Since Carlin now had the four passes he needed for a Junior Hunter Upland title, we moved him up to competing at the Senior level for the Sunday and Monday tests.
Sunday — Clumber Spaniel Club of America
I think Russ had gotten a little envious, watching me have all the fun running Carlin in Junior, so he asked to take over handling duties for the day.
Carlin’s first Senior-level land work took place on a wide course, sloped down from left to right. It had mixed cover, including grass ranging from 18 to 48 inches, small trees, conifers, and patches of fern and blackberry. The Senior dogs were hunting pheasants.
Most dogs prior to Carlin worked only the lower, right-hand side of the course, so Russ purposely got Carlin to work wide and cover the full width of the course, even a bit outside of the flags on both sides. He quickly got his first flush, just over the line on the left side of the course. It was a flyaway over the gallery of people watching, so the gunners couldn’t shoot it, so Russ called Carlin off with the whistle, and Carlin turned on a dime to come back. Good dog!
Carlin flushed his second bird near the middle of the course. That bird flew down course and was dropped. Carlin raced to retrieve it and returned straightaway for delivery to hand. Judges mentioned that this big running dog was fun to watch. We actually got so many compliments on Carlin’s beautiful quartering, covering the full width of the field, searching out all the likely places where a bird would hide. It was so exciting to watch, I couldn’t take my eyes off him long enough to try to take pictures. So with this beautiful performance, Carlin was called back to run his very first hunt dead.
Out of the 5 minutes allotted for the hunt dead, where the handler directs a dog to find a bird that neither has seen fall, Carlin took only about 1-1/2 minutes to find the bird. The judges described generally where the bird was located, and Russ sent Carlin off slightly down-wind of that direction. Carlin quartered back toward the line a couple of times, but Russ kept sending him back. Finally, he winded the bird, picked it up, and brought it straight back to hand. So, on to the water work.
The water starting line was behind a small log, and a pheasant landed in the water about 40 yards out. Carlin was steady at the line until released, beelined it to the bird, grabbed it up and brought it back toward Russ slightly off line. He made this little detour so that he could lift his leg on a bush next to the line, but once that was done, he then came back to Russ at the start line and delivered the pheasant to hand. With that, he got some applause from the gallery and his first Senior pass. This pass qualified him for the Irish Water Spaniel Club of America’s Working Dog Excellent (WDX) certificate.
Monday — Cascade English Cocker Spaniel Fanciers
Carlin’s second Senior test took place on a narrow course of tall grass, small trees, and mounds of fern and blackberry that curved through a conifer forest, with birds flushing out of the cover into the trees.
This was a challenging course where a good IWS could excel. This was the same course that Cooper aced back in 2012. For this test, I took back the handling duties.
Carlin covered the course, quartering nicely. He searched several patches of fern, behind small trees, and into clumps of denser grass, but didn’t find a bird until he got around a clump of trees surrounded by blackberries. As I rushed forward to keep up with him, Carlin flushed the bird, it was shot and fell, and Carlin zoomed after it. By the time he got to the area of the fall, the lightly wounded bird had run off, so Carlin tracked and then trapped it. Upon a whistle, he turned and delivered the bird to hand. Visibility was so bad in the trees that the judge couldn’t initially tell if Carlin had retrieved the shot bird or trapped another running bird. Both the gunners and I said that the shot bird had run, and upon examination, the judge confirmed that the delivered bird had been shot, and not simply trapped.
Then Carlin was off for his 2nd bird.
He flushed that bird from out of a hillock. This one flew pretty much straight up, the gunner nailed it, and so did Carlin. Another delivery to hand, and we were done with the flushing work.
By this time, it was apparent that my headache, body aches, and stomach ache and other digestive upsets that had started early that morning were not merely nerves, but food poisoning instead. Fortunately, Russ was there to take things in hand, and the judges kindly allowed a handler swap with the requirement that Russ do both the hunt dead and water work.
I was in the car trying not to moan too loudly, so I didn’t see the hunt dead myself. But by all reports, the hunt dead was ugly. Carlin wanted to hunt and flush more birds, and was not particularly interested in running straight out to look for dead ones. He quartered throughout the meadow until he was convinced that there were no birds to flush. Finally, with only about 30 seconds to spare of the 5 minutes allowed, he finally followed Russ’s “Back” command, found the dead one, and delivered it to hand. Whew!
On to water work. Carlin was again steady at the line, executed another classic IWS leap into the pond, swam straight to the pheasant, and mostly straight back. Right before he got to Russ, he briefly paraded his mostly dry pheasant in front of the gallery, and then hooked back in to deliver it nicely to hand.
So with that, Carlin earned his second Senior Hunter Upland leg — halfway to a Senior Hunter Upland title.
What a dog you have. congratulations Carlin. Also happy to see Rusty back on FB. One other thing we are missing you and Patrice at our high school reunion.
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