LABS4ME, come out come out where ever you are!

[duckbuster]

Hey LABS, I can't find your e-mail address so I'm sorry to be calling you out on the forum.

I wanted to let you know how my yellow is doing down in Florida this winter.

They ran their 1st trail last weekend at the North Florida trial grounds. Very big entry, 99 dog limited open, 59 dog Q and a 31 dog derby. I'm not sure what they had in the amateur.

This was her 1st Q and she finished her 1st trial. She ended up getting 4th. The last series was a triple with a retired gun down the middle and a very long memory bird. He had 1 cast on the retired bird then she stepped on the long bird. He feels that she might have squeaked out a win but certainly a 2nd if she would have been clean on the retired gun.

Now get this one, the winner of the Q was the 2003 Canadian National, Carronades O'Reilly Factor. Because the open was a limited she wasn't qualified so she had to run the Q 1st. Wouldn't you think if you won a national in any country you would automatically be QAA in the states?

They will be running again on Easter weekend in Jacksonville. He thinks he will get her QAA before they come home the end of April. Cross your fingