yet more training

If folks are sensing a theme, you'd be correct. All I know is that if you have a nice day and relatively easy access to birds, then it's time to get out and take the vizslak training.

I'll keep it brief. Before going up, I had debated whether or not to put the limiters on the chukar we'd use because it seemed to make Jozsi a little less intense when we came back around to a bird we'd worked before. But I figured that I'd use the limiters just once and that way still be able to use the birds for The Mominator. I also took care to store the limiters in the bird-bag (to try and mask their smell with whatever residual bird scent there might be) and once I had found a spot for each bird to go, placed the limiter in first and lightly covered it with the nice, dry snow we had.

Interestingly, while he bumped the first bird and performed a nice stop-to-flush, Jozsi set up nice points on the next two birds and stood still through the entire flush. I had read on a bulletin board about Bill Gibbons (whose Magma Birddogs is permanently on my blog-roll) stressing the importance of the trainer's hands, even literally the sensation of the trainer's hands, when working your dog -- and I have been making a point of running my bare hands down Jozsi's back when he's standing tall, both before and after the flush, to let him know that I love what he's doing. And whether a result of regular training or not wearing gloves, he's been standing more consistently after the flush and letting me collar him up without fuss before sending him on for the next bird.

What was interesting about his run was that I had set up the three birds along a mile or so loop and as we came back down after the third bird, I realised he had gone to find the first bird all over again. And was standing tall behind a snowdrift with the bird in plain sight. So, I flushed it again. I think he's getting it. The picture is from the third bird -- as you can see he's got a nice, high style.

I gathered up all three birds, untethered them, and put them out in a different field for The Mominator. He got close to the first bird which had decided it didn't like where I had put it and was walking around in some trampled corn stalks. I'm not sure if it was my noise humping through the snow, or the bird seeing just how close Momo was coming, but it got up before he had set himself (and about 15' from where he was) and so he got to practice his stop-to-flush. The next bird was textbook and he's doing well with just one simple 'stay' as I move up in front of him. The third bird almost got away because I am an idiot... and had left the safety catch on and ended up with a 3o+yd crossing shot rather than a 20yd going-away shot. I saw feathers fly of the bird and marked it down. I tried to flush it again, but realised it was too seriously wounded to fly and as it ran I sent Momo to retrieve it -- which he did really nicely. (Some dogs will balk on picking up a still fairly alive bird -- Momo, happily, seems to understand that a retrieve command is exactly that.)

All in all, a good day. And here's a pic from last week of Their Majesties enjoying each other's company on the couch.

Some Random Equipment Notes:

a) these flight limiters from Dogs Unlimited are intended to work well for pigeons. I'd trim them if I was going to use them on quail, but for chukar I found that 2-3oz of extra weight kept them from going too far. (I duct-taped three 20ga shotgun shells to the tube.) You can definitely make something yourself, although if you're like me and were ordering something else from them already, then save yourself a trip to the hardware store.

b) Jozsi has had a couple of short runs in his roading harness from Christies. Feeling a little nervous about having him drag chains (because it seems like they would get kinked and pick up crud), I took a suggestion from Kim Sampson and bought some lengths of welding cable. Right now, Jozsi is dragging 10' of 1/0 AWG cable, which translates into just over 4lbs. To start, I had folded each of the two 5' lengths in half with a clip in the middle, but it seem just short enough to get tangled in his back legs -- so I undid my previous work and simply created a short loop at the top of each length this time to create a longer single strand on each side. Seemed to work okay for him today.

c) Have also just started experimenting with Annamaet's Impact supplement. My apologies to whoever told me about it, but I've been giving it to the boys after either a day of hunting or, in Mr. Enthusiasm's case, after he's been dragging cables. The goal is to give them better probiotics to absorb the all the nutrients in the good food they're given and provide things like Omega-3s and 6s and anti-oxidants.

another training update

We had another beautiful day of training up at TMT today with the snow still relatively light and ice-free. We are genuinely blessed to have access to Tom's property when he's closed to run the two monsters, put out some training birds, and maybe get lucky and round up something that a previous set of clients has missed.

