Sunday practice notes (v1)

Larsen's practice had two very good events, one on land and one on water.  

On land, Larsen flushed the pigeon and sat.  Shoni and Al took turns shooting at the pigeon, whose  feather sheathing is a protective armor.  The fourth shot brought the pigeon down.  Larsen sat throughout the fusillade.  I pipped him to me and sat him.  Then I sent him on a hunt-dead.  He came to me and, with a deep-voiced correction, delivered the bird to hand.  The delivery was a bit ragged, but overall, his turn in the field was very good.  Throughout, he did not break.  Larsen quartered at my shoetops, but Cathy and I decided that this was part of the learning process with being steady and the fact that we had in past weeks rolled out numerous birds very close to me.

At water, I steadied Larsen and Cathy tossed the bird while firing a blank pistol.  I had covered my ears and as I brought my hands down, Larsen took that as a signal to go.  He thus anticipated my voice by a fraction of a second.  However, Larsen stopped at the water's edge and milled about.  Maybe he knew he had broken?  At any rate, and at Cathy's suggestion, I took the opportunity to pip Larsen back in and recast him.  He came in, sat, and I sent him again.  Not often do you get a chance to make a correction like that.

Larsen came in, and I gave him a firm, but higher-pitched and sweetly-voiced "here".  He came without shaking or putting the bird down and sat with the bird.  I patted and cooed over this good dog and his nice retrieve.

Cathy reminded me that there will be many practices where nothing will go right but that this was one to remember as one where you could see that however uncoordinated, the pieces were falling into place.