We headed off again yesterday for another working test, this time at Privett which is only a 30 minute drive away from home.
The weather was much kinder than last week's test. The ground was fabulous, when we arrived me and Ollie went whizzing across a field of stubble like a couple of lunatics.
Mum and Auntie Katie registered and then we were told that we had to drive to the water test as it was 10 minutes drive away. We all jumped in the car and headed off, trying to follow the route map we'd been given. Well Mum was useless at map reading and we had to do a U turn at one point on a single track road!
Eventually found the place, the water was really icky with green sludge all across the top of it and boy was it stinky!!!!
Here's a picture of it.....
Mum set me up on the bank, the judge threw the dummy, I'm afraid I didnt wait and dived straight in, swam to the dummy and brought it back to shore, I did spit it out at the water's edge instead of presenting to hand. I then shook stinky water all over the judge and Mum, Mum had turned a shade of green herself when she got a whiff of me!
We then all jumped into Auntie Katie's car and headed off down an ever narrowing single track road, there were dumb pheasant everywhere just wandering down the middle of the road, Ollie and I were going beserk in the car trying to get to them, Mum and Auntie Katie had to put the windows on the car up as they thought we were going to jump out so the car was really stinky!
We then did the hunting, the field was great loads of open space and a really strong head wind. Here's Auntie Katie and Ollie doing their test.
And here's me and Mum doing our test
nce again I was a bit of a velco vizzie and stayed pretty close to Mum.
Then after lunch it was time to do the retrieves. The blind was first and I went steaming out, stood right next to the dummy, Mum did the 'lost' screechy thing but I came running back emtpy handed (well empty mouthed). Mum tried to send me back again but I went all silly and started jumping all over her :-(
Then we walked down to the seen split retrieve. A spinone came shooting out of the undergrowth which made me jump. Then when we got to the judge I was really spooked, I was shaking all over and didnt want to sit at all, the judge was lovely and kind but I was having none of it. The dummy was thrown under shot but I wouldnt go any further than 4 paces away from Mum, Mum wanted me to feel I'd acheived so she walked out with me and I finally picked up the dummy, then there was another shot and another dummy was thrown, I was really down by now and just wanted to get away so Mum walked with me to the dummy and then gave me big cuddles when I retrieved it.
We all went back to the car where Mark with the lovely Mika (a very pretty girlie viz) gave me and Ollie a pheasant to practice retrieves with. Oh that was more like it and we had fun with that.
I'm afraid once again my scores were pretty dismal, zero for both retrieves, 15/25 for the hunting and 13/25 for the water. There were 13 dogs running and I had the honour of being in last place..................
Mum said she knows its pilot error (ie her fault) and she is going to take me right back to basics on retrieves as that is really letting us down, hopefully the light will go on soon.
We do have good fun though and we've learnt loads and met lots of lovely people and dogs.
A huge thank you to Auntie Katie for introducing us to the working test circuit and showing us the ropes, we wouldnt have done it without you x