As usual, I put the Mominator down first to let him stretch his legs -- doubting that we'd find anything that previous guests and the hawk population had left behind. He'd been out the car for 2 mins before he froze up. And I'm looking and looking. And realize that for one of the very few times, he's actually false-pointing a hotspot that had housed a bird relatively recently (complete with a few small feathers and some fairly fresh blood; the cold and the small depression the bird had been in were clearly holding some pretty dense scent.). And so after I release him, he is like a dog-possessed. Now Momo is always hunting, but it would be unusual for him to ever score a '10' on a hunt test for his hunting drive. But he was clearly now on a '9'. We trogged up a hill and I found him standing tall on a rooster pheasant in a brushpile which, once it saw me, bolted on foot. Sadly, we never found it again. But the Mominator was most definitely in the mood. But we came back around to the truck and I started to load the blank-pistol and assemble various bits-and-bobs before getting Mr. Enthusiasm out for his sprintfest. And I see this, 10 yards from the truck... Mominator all stretched out pointing a chukar. So I grabbed my gun again and Momo was steady-to-fall and brought the bird right back to hand. Awesome. Actually his biggest hurdle in bringing it back directly to hand is that his butt is wiggling so much with excitement that his head moves, too.

After last week's experiment with pigeon poles and (broken) fishing line, I had decided to try some flight limiters (string tresses and a 1ft length of rubber house for weight) on the chukar we brought out with hopefully just enough weight to hopefully get them to fly a dozen yards or so. Needless to say, all chukars are not created equal and some flew further than others. None were lost however. I decided to get Jozsi on a check-cord and pinch-collar again instead of jumping back directly into the e-collar and he handled his first two birds great -- and as importantly he seemed to have internalized that once he's cast off again in a different direction, he was not to come back around and try and work the bird he'd just been on. Progress. But one thing I did notice was that when he was brought back to locate one of those two initial birds he'd already worked, even though it had flushed and was now someplace else, he was flagging his points and may even have blinked one of those birds (whereas he'd then go ahead and set up nicely on a third bird he'd never pointed before). And so while I had only 'toned' him once all day, I was feeling like I'd just screwed up my dog from a week ago.

So I put him up, took the limiters off the three birds, resolving to return one to the coop, and put the other two down again for Mominator to run. But I also figured that I should just get Mr. Enthusiasm out and let him run around and at least have his day end enthusiastically -- and if it went well, great. And so off they went... and perhaps, of course, Jozsi found the first bird and stood just fine. The picture is of a poor, slightly torn Momo... I hadn't called 'whoa' for him, but to reassure Jozsi about his point... but he had stopped, caught sight of Jozsi's point behind him, but knew he wasn't supposed to move. (If you can see it in the picture, Jozsi was wearing his roading harness from Christies for the first time just to get used to it before we start asking him to drag some cables.The bird, incidentally, is about 2ft in front of Jozsi's nose; he is actually making a really cool sideways downward glance without moving his head.) I got the bird up, and brought it down, also figuring that if necessary I would let Jozsi go hunt dead and mouth it to keep him psyched. But he saw that bird hit the snow and was off after it.

We then worked the second bird and while I was little nervous that Jozsi had come close to it but not given any indication of scenting it, I was at least a little happier that he hadn't obviously blinked it. Momo ran right up alongside it and came to an immediate frosty-frozen U-turn. This caught Jozsi's attention who then barreled up and managed to catch himself before blowing the bird. To his credit, Momo held solid despite the incoming vizsla-missile. Again, Momo stood still while Jozsi bolted as the bird hit the snow... but overshot it on the way out and Momo got in a speedy retrieve. It was good to end the day seeing evidence that Jozsi was clearly not entirely turned off by gamebirds and that, in fact, a little unintentional fraternal competition might have improved things for both boys.

The thing I realised in the truck on the way home was that I had seen Jozsi's flagging points elsewhere... when we had used birds in launchers. And so I am beginning to believe that he is a smart enough dog with a good enough nose to realise that if a gamebird also smells of fishing line or duct-tape or aluminum something isn't quite right and so it doesn't trigger his rigid point instinct. Now we need to get some training time on quail so he can point a bunch of birds that won't fly super far away.

training update + thank you

We're back! We weren't really away, in fact we already had a day up TMT on the 3rd with Bob + Belle. It was the first day we had been back on birds since Jozsi's trial on December 6th. And holy heck, it was like unleashing the beasts from hell. Not quite that bad, but Jozsi is certainly not intimidated by pheasants and any bird that thinks running is an option has misunderstood the odds of survival. He got three... all quick flash-points before the bird moved, and then it was all over. To be fair to Jozsi, he surprised one bird so completely that it flushed and flew straight into a tree breaking its own neck. It was the first time Bob had really seen Jozsi run up at TMT since the fall and he was floored. The boy eats up ground... but desperately needs to re-acquire his bird manners.

