Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Oops, sorry, Ted!

Ran Ted in a US Complete walking stake on Saturday at the Searles Ranch in Raymond, CA. 

I am happy to report that he ran a sparkling race,  handled very well, and had seven stylish, broke finds in 30 minutes. 

I am sorry to report that on one of the finds he relocated and circled to cut off a bird that was moving.  But he stood for the flush and shot, and didn't move. Further, on his sixth find he was buried in cover and I foolishly crawled in there with him to get a flush. I crowded him in the brush, leaned over him to flush, and he finally couldn't take it and his butt hit the ground. 'Course, I did not see this, but it was pointed out to me by the judges. Brain fade! Slap my face. Twice.

We earned a placement - but not the first place that we thought he had earned.  We start work tomorrow to do some more polishing - which I need more than he does. 

6 comments:

Andrew Campbell said...

Hope to hear more of your adventures with Ted over the coming months. And yeup, sometimes we get in the way of perfectly good dogs... sounds like he's a smart one despite your best efforts.

best
A.

Mike Spies said...

A

We are a good team, and he tolerates my blunders... the perfect hunting partner!

Dale Hernden said...

Congratulations. Sounds like a judge who interpreted the situation correctly and didn't throw him out for a handler error.

If we ever have at least two weeks to talk I'll tell you all the stupid things I've done in handling........

I'll tell Lu that her brother did well!

Craig Peters Warrens, WI 443-206-1091 said...

Welcome to the family!

Parker James said...

Sounds like a very good time. I like that 'picture' of you crawling into the brush to help out.

Blessed said...

we don't run bird dog trials but I remember thinking once when I made a stupid mistake in a retriever hunt test that cost my dog a pass that the next day needed to include drills for me!

Better luck next time. We lost our Brittany earlier this year and haven't been able to upland hunt much in the past five or six years - our local birds kinda dried up so we started hunting waterfowl instead.

Looks like a great blog - you ought to join the OBS Blogroll! There is a link to the site on my blog.