Roxi’s walk at heel was perfect. On her steadiness by the blind, for the marked retrieve, she went with the duck throw...which is allowable, but cost her half her points. Her retrieve of duck would’ve been perfect, but Clint wasn’t thinking and gave her a “heel” command as she came in...which cost us. Roxi’s retrieve by drag was perfect, although she had me worried. First she rocketed off at warp speed, and then as she rocketed back through the tall weeds, I was praying to see a glimpse of a duck in her mouth—which there was. Then she appeared to sit with the duck about 15’ from Clint, which caught me by surprise, since Roxi hasn’t been drilled on sitting. Turned out that my little exhibitionist was peeing, and when she was done, she retrieved to hand.
Clint having a word with Roxi before the heeling and marked retrieve.
The judges having a word with Clint at the water.
The marked retrieve.
Roxi's fast-as-you-can duck drag.
What looked like a bad manner of retrieve, was just a temporary pee stop.
Then there’s the field. We knew going in that we would not receive a 4 in this, because while Roxi is steady to flush, we never got her steady to wing when the gun is involved. Gunfire makes her bonkers with desire, and we weren’t able to work that out before the test, which is why we did UPT. So just seeing someone swing a gun to fire, will make her break. I DID expect her to be steady to flush though. Heck, she was used many times recently as the front pointing dog, in training for another dog’s Invitational backing drills...and she was solid. First thing that made for a bad performance was that she started limping on Friday morning, so we kept her crated with no exercise for 2 days. When she was unleashed for the test, she ran like her butt was on fire. I was hoping the prior duck search would tucker her out some, but no such luck.
Roxi being unleashed for the field work.
The second thing that got us off to a bad start was that just 200’ from the unleashing, she ran on the upwind side of a chukar and it flushed. So then the chase was on, and I think she lost her mind. She still continued to run big and pattern well, as the judges commented on afield, but her bird handling was lacking. On the next bird, she tracked it in. One of our friend’s who was gunning, said he thought she pointed and then the bird flushed, but Clint was sure she tracked in and flushed it. On the third bird, she pointed, but it was one of those whole rear end wagging points which she never does. Another bad stroke of luck, as it was a walking bird out in plain sight. By the time the gunners got into position, Clint didn't get far in front of her, before the bird flushed and Roxi gave chase. He said he was going to give her a “whoa”, since he didn’t have much to lose, but didn’t get it out in time. There wasn’t a safe shot, so a separate bird was shot for judgment. By this time, Clint had given Roxi a few harsh commands afield, and she didn’t beeline back like she normally does...so he had to throw out a strong “fetch” to make sure she came to hand. While we had 10 scores in the P1 & P2 range, the three P3 field scores of pointing, steadiness, and retrieve fouled us up.
A couple months ago, we debated whether we could achieve the training we needed to do before test day, but decided to use the test entry as a motivational goal to further her skills. As test day approached, we knew we wouldn’t get a P1 due to her steadiness issue, but we told ourselves that a prize of any sort would be a win. It was a little bittersweet, that she flopped on some of what she does so reliably, and created good scores where we didn’t expect them. It is what it is though, and along with the Prize 3, we learned more training skills and accomplished a lot with Roxi along the way.
Countrysides Red Hot Roxi NA 1 UPT 3
And a few pics of the girls cutting loose after the test.
Brandi thinking she can catch some fish that had been jumping out of the water. :roll:
