left the line, and thought I heard one of the judges say that it was one of the better jobs they'd seen that day.

The right mark:

Close-up of the right mark:

The left mark:

The blind stake was somewhere in this picture :-):


I went back to Master to await the completion of the 1st Master series. The 2nd series finally got underway about 1 PM. Of the 32 starters, 27 were called back for the 2nd series. It was on a big pond with lots of tullies/reeds around the perimeter. It was a water double and a double blind, one on land and one across the water. The memory bird was a huge arc from the left side of the pond and the go bird was a huge arcing throw from the same side of the pond we ran from, far to our right. The water blind was under the arc of the go bird, and the land blind was to the right of the right gun station. I was the lucky 1st exhibitor to run. Gryff's go bird was fine. When I sent him for the memory bird, I rushed it a bit, and instead of heading straight for the water, he veered left into the tall cover and proceeded to hunt quite a bit on land. The shoreline tullies were several feet thick, creating a wall the dogs had to drive through. At some point, I started to handle. I honestly don't think he was responding very well to my casts, but suddenly, he got in the water and headed for the bird. I was smart and shut up :-). We did the land blind first and he even jumped over a patch of cover at some point. One of the judges said "That will earn you extra points!" I was pleased with his handling on the land blind. The water blind required us to drive the dog through the very wide and tall wall of tullies on the far shore. While we've been working on improving this skill in the past month, we hadn't worked through any that wide (I think they were at least 10 feet wide, if not more). I was prepared and stopped him before he disappeared into the tullies, but he didn't respond correctly to my next cast. I was trying to get him to drive straight back through, but he went into the tullies and started hunting. Because they were also tall, it was hard to see what he was doing. I wasn't surprised, since we've been battling this issue. I hung in with him. When he finally got to the duck, one of the judges said something about that being what he liked to see ... hanging in there with my dog and getting the job done. I wasn't feeling great about our chances of going on to the 3rd series, but I crossed my fingers and left to run Ty's Senior water.

When I arrived at the location for the Senior water, I walked down to watch some dogs run. Problem was, there was only me and one other handler left to run. Eek! I had heard a few people say it was a breaking test, which usually means the marks are short and exciting. One of the judges described the test, which looked pretty straight forward: a water double on a small pond. The memory bird was thrown from the right shore and the go bird from the dike we were running from. Once that was completed, we'd walk down the shore to the right for the water blind and then honor right there. I arrived at the line with Ty and the first bird was thrown. Drat, it landed in the heavy cover, which isn't where I was expecting it to land. The 2nd gunner started duck-calling, but Ty was intent on where the 1st one had landed and she wasn't turning to see the go bird. Then I heard another splash (I was watching my dog) across the pond... the bird boys, having thrown the 1st one poorly, decided to throw another out into the open water. Oops! Ty jumped in, I recalled her, the judge called a 'No bird'. We left the line and waited for a bit, and returned. This time, since Ty had seen two birds thrown from the right side, I lined her up to face where the go bird would land, which also let me block her some with my legs. The strategy served me well. This time, it all came off smoothly and she retrieved both birds promptly. We moved down the shore for the blind. It was the shortest water blind I've ever seen in a test (30 yds?). She looked out with confidence (no bugging this time either) and went right in when I sent her. She again took an excellent initial line. When she started veering away from the line near the end, I blew my whistle. I think she spotted the bird as she started to turn, so started to swim at the bird. I whistled again, and she stopped, but didn't look back at me but stared at the duck. I waited and waited and waited. She finally looked at me and then took my quick cast. Yeah! The honor was a bit scary - she was ready to go and moved forward just a bit, but a quick SIT command stopped her. I didn't know for sure until later, but I was pretty sure she'd passed and earned our 1st Senior pass (she did and we did).

Ty and Adele with their first Senior Hunter ribbon.



I went back to Master, and the water test dragged on and on. It didn't wrap up until about 6:30 PM. Blessedly, we were called back to run the 3rd series. I figured Gryff had to have top marks to pass. It was a land double with a diversion bird, and he did an excellent job on it. One of the judges said "Congratulations!" as I left the line. Our 3rd Master leg!

The awards were handed out at head quarters, and it was so sweet to drive back to the motel with two orange ribbons. Earning a Master pass with Gryff was my #1 goal for the week, so we were off to a super start to our Specialty.

Ohio Valley Retriever Club Master test

I went to Coshocton, Ohio this weekend for the Ohio Valley Retriever Club's Master test, judged by Clarence Klaus and Bob Meyer. I could have run a test in Michigan again this weekend, but I wanted to see how we would fare away from Omega Farms, where we trained all summer.

The 1st series was in a field with lots of interesting features: hills, cover strips and clumps, small bushes, large shrubs, and some trees. We had two land blinds to start. The right blind was to the left of the middle flier station, which was mostly hidden behind a very large and tall hedge of shrubs that hid both the flier and left gun stations, and about 2/3 of the way toward the left mark. The left blind was quite a bit to the left of the left mark.

