Saturday Hank and I did a "fun hunt trial" as hosted by the Indianapolis chapter of the Ruffed Grouse Society. Long story short, you and the dog are judged on your ability to find, point, shoot, and retrieve 2 pheasants in a 20min run. I'm not real sure on all the criteria, but they were not required to be steady to flush, but did need to be staunch to point. They only had to retrieve to within 6' of the handler. Basically, I looked at it as a fun day to meet some folks, get Hank a run in, and see some dogs work.
It was very windy on Saturday, so it seemed to be hit or miss on how well the dogs were finding the birds. This was making me a bit nervous as older, more experienced dogs were not finding their 2 birds in the allotted time. When it was our turn, we headed down the field, perpendicular to the wind. Shortly thereafter, Hank starts getting birdy and bang. Point! He made a short lunge and repointed. The bird was moving on him, but he held the second time. I flushed it and dropped it with one shot. He retrieved it to hand! We worked the rest of the field down and back the other way. He got birdy a few times, but never went on point. Mind you there had been 7 runs prior to this, so there had been a lot of birds planted, shot, and running around before we hit the field. Hank got about 80 yards out on the last loop through the field, started getting birdy and hit a point. I could tell he wasn't super sure as his tail was still wagging. As I closed the distance he locked up. I moved in to flush the bird and nothing. He repositioned slightly once I got between him and where he was pointing. Then I saw the hen scurrying through the grass. He held and she flushed. I tipped her with the first shot and again with the second. She lit in a tree at the woodline about 75yds away, then fell. Hank ran into the trees, found her and was on his way back with he flushed another bird! He dropped the bird he had and gave that hen chase. I was able to get him stopped, he came back to the dropped bird and brought it to me. Not quite to hand as once he got to me he spit it out at my feet. It was over 70º at this time and he was panting pretty hard, but I was still a bit discouraged he didn't hang on to it for another 10 seconds.
We didn't come home with any hardware as a few of the things he did were not great for scoring (staunchness and dropping the bird), but I was tickled pink! He found the birds, pointed them (for the most part), I actually hit them, and he brought them to me. He did great quartering the field and covered the ground and cover very well. We're far from done, but it was a good show of how far he (we?) have come. Once home I celebrated with a beer or 3 and the boys made sure Hank got plenty of treats. It was a good day!