We had hoped to get up to see Jen, Dennis, and Sally today and tomorrow, but they have gnarly icy crust on the ground completely unsuitable for hard-running dogs. But they just have snow up at TMT and even though they are closed mid-week, we were able to use the grounds and a couple of chukar to train with. It's clear to me that Jozsi knows what he's supposed to be doing, but not being able to correct him forcefully in trials has made him a little too sure of himself. I decided to rig some tethers and lines so we could re-work the chukar we had. If I'd had the supplies and the ground wasn't frozen, I'd have prefered to use a proper 'pigeon pole' (ie. a 8-10ft pole instead of two tie-out stakes). The nice part about pigeon poles is that if you have enough low cover and enough line (I use 20-30ft of 30lb test fishing line), you simply slip some tresses on the bird, clip it on, and from that point on the bird is getting air-washed and less and less scented with you, the handler. Obviously, you only flush each bird two or three times before changing it out for another -- but depending what your end goal is you can then in theory place it back in its coop.

So, while I would have preferred to have had a second person so that we could have more easily gone through the progression from check-cord, to pinch-collar, and then the e-collar, I know that he knows what he's supposed to do and so felt fairly confident going directly back to his e-collar alone. The picture shows him doing exactly the right thing on the first bird; the second bird, though, he took one too many steps and it flushed. And although he stopped-to-flush, when I heeled him away and cast him off he went back around and chased it. Mr. Sparky called his name as he was about to grab the bird in his mouth. He then tried to grab bird #3 -- Mr. Sparky was now hollering his name. Bird #4 went great -- probably because a) he had somehow scented it from about 30ft and b) the line broke right at the stake and despite trailing 30ft of line, the chukar was out of there. Bird #5 was also good, despite the bird being a little tangled somewhere down the line and unable to really flush more than a few feet.

I then unclipped the one remaining bird and put out another fresh one to see if I could keep Momo steady-to-fall while I shot them. And he did great bringing it to hand, his entire body wiggling with excitement. He probably did so well on the first because it was slightly hidden from sight by a small hummock; the second bird literally popped its head out of cover as Momo was closing in on it and immediately flushed -- for which he stopped nicely. I thought I'd marked it down well, but after 10 mins of Momo fruitlessly dashing around I decided to call it a day. So while I was getting my gun case out and sorting stuff, I let both boys out together. Needless to say after a couple of minutes I saw Jozsi angling his way back down towards me and the truck clearly following scent -- and then I see the bird 6ft from me. Both dogs stop as I'm hollering 'whoa' -- and I go find my shotgun again. Both dogs held as I got the bird in the air and brought it down. Momo hadn't really had the opportunity to honor in this situation, but we do the drill enough times on our morning walk that he knows not to break when he's behind Jozsi. But Jozsi held his stance, despite having the additional distraction of having the bird drop 20yds away in plain view. After a scrappy start, he is starting look like a bird-dog again.

*******

In some ways the second half of this blog entry is a thank-you to a bunch of folks who made 2008 a great year for us and the dogs -- especially since we started trialing Mr. Enthusiasm.

The first segment, though, is an endorsement. I have been a loyal GunDogSupply customer for three years, but after seeing their sponsor banner at Strideaway, I clicked on the DogsUnlimited catalogue and was excited to see canine models and a selection of training books that were geared toward those of us who have something other than German Shorthairs, Pointers, Labradors, or English Setters. (Don't get me wrong, these are also awesome dogs... some of our best friends are GSPs and ESs.) The reason I still shop with GunDogSupply is that I know I can always speak directly to Steve Snell, the owner of Gun Dog Supply, and get his opinion; I know now that I can always get the same kind of informed opinion from Alan Davison at Dogs Unlimited. And so, while many of us lament the loss of customer service in corporate America, I'd encourage you to try either of these places.

Incidentally, while I think I may have seen the headline this spring, speaking to the folks at DogsUnlimited reminded me that approximately 230 people lost their jobs at New England Firearms (NEF) in Gardner, MA, this holiday season. NEF is the imprint of Harrington & Richardson who makes the 1871 starter pistol; H&R was owned by Marlin, which in turn was bought by Remington in December 2007, and was promptly put into mothballs pending "manufacturing consolidation." It's hard to imagine the dog training world without the H&R 1871 pistol -- and be aware that, for now, Remington is not shipping any new guns or spare parts to dealers.

In the meantime, here's a quick thank-you to some of the folks who've given their time and opinions freely as we've dived in to trialing: Kim Sampson at Upland Equations and Strideaway, Katrina Sullivan, Bill Felins, Bob Seelye, Joan Heimbach, Mike Spies at Living with Birddogs and Dale Hernden at LoBank. If something will ensure the long tradition of field trialing in the U.S., it's the kind of enthusiasm and encouragement you've shared with me and my two lunatics.

*******

For now, Jozsi will run one more Open Derby stake -- most likely in late February -- and will then spend however long getting absolutely steady, going from 'green-broke' to just plain 'broke'. He needs a lot more training time before we put him in an adult stake -- and there's no sense in letting him unlearn by putting him in Derby stakes for the heck of it.

We'll continue training with Momo, too, so that hopefully he can try out for MH in May.

big thoughts + a connection

Orc

Orkney-- orcs -- the school of sleeping whales,
To those who glimpsed it first,
Hills half-sunk in the sea.

This haiku is from a chapbook of Haiku for the Holy Places by the late, and fabulous, Orkney poet, George Mackay Brown, that I was given as a Christmas present. I honestly can't really say enough about GMB. He was one of very few authors who could write across genres, meaning that as beautiful as his poems are, his short-stories are arguably better. To my mind, his novels got better as he got older --perhaps because he'd learned how to pace himself from the delicate intensity of the poem to the short story and on to the novel. As a crossing place for languages, civilizations, religions, wars, and myths, Orkney was a powerful catalyst for his talent and imagination -- and a place that has become home to me. And I have always loved haiku -- I think it's the lyric efficiency of the genre, of a world in seventeen syllables. And bearing in mind its dedication to the natural world, I have always enjoyed my trips over to Hunting Haiku Daily.

Maybe it's because with winter here, folks are getting suitably reflective on their hunting seasons and on hunting in general. At the beginning of this month, Matt at Sometimes Far Afield put up a great piece on 'if hunting is not necessary to obtain food then why is hunting allowed?'; Holly at NorCal Cazadora also has a thoughtful piece on the paradox of hunting, on what feels like to have hunted successfully, and to have ended a beautiful life; and Mike at Living with Bird Dogs has a succinct observation or two about why reducing the experience of hunting to a numbers game is to do injustice to both the game you are hunting and to hunting itself. Hopefully this pic is as convincing an argument that 'hunting' is as much if not all about the relationship you have with your fierce, rugged hunting dog.

The most recent copy of Sporting Classics magazine (Jan/Feb 2009) arrived at work yesterday. I'll admit that Sporting Classics isn't my normal cup of tea -- too many ads for guns I'll never afford, to shoot at resorts or plantations that probably wouldn't let me run my own dogs, or shoot at game that makes a better rug than it does a sandwich -- but I came across Todd Tanner's 'Wild Heritage' column describing a three-day media event he attended this fall. The highlight of the column, though, was his being party to 'a reunion' -- of Rick Ridegway's reunion with hunting after 45years. Rick Ridgeway is, frankly, a man of mythic proportions in the mountaineering community -- after being the first to climb K2, arguably the world's most dangerous mountain, without supplemental oxygen in 1978. What clicked in my memory, though, was that Rick Ridgeway is the Vice President of Environmental Initiatives for leading outdoor clothing company, Patagonia, and one of the prime-movers behind their Freedom to Roam initiative to restore and maintain wildlife migration corridors.

I love Patagonia. I love their clothes and I love the majority of their politics. But as I became a hunter, I no longer saw myself in their catalogs... that might simply be because whatever chemicals are used to create 'Hunter's Orange' are in fact highly toxic and known to cause cancer in California (who knows!)... but it seemed as though the company had discretely filed away the fact that the reason its founder, Yvon Chouinard, had gone to high, rocky aeries as a teenager and become obsessed with scaling them was because he was first and foremost a falconer -- a hunter. I don't mean to imply deception on their part, just that for them to openly acknowledge the place of hunting in their corporate legacy is perhaps too messy.

