Sunday roundup

Our practice involved about a dozen people and maybe 20 dogs, ranging from puppies to old timers and including cockers, Springers, and Welshies.  The rain gradually cleared during the course of the morning, which left the fields wet but the day cool.  Happily, the birds flew and there were few if any traps.

The event shaped up like a hunt test, with the usual gaggles of discussion, and, behind the handler in the field, were gunners, judges, bird planters, and hangers on.  This made for a realistic and interesting practice.

Larsen's first turn was quite good.  He hupped to wing and shot, and I had the great pleasure of letting him fetch his bird.  His delivery was sloppy, but more on that in a subsequent post.

The cover was too low, and wayward birds could be seen wandering about.  The dogs saw them too, which distracted from their quartering and instituted what may be called the beeline.

Here is a subtlety I learned the hard way.  Larsen flushed a bird and sat.  The bird flew, or really hopped, all of 20 feet.  I let Larsen get the bird by dismissing him with his name.  He hit the bird, the bird flew, and he was off to the races.  What I realized, finally, was that giving him his name was his "go" command.  So, in the future, what I will do is simply and calmly say "go-on" which is our command to begin covering the ground in his usual hunting pattern.  I know of course that he will beeline to the bird, but he will not do it under the sheer school's out dismissal that his name permits.  In fact, I had a chance to try the "go on" command, and was able to hup him half-way to the bird.

There were some other instances of breaking, and we ended the day with drills, which he is good at.  That let him show everyone how smart he is, and it let him nose up to the (dead) bird used in the drill.

I am very satisfied with Larsen's performance, and now I must really go through my own performance and work on two things: (1) make sure that I'm technically clearly giving him the right signals; and (2) make sure that my innermost vibes and thoughts are giving him every chance to be successful.