Field trial time is almost over for the season, so this was foreseeably Karmie’s last chance to run in a field trial for awhile. After Derby (only available to dogs 6 months to 2 years) are the Gun Dog stakes, which require the dog be steady to shot, honor if the situation arises, and not chase birds (among other things.) We have some work to do before she can do these things…
Anyhow, we had a very fun weekend. The trial was close to home (about 40 mins!) which we may have taken too much advantage of by cutting our travel time a little to close! Learning our lesson from Saturday, we got to the trial site two hours before Indy was supposed to run, and he ran 15 minutes after we arrived! **Note to self – three hours early for the next field trial!**
On Saturday, Karma was running in Amateur Derby. She had too much fun, finding and pointing two birds and even getting in an honor! Karma and her bracemate also worked the course so quickly that they had to loop back around and start over! Saturday’s performance was probably Karma’s best yet, and we are so proud of the independence and confidence she has gained just in the past few months! When the ribbons were passed out, we were out of the money, but Karma’s bracemate Tango earned 4th place! Indy wouldn’t run until Sunday, so we headed back home, grabbed some dinner and watched a movie…pretty perfect Saturday!
Sunday we got up early and met Clare & Zach who own Karma’s half-brother Gauge for a little morning exercise. Indy stayed home since he had the field trial later, but we brought Schmav, Vanessa, and Karmie. As soon as we let Karma and Gauge out of the car, a fabulous game of chase commenced! They jumped, ran, chased bunnies, and had a wonderful time together. Vanessa did very well on leash and Schmav skipped along, happy as a clam. After a good 45 minute run, we crated the pups, grabbed some breakfast, and made each other laugh for the whole meal.
After breakfast, we dropped Vanessa, Karma, and Schmav at home and grabbed Indy for our quick drive to Bennett for the Walking Field Trial. As mentioned, as soon as we pulled up, we were informed that our brace would go out next, so Marc and Indy got all geared up and went to the start line. There was a huge group of people; 6 or 7 on horses and then probably another 6 or 7 on foot in the gallery. Indy and his bracemate took off and maybe 5 or 10 minutes into the brace, Marc was asked to leash Indy up. Whaaa, waaaaaa, waaaaaaa. Jenny couldn’t even see what happened with all the horses and people in the gallery, but apparently Indy had stumbled upon a covey, and it was just more fun than he could stand! Another member of the gallery came over and said there had been coveys of 4, 5, 6 birds all day and that it was a lot of pressure on the dogs and not to feel bad. This explained why Indy’s start time moved up so much, everyone was having too much fun today! It was a little surreal to have Indy chase a bird (he hasn’t done that in YEARS) but we are just glad he had fun…the only bummer is that he didn’t get more time in the field today. With that, we took Indy on a little walk back to the car, thanked the field trial secretary and headed home. Hmmm, ever feel like you need a day off to recover from your weekend?
Thanks to the Skyline Brittany Club for hosting a fun weekend in the field, we had a great time!