As I expected, our first blind was a bit shaky. I expected it because he's often a bit independent when we first have to handle in a test. He left on a reasonable initial line, but between the cover strips and the hill that he wanted to square, he kept getting further to the right. His first whistle sit was more of a squat, accompanied by a "Huh?" look on his face. He eventually got a nose full of the blind since there was a light breeze from left to right, and I then got a fine response to my left over to the blind. The 2nd blind was better in the team work department, though he was showing a preference for fading right on that one, too.

The marks were thrown right, left, middle (flier). The right one was thrown coming in right to left, landing in front of a large/tall bush. The left and longest mark was thrown coming in right to left, landing to the left of the huge hedge and giving a little bounce as it landed. The middle flier was thrown straight left to right. Our flier landed nicely right in front of a bush, making marking it very easy for me :-).

Head swinging has been something of an issue with Gryffin this year as we've been running more multiples. I'm very happy to say that he stayed completely focused on the right mark until the duck call sounded for the left mark. However, as soon as that duck landed/bounced, he swung his eyes back to that exciting flier station in the middle. He left on my release to the flier with hard-charging enthusiasm, flew up the hill to the bush, screeched to a stop and returned with it.

Partly because he didn't give a strong indication of preference on his return, I opted to pick up the longer left mark next, perhaps because I knew he'd gotten such a long look at the right mark. I can't quite say why I made the decision - it was one of those quick choices you make in the heat of a test. A lot of handlers had their dogs do the right mark next, followed by the left mark, and several dogs ended up getting sucked to the right blind and needing to be handled to the left mark. In any case, he rocketed away on an excellent line to the left mark, but passed the bird just a bit up wind, went past, and disappeared behind the hedge. I was concerned that he'd circle around behind the hedge and reappear at the flier station at the other end of the hedge, so kept scanning for him over that way. Fortunately, he reappeared, and after a bit more of a hunt, found the bird. His pick up was veeeeery slow - was he out there trying to give mouth to mouth??? - but he finally picked it up and delivered it. His long hunt on that showed in his heaving breathing as he delivered the bird. I gave him an extra couple of moments to catch his breath, cued him up ("Where's your mark? That's right. Good.") and sent him off. That long look paid off, and he had only the briefest of hunts before finding it. He picked that bird up much faster and delivered.

One of the judges commented that I was the first handler to handle the gun like I was out hunting. I responded that, to me, that is a high compliment, since I don't hunt, and I'm just faking it in what I hope is a safe enough manner when handling the gun :-).

The first series didn't finish until 4 pm. The 2nd series was set up in the only spot at Woodbury that I've trained at. It was a simple land/water double. We had to sit on a cooler in front of a bush. There was some fairly tall cover 6 feet in front of the line which kind of blocked Gryff's view of the land bird's fall, though he leaned in towards me to see the fall through the flattened path through the cover. It was thrown in left to right from behind a large bush, landing in some cover on a spit of land with some shallow water behind it and a big rock and trees on the right end of it. The right mark was thrown right to left off the dike that edges the pond, landing with a splash. The entry was a bit vague, and several dogs chose to run to the right of the true line to the bird closer to the shore, some even on the shore. Gryff did fade a bit that way, but not too badly. When I lined him up for the memory bird, he locked in, and when released, arrowed straight to it. Here's a picture of the memory bird in the 2nd series:


There were still just over half the dogs left (34 of 45 starters) to run the 2nd series Sunday morning, which meant we had a leisurely morning. I got mostly packed up, then went across the street to the field and set up a split casting drill. The field that appeared relatively flat in the dark actually had a nice slope to it, which meant a chance to practice angling up a hill, which neither of my dogs is particularly strong at (dogs like to square a hill, as Gryffin had done on his first blind on Saturday). I got some nice work from bored Ty, then ran Gryff on the drill. As often happens when we do drills, he started out a bit on the slow and tentative side, and then got stronger and ran harder and harder. We ended on a beautiful straight line angling across the hill to the right pile of bumpers. Good boy!

I was hoping that the concentration on water work we'd done since our last test would pay off in the 3rd series, which I knew would have to contain at least a water double, a walk-up, and an honor. Considering a week ago I wasn't sure Gryff would be recovered enough from his mystery illness to even start the test (he was ill when I got back from a judging trip to Wisconsin Labor Day weekend), I was very happy to be even getting to attempt the 3rd series.

Since I was conveniently driving by, I stopped to take a look at the set up for the Senior land series, because Ty and I are entered in our first Senior test next weekend. While what gets set up is dependent on the land or water available and what the judges decide, it's always educational to take a look. The grounds are outstanding in what they offer for testing (not to mention training). I'd love to go and spend a week camping and training there!

The 2nd Master series had finished and all but one dog advanced to the 3rd series, including us. I found where the water was going to be, and heard mutterings about what the judges were setting up, including possibly a pair of in-line marks on the left side of the pond. Having trained on in-lines on land the previous Thursday, I felt at least somewhat prepared. Turns out the mutterings were wrong :-). The swampy pond was below the road level by 20-30 feet, so there was quite a steep hill to navigate getting to the last holding blind. The test consisted of a short walk-up, with the marks thrown left, middle, right. There was plenty of separation between the middle and right mark. Here's some fuzzy pictures taken on my cell phone camera (better than nothing!):

This smaller pool is just to the left of the chopped-off cattail path visible in the next picture.

The 2nd mark fell in open water beyond the last strip of cover that was beyond the cat tail path.

The double trees on the left in this picture are on the right in the blind picture:

The test was taking 8-10 minutes per dog, so by the time the series got under way, it was after 11 AM. As expected, we got to the line shortly after noon. We did the walk up, the birds went off (rather more rapidly than in the 1st two series), and after hearing our number from one of the judges, launched Gryff for the right mark. His duck landed just in the front of a cat tail clump, and he went swimming past it without apparent recognition. He got to the next clump, then circled back behind, clambered through and got his duck. He picked up the left bird without any particular problem, and when I lined him for the middle bird, he looked out well, and charged into the cat tail path. He did a brief check when he got to the grassy strip before the open water, but then off he went for the 3rd bird. It was probably his best water triple with ducks he's ever done! Nice time to turn it up a notch, Gryff-man!

There was a dry shot to indicate the blind shot from the same station as the go-bird, and it really got Gryff up and ready. There was a decent little channel just to the left of the line to the blind to aim him at. I got Gryffin to the back of the cover fairly quickly, but had several stops and casts to get him through it and not going into the channel to the right. We also had some horsing around on the shore on the opposite side. I suspect that I would have lost control at the end of that blind 2 months ago (i.e., get the dog almost there and then have him disappear into cover high enough to not be able to handle him). After delivery of the blind duck, we went to the honor spot, and he was, blessedly, rock solid on that, watching the next dog's marks fall with interest but apparent understanding that he was done.

As we climbed up the hill to go back to the car, I didn't know if the effort was good enough to pass and earn our first Master leg, but I felt it was our best 3rd series of the 3 tests we'd run.

The 'water' was so icky (can you say smelly swamp?) that it was turning the goldens and yellow labs black. Someone mentioned a cleaner pond a short walk down the road, so I grabbed a bumper and Gryff and I went down there to rinse the worst of the muck off him. He thought fun bumpers and some more swimming were a fine reward for his efforts in the test.

The test didn't finish until just after 5 pm (!), so in the meantime, I went and found a secluded place and trained Ty a bit, teaching her a nice Master level blind via backchaining. It was nice to give her a chance to do something more than just the casting drill in the morning.


After an interminable wait while the judges decided who passed, the awards were passed out. Yes, we passed!!! That little scrap of orange ribbon with 'Master Hunter' on it (the club ran out of rosettes, so will be mailing them) shows me that it isn't a dream. It made the four hour drive home zip on by.

Next up: no resting on our laurels, we've got Hamden next weekend!

Field training @ Omega Farms

I spent the day at Omega Farms in Webberville, Michigan at the Marshbanks Golden Retriever Club's field training day. We started the day with Marshbanks member Al Hogan giving a review of how to operate a popper gun safely and how to use the Tangelo launchers.

Then we headed out to the so-called Heart Shaped Pond, site of one of the Senior tests we ran last year. It has quite a bit of grass growing out in the pond, which makes the dogs have to hunt some. We set up three stations, a medium-length one from the left side of the pond, a long one from the right shore and a short one also from the right shore. The two longer marks came from launchers, while the short one was hand-thrown.

I ran Gryffin first on a delayed triple, with the short right bumper as the memory bird. He retrieved the medium left mark, then after delivering that one, locked on to the memory bumper. The middle mark was thrown, and he noticed it about the time it splashed into the water. He completed the second and third retrieves in fine form. After his initially dismal marking at last weekend's Challenge, it was good to see him in good form.

I ran Ty on a single fro the left station and then a double with the short right mark as the memory mark. She did a fine job.

Once everyone had done the marks, some of us stayed and ran a few simple land marks through several cover strips, one of the great training features at Omega Farms. I set up 3 land blinds, which 3 of us ran. My friend and training partner Corinne William's two Tollers are really coming into their own on blinds, and Neon lined two of the blinds. I taught Ty one of the blinds (she's not quite to the cold blind stage, but moving closer to it), so that we could practice going across strips. She did great.

Al, Corinne, and I then went to another pond (the one closest to Bell Oak Rd) and set up a couple of water blinds. There was a brisk wind out of the west. Al and I ran one from the east side of the pond across a corner, across a dike of land and out into an area of tullies to the north. Gryff did a fine job, taking a great cast off the dike all the way to the blind. Then we ran one to the south side, one which I'd had huge problems with Gryff early last year. It's great to see how much he's improved since then :-).

What a great way to spend a summer day!