Their stance seems like the inverse corollary to something Christina Larson in Washington Monthly wrote back in 2006 about 'an emerging environmental majority': "Americans like green, but they are less fond of greens. And that has been doubly true for outdoorsmen." To me, at least, Patagonia seemed to have forgotten that its environmental sensitivity had first and foremost stemmed from the attuned senses of a man who understood the majesty and beauty and tragedy that comes from a successful hunt, especially one that is the product of a relationship between man and a bird (or dog). And while they have embraced fishing, perhaps other kinds of hunting are simply too bloody or politically complicated.

Nevertheless seeing Rick Ridgeway in Sporting Classics (along with Bill Klyn, Patagonia's fishing marketing manager and coordinator of the World Trout Initiative) is, I hope, an omen for the kinds of productive alliance that Mike, Finspot, Labrat and Matt Mullenix and others discussed in the comments section of his original post. Importantly, though, Todd Tanner also captured Rick's contemplative moment at the end of the day as he held two of the sharp-tails that had been shot that day. (I apologize for the lengthy quote, but I haven't been able to find Tanner's column on-line.)

"On the one side of this peak there's pride and satisfaction and happiness -- all emotions we feel when we're successful in the field. On the other side, a full 180 degrees removed, is the sadness of taking a life, of killing an animal we share a deep connection with; an animal we both respect and admire. It's the contradiction of the hunt, and if we lose our balance, if we stray too far from the point where we can see both directions, we risk losing an important part of ourselves...

In any case, a handful of us had the distinct pleasure of watching a good man reconnect with the landscape, and with himself, on a beautiful Montana afternoon. It was a blessing, pure and simple."

Having said all that, however distant Patagonia has become from those of us who enjoy hunting, we would probably all still benefit from reading Yvon Chouinard's revolutionary essay in the very first Chouinard Equipment catalog from 1974. As he wrote: "Thus, it is the style of the climb, not the attainment of the summit, which is the measure of personal success. Traditionally stated, each of us must consider whether the end is more important than the means."

Our two red-dog ruffians enjoyed a Christmas dinner of grilled quail we hunted back in November. I think it made them antsy to chase birds again. Thanks, too, to Jen for sending on these two pics of their respective majesties.

musical highlights of 2008

The 'experts' at All Songs Considered have been compiling their own highlights of the year in music, while their listeners' poll has both confirmed many of their opinions in addition to adding a few other recommendations of their own.

In general, while I enjoy the opinions at All Songs Considered, I find a lot of the bands they love to be all rather samey. I haven't been a real alternative music addict since graduate school -- and regard one of my luckier moments of my previous life to book the Arcade Fire to play shortly before they went really huge and started touring with U2. And while I don't know that I necessarily adore their music, I do think that they had an original, interesting sound that it sounds to me like so many of the newer All Songs favorite bands aspire to. My biggest divergence of opinion with the folks at All Songs is that I really don't care for much of what Carrie Brownstein (formerly of the awesome Sleater-Kinney and now of the Monitor Mix blog) has nicely categorized as 'beard rock' -- music by sensitive, hirsute men featuring lavish mixes of ocarinas/acoustic guitars/concertina that they found in their grandparents' attic/a forest cabin/therapy (pick whichever combination works).

Nevertheless, inspired by listening to my All Songs Considered podcasts on my commute to work, I decided to make a shortlist of my own top-4.

Hail of Bullets, Of Frost and War. I think this is a great death metal album. It has a classic feel to it -- nice and chunky and doesn't rely on too many odd time-signature changes to keep it from feeling repetitious. I happen to think that Martin Van Drunen's vocals are perfect -- and it sounds as great as it does because it's produced by Dan Swanö (of Edge of Sanity and Bloodbath fame). Sort of Bolt Thrower meets Medal of Honor.

Kayhan Kalhor & Brooklyn Rider, Silent City. This one starts a little slow, but just picks up and picks up. Kayhan Kalhor is a virtuoso kemençe fiddle player who has already played with the likes of Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Project, helping audiences around the world unpack the threads of musical translation along the great trade route that united east and west. Brooklyn Rider is a string-quartet based in, surprisingly, Brooklyn dedicated to using "the rich medium of the string quartet as a vehicle for borderless communication." Unlike some fusion albums, this seems to let both parties actually remain distinct.

School of Seven Bells, Alpinisms. I believe this album may actually have been released in 2007, but I didn't find it till this fall. And it's my poll. You can check out several songs from the album at their MySpace page -- although I would say that neither of my favorite songs is here. I won't tell you what they are because the album is that complete -- it's not an album you rush to fiddle with your iPod scroll wheel to get to the tracks you prefer. And each tune has its own character without sounding like a pale imitation of its neighbors.

