Ashleygrove Gundogs

Went along to the GWCT tests at West Wycombe Park on Sunday.  Such a beautiful location,  totally stunning and we had a great day!

Arrived and decided to enter the Novice Dog/Novice Handler tests with Rusti and Sunni.  Here's a description of the 3 tests and the order we did them in.

Test 1

Heelwork alongside a river bank between two large trees. Mark into the water on the right, dog sent. Once dog back, shot fired and a blind in long grass under some trees, parallel with the river.

Sunni heeled reasonably well but was a tad overexcited! Sat him up and he stayed steady to the mark into the water. Sped out like a bullet for the retrieve, returned with a nice delivery. Stayed steady for shot for the blind, sent him and he veered back towards the water couple of times, so had to re-direct him. Got the blind and returned with a lovely delivery.

Score 17 (out of 20)

Test 2

A mark with shot on the land to the right and then a mark in the water to the left. Water first.

Sunni sat up and stayed steady for both marks. Sent him for water mark, which he picked with no problems and returned. Sent for mark on land next, didn't quite follow my line but picked dummy and returned.

Score 18 (out of 20)

Test 3

Heelwork between 2 posts, a long blind in long grass and a shot. Dog sent from 2nd post. Must admit I was worried about this one as it was quite a long distance to the blind and Sunni is not yet fully confident with long distance blinds and we've only recently started practicing long blinds and teaching him to hunt an area on command. Sunni sat steady to the shot but I could see he was almost quivering with excitement and then our heelwork was a bit messy! Sent for dummy but he couldn't wind it properly and kept veering off towards the dummy helper who was stood under a tree with several dummies. Tried re-directing him but in the end he got thoroughly confused so recalled him. Tried again and same thing happened! The judge then kindly let us walk closer to the blind and I sent him again. He went to the correct area this time and found the dummy. Nice return and lovely delivery.  We only scored 6 on this but I was still really pleased as Sunni tried so hard for me, bless him.

I didn't get to see any other dogs do this test but have since found out that most dogs veered off towards the dummy placer.  The wind was blowing left to right and the dummy placer was well to the right and behind a tree, so should have been down wind and well out of the way but obviously the wind was playing tricks on the dogs!

I won't go into Rusti's tests! He completely took the mickey and wasn't particuarly interested in doing anything but his own thing!   Naughty boy ha!

We also had a bash at the scurry. Shot and mark into water and one on land. Rusti didn't do too badly and Sunni got a very fast time of 56 seconds.  Don't yet know the final results and the winner.

It was an excellent day, very friendly and a nice relaxed atmosphere.  I was soooo nervous but very pleased I went along

Many thanks to Avis who I have been training with since March of this year, we have learnt so much and I am relatively new to all this gundoggery stuff!

Well done Nikki:D, very brave of you and well done Sunni, we won't talk about Rusti:lol:  Sue & Dasher.

Thanks Sue

Yes we won't mention naughty Rusti, he is in disgrace ha ha!

Nikkiy21 at July 14, 2010 at 7:07 AM

Thanks Sue

Yes we won't mention naughty Rusti, he is in disgrace ha ha!

That's a great account of your day Nikki thanks for posting it up. You can be really proud of your achievements with the boys. Rusti means well but he thinks his good looks are enough! Sunni will make a great working dog. see you soon.

Thanks Avis