Home Forums Birds & Dogs Hunting Dogs Little brag......

Today Tara ran a water test in NY after her 4 mnths hiatus from training for her motherly duties. She passed her RDX (Retrieving Dog Excellent, duck work with a trip retrieve and a blind)!! I am extremely proud of her, she remembered every mark well & needed very little handling, she hit the blind retrieve on her first cast, she made me VERY proud today!!!!

She was the only RDX dog who qualified too, not bad for an out of shape momma who hasnt had much work this year!! (the event secretary said in his 3 years of running this, out of about 60 dogs who have run RDX, she is the 3rd he has seen pass)
She is now Dual champion pointed, Best of Breed winning, Natl Specialty placing, CH Zodiaks Holy Terror SH RDX and best of all, my hunting buddy. Now off to Master Hunter and try to finish her dual title, then NAVHDA UT.

Congrats, sounds like she did very well, good luck in the future endevor.

Zodiak.

The best part about your post is that your pup is still your hunting partner. IMO that is sometimes missed in the competition gun dog world. My Brit runs AKC/AF field trials, but shes still my hunting buddy. She qualified for gun dog Nationals at 21 months old and when I got off the phone with my trainer the other day, he told me to get ready to run her as an All Age dog! We are pretty proud of her trial career, but Im the most proud when its just she and I working a field and she nails a point. Followed by a great shot (I don't make many of those, so I REALLY appreciate one when I pull one out my arse). To see a dog make the transition from a hunting dog, to a trial dog, and then back, is something special.

Thanx guys!!

JJ, I agree, I ran her son this year puppy/derby & he swept the circuit (all points both sides at a year old), he is also working on his water titles & doing very well & almost finished in the show ring too, but first and foremost he is my hunting companion & adjusts accordingly with range.
Tara has FT points, I am hoping to finish her DC by next spring, I ran her in the RDX to show her versatility that the GSPS are supposed to have.
I know of your girl, she is quite nice & will do well for you down the road!!! (I know the Riggles, Lehoskys & many other Britt people)

Zodiak

Trials are a ton of fun. The ONLY reason we got into them was because of our pup. I didn't really want a big ranging FT dog, but after our trainer told me that she would be able to adjust to being hunted off horse and foot, we jumped right in. The fact that shes had a log of success already as a young dog has made it that much more fun. Im not sure what the Riggles schedule is this fall but Im sure Ill get to see them at some trials. I havent actually met Helen but she seems very, very nice. Im looking forward to meeting her and seing some of their dual dogs run.

I enjoy trials immensely, got bit by the bug a while back & now I am broke, LOL!! I train/run my own guys, but know quite a few pros, been judging a while now. Helen is a great person as is her hubby Brian, both a wealth of knowledge on Britts.
Hoping to finish my new up-n-comer after some bad luck with my last 2......one, my Mac dog, was 1 pt away from his FC and 2 from his AFC, all but 1 pt out of broke stakes, when he broke his rear leg, vet set it wrong, cast was constricting & he almost lost the leg, did lose part of foot & was never able to compete again. He had 3 MH legs & was a major away from his CH also, talk about a heart breaker!!!
His son Chief was a monster in the field & doing very well, ranked out of 9 trials his first season & was show pointed. He got into garbage (I ran him, but he was owned by another)and had a perforated bowel from a piece of sharp plastic, he ended up septic & we lost him at a very young age. ):
Now my hopes lie in Tara (Chiefs sister) and her son Jesse for my DC dog..........
I hit quite a few trials spring/fall, we may cross paths someday!

That sucks! Its hard enough trying to find a dog that can compete. My wife and I got lucky. We never intended her to be a trial dog, even thoug she came from pretty good trial lines. Our pup has 4 points towards her FC. 2 from Derby and 2 from Open Gun Dog. I wish I would have known then what I know now though. We didn't run her as a puppy, and she took second in a 24 dog OGD trial 3 weeks after her 2nd place in a 37 dog OGD trial. If I would have ran her in puppy and entered 1 more dog in her OGD trial she would have had 8 points by the time she was 22 months old! Id love her to get her FC some day, but we will have to wait and see. We didn't run her in several of the adult dog stakes last year because she was young and it gets friggen expensive, but now I wish I would have. Now all I need is a new house on land, a Dually with a 34 ft horse trailer and sleeping quarters, a couple more dogs, a couple horses, and a million bucks! Then Id be set to train my own dogs and take trialing seriously! haha

very cool.....i cant get worked up over the trial stuff but can appreciate the time and work that goes into it....congrats to you and your dog....

Rattler, I do much more than trial my guys, aside from huntimg, I guide on a preserve with them, do hunt tests and the testing my girl just passed which is a duck hunting exercise with multiple and blind retrieves. I also show & am readying one for NAVHDA UT which is a very involved test with tracking, obedience, duck and field work, jinda run the gambit with my guys!!

very cool.....keep in mind im in the middle of no where and would require a major outlay in gas money to even consider doing half that with my dog

I hear you Rattler!! I often travel 4 hrs one way to events, but as a breeder, I want to prove the worth/ability of anything I breed beforehand. Good pedigrees don't always gaurantee specimins worth reproducing IMO. Plus I greatly enjoy competing, it is a vice!! (better than drinking my $$ away, but drinking would probably be cheaper, LOL!!!!)

and i fully understand that, as i said i understand the effort and time that goes into that sort of stuff even if it aint my cup of tea.....but im on the opposite end of the equation....i buy the dogs not breed them just looking for a hunting partner in the fall and family pet the rest of the year....got to much on my plate already to do much of anything else.....