Portishead, Third. I'm surprised I like this as much as I do. Some of my other favorite albums -- like those from Scott Tuma or Amiina -- are great to listen to because they are a wonderful briccolage of sounds, some prominent, some submerged. While Portishead is often credited as one of the originators of trip-hop (and this album has the trademark qualities of electronically-induced ethereality), Third seems stripped down to the most basic elements with little clutter.

One of the All Songs critics (and I apologize for not remembering who) on one of my podcasts made the interesting observation that perhaps we were entering a different aural epoch, insofar as the boombox has been displaced by the iPod, speakers displaced by headphones, and the elaborate studio replaced by the digital home recorder. In that regard, the music too has become perhaps more intimate, more layered, and arguably cleaner.

If I'm feeling more Grinch-like, maybe I'll share my biggest music disappointments of 2008. In the meantime, have fun, stay warm, and love the ones you're with. Especially if they're red-dogs.

hallelujah... that's over... when does the spring season start?

I just wrote a post for Living with Bird-dogs reflecting on our first fall trialing season, but wanted to dedicate this post to my own Derby lunatic: Mr. Enthusiasm, Mr. 200mph. He is a possessed dog who I have been told by judges places as well as he does because he also handles really nicely. He's a dog that wants to work with you.

I figured that I'd enter him in both Amateur and Open Derby to see, as much as anything if a) he had the jets (YES), and b) if running the second stake would make him a little calmer (NO). His Amateur stake went out around 9:30am and he was off to the races. He had a total of three finds and a stop-to-flush – and was forgiven grabbing another running bird that the other dog chased in front of him. His final point was a thing of beauty – especially because the light was catching his fluorescent flash collar – and because we had to come through a small break of trees into a pine glade and there he was, standing tall, pointing a brushpile with a quail underneath. (This picture is from last Thursday; we had gone up to Flaherty to see if we could hunt a couple of extant quail for Momo and to try and do some training drills with Jozsi in the wide-open spaces.)

His second stake went out around 3:30pm – and he left us for dust. Again, he knows to come around and check-in, but maybe because the start of the Open course was the same as the Amateur course, he knew which direction he was headed in. He still patterned nicely across the main path, but he was off. He pulled up in his first point almost as soon as he turned into the main part of the course and I had to call the judge up just in time to witness the bird flush wild; within two minutes, he had pointed his second bird and stood miraculously still while a quail, literally, ran under his nose. He was looking calmer till… I collared and heeled him over to the other side of the course and turned him loose, literally on top of a quail I hadn't seen. He grabbed it, mouthed it a couple of times, but gave it up without bolting. But I knew I'd just probably given up the reins. He ran like a madman and found another bird in the same copse of pines that he'd found his final bird from the day before. He held almost perfectly, but marked the bird down and despite being cast off in a very different direction took a long, looping arc back around towards it, only to stop-to-flush it. I managed to get him away from it once more and sent him off into the hinterlands to hopefully (fruitlessly) search and not find any more birds to drive him crazier. It is a roller-coaster with him.

After reading a bunch of opinions, I had also been experimenting with how much to feed him, when, in what ratios, and settled on the following:

• on a single-stake day, and assuming he's running before lunchtime, I have been getting him out loose for 15-20mins to clear his intestines first thing in the morning and then feeding him a half-batch of food with a half-batch of Glycocharge;
• on this two-stake day, I did the same thing first thing in the morning, and then immediately after he'd finished his first stake fed him the same combination of solid food and Glycocharge again.

My rationale was to give him enough calories to run and not have to stop to poop the whole time he was running – and without the solid food mass that might give him stomach torsion, bloat, or anything exercise-related like that. (Over the last month or so, I have also been slowly increasing the amount of Glycocharge I've been giving him to minimize any digestion issues he might have from a new food source.)

And we came out well, all the same. He won Amateur Derby beating out 11 other dogs – and took second in Open Derby, which was an 11-dog stake. We've had a very fortunate fall of trialing: 2 Amateur Derby wins, one 2^nd and one 3^rd in two Open Derby stakes – and he ran beautifully but birdlessly in his first and only horseback stake.

*******

All of his successes are in no small part due to the 'silent partner' in his family -- my wife, Meg, who diligently takes both boys out to run first thing in the morning and is most often the one running them in the afternoons. Both boys stay in great shape because of all the exercise (and love) she gives them.

*******

He's my first dog that makes me not able to sleep because I'm thinking about how he runs and how he desperately wants to find birds. But as one of his judges from this weekend, Ken Kohles, told me, a fellow who actually judged him in both Amateur and Open Derby, he is also a dog "that wants to be broke." Ken judged him in two stakes in which, in my estimation, he ran much hotter and much bolder than he'd run before – in part because he now knows the game, knows when and how to test his independence, but nevertheless still keeps coming around to check in before his next search-and-locate mission. I am officially hooked. And Jozsi can't believe his luck.

good memories + good dogs

We took part in the CVVC Walking Field Trial today and while I will say more about Mr. Enthusiasm in a later post, I want to salute a few other good dogs. This was also the first trial the CVVC had held since Patrick Cooke's recent passing and so he kept floating in and out of people's conversation -- which seemed only appropriate. (And as Michelle of Broad Run Vizslas was keen to point out in the comments to last week's post, he was the kind of guy you only needed to meet once or twice to know where his heart lay.)

(I should also say that I've seen some of Michelle's dogs handled by Bob Seelye and they looked really nice.)

Dennis, Jen + Sally had decided to check out trialing as well and managed to get a last-minute entry in Amateur Gun Dog (AGD) -- and Kim of ForestKing Vizslas had also decided to enter Kyler in AGD as well, having (I believe) trialed her once before when she was much younger and before she started having litters. So, it was nice to see even more familiar folks down there and having fun with their dogs.

The first pic is from Sally's run -- and shows her first bird in flight while she stands proud for her dad. I may be wrong, but I think Sally ended up with four finds in her brace and handled beautifully for Dennis (as she does). She certainly did well enough to be one of the top-4 dogs called back for a retrieve. I didn't get to see her retrieve because I was getting Mr. 200mph ready for his afternoon run -- but from what I gather, a dog couldn't have done more. Her bird took four shots to be hit, landed on a section of frozen pond, Sally went through the ice getting the bird and then clambered back to deliver it to hand without batting an eyelid. And WON Amateur Gun Dog! As numerous folks said this evening at the awards dinner, it just takes that first blue ribbon to get you addicted.

"How much is that dualie (with two-horse, three-dog trailer in tow) in the window?"

Sally beat out some great dogs, including both Kyler and Joan Heimbach's Octane. The second pic is of him boogeying through the grass on the way to his third or fourth find. He is a big, strong-running dog with a sweet, sweet disposition. During the majority of the trial season, he is also normally handled by Bob Seelye -- but did a really nice job with Joan in the driving seat this time around. Octane ended up being called back and finished second; Joan also ran her Geena who took fourth).

If Jozsi settles down in the bird-field and works as definitively as Octane, I will be really really pleased. Which would be fitting seeing as Ocky and Jozsi share a common pairing on their mothers' side: CH Obertakt Downeast Jacky Blue JH and CH Sippican Upwind Gold Batea JH VC ROM.

Good ancestors should produce good dogs -- and being a 1/2 sibling to Jozsi, Kim's Kyler shares that pairing, too. I wanted to write about Kyler because while she did not get a call-back, I can't imagine that there was a huge gap between fourth and Kyler. Octane was clearly the better dog of their brace, but Kyler ran big, had two great finds (including a point she held for at least four or five minutes because the judges couldn't get their horses in close enough to see her bird-work), and... and... spontaneously honored Ocky when she came across him on-point on the edge of a tree line. Looks like all that SH training wasn't in vain! The picture is of Kim handling Kyler away after her first find. And I guess that's one way that trialing is different -- Kyler ran great and just got beat. But she ran great nonetheless. Nice job, K+K.

Two other things are worthy of mention: for those in the northeast interested in checking out a hunt test or field-trial, I would strongly recommend a CVVC event. They are generally at Flaherty Field (which works well for both kinds of events) and they are generally very well organized. I joined the CVVC because of the string of their events we went to and just felt welcome and never had to worry about what was going on where. Their Field Trial committee managed to successfully pull off running 60 dogs in 5 different stakes on two courses in 9 hrs of daylight. And organize a great dinner.

In a fitting tribute, Patrick Cooke's Yogurt won the Open Gun Dog stake. (After some research, it turns out that Yogurt also has Batea back in her line, but her mother Upwind Shake 'N' Bake also produced Jozsi's father, Rebel Rouser Smokey.) Patrick would have been proud -- of her and all the dogs that came to compete.