Well we were in for a bit of a surprise as not only had our Mums entered us in the Novice Class but they also thought it would be a good idea to put us into Graduate Class too!!! This meant that we would be doing 8 tests each instead of the usual 4.
First up was the Novice hunting, it was in woodland, not many good smells so I didnt range out that far and Mum was concentrating too hard on not tripping over and landing flat on her face.
Then I did the Graduate hunting and was a bit more in my stride, the woodland was a bit more open than the Novice so I did range out a bit more.
Then it was the Novice seen retrieve, well wowsas they had a dummy launcher set up for the seen, Mum went pale as she knows I'm a little devil for not sitting to the dummy launcher as I love it. Crikey she didnt half tell me to sit and wait, the launcher was fired and I started to run in but Mum bellowed for me to wait and I thought I had better sit back down double quick. She then released me but there was a fence right at the start of the run for me to jump and I took some time working out the best way to go round it, realised there wasnt a way so jumped it. Zoomed off for the dummy, zoomed back, spat the dummy in front of the fence and looked at Mum, she yelled FETCH IT so I had little choice but to pick it up and jump over the fence, spat the dummy again just short of Mum.
Then we went off to do the Graduate seen retrieve, no fences or launchers so I sat ok and waited for Mum to send me, it was about 150yards out so I did a good outrun, retrieved it and back to Mum, not to hand again though.
We were pretty hot by this time so we headed off to do our two water tests. Novice was up first and I took forever to sit down, finally planted my bum, the judge started to say release your dog but only got the first syllabel out and I was off before Mum had a chance to speak. Swam out, retrieved, came back to land, dropped the dummy, stood and shook and then ambled back to Mum.
After a little rest it was time for the Graduate water, never done anything like this before so Mum was a little nervous. I was set up again, and this time I did wait. The dummy thrower was right over the other side of the lake on the opposite bank, she waved the dummy around but she didnt throw it into the water it was still on land on the opposite bank. Mum sent me and I swam out, about midway I started spinning around looking for the dummy, Mum blasted the stop whistle and gave me the 'back' command so I just carried on swimming to the other side of the lake, found the dummy, swam all the way back with it and then dropped the dummy just short of Mum. That was a mega swim!
6 tests complete and I was pooped. We went back to the car for snoozies, here's me and Ollie
After lunch we just had the two blind retrieves to do. We went to do the Graduate one first. It was under shot and about 150 yards out.
Mum set me up, the shot was fired, I didnt move, she sent me out, used the 'back' command once and then did the screechy 'lost' command, I found the dummy, belted back and much to Mum's shock retrieved to hand. A perfect 25/25 score, see I can do it!!
Then we went off and did the Novice blind, this was a little more tricky as the handlers had to send the dog off over a brow of a hill so they couldnt see where we were and had to trust that we would wind the dummy. I headed off out on mum's directional line and then went out of her sight, she was jumping up to try and see me but couldnt so she had to stand there waiting for me to return, hopefully with the dummy. Well I came running back into her sight with the dummy in my mouth and was greeted by the sight of Mum grinning from ear to ear. I spat the dummy short of her again but she was so pleased about the retrieve she didnt really mind.
It was a really hectic day and great fun, Mum said she was really pleased to have tried me out in Graduate too.
I came 9th in Novice and 9th in Graduate, so Mum was pretty pleased.
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