Shreveport

Had a fun week-end running the Shreveport trial here in Texas.

Miss Libby ran, what I thought was, a so-so set of opening marks.  For each bird, her lines were to the right of the actual lines to the birds.  Not sure why she "moved the test over" in her little head, but it was what it was.  While the wind was blowing left to right, causing her to crosswind and quickly pick up each bird, I knew from a judge's stand point that it wasn't desirable.
They called her back to the land blind... a very difficult poison bird blind with some water.  I was happy with her effort and she ran a decent blind.  It was only decent though and we were dropped.  I knew those opening marks would come back to haunt me.
However, Libbs seems to have gotten over her poison bird fetish and that makes life less stressful for us now.  10 or so dogs picked up the PB in this test and she cast off of it very nicely with the bird on her nose.  I'm sure happy about that.

And Momma D!!!  She finished with a JAM.  She was fabulous!  Someone came up to me and said "my word, she runs like a 5 year old!".  I was very flattered.  She was great in all 4 series, especially the land blind and the water marks.  I think a cross wind on the long retired in the first series kept us out of the ribbons.  3 trials since December and she's been to the water blind twice and finished once.  Not bad for the old lady.

I can't say it enough...every day with her is a gift.

And Darbi's son Turq finished alongside his mother with a JAM as well!!  Atta boy Turq!

As an aside...I have learned in recent years that downwind marks are the only way to go when judging dogs if at all possible.  "Downwind marks and crosswind blinds" is what everyone who I think is wise says.  These poor judges had set up a nice set of marks that started the day off as downwind...but after a couple of dogs...the wind changed.  The marks became way too easy and all because of a little wind shift.  I felt sorry for the judges, but that is how it goes sometimes.  That's okay...they got us back on the land blind.  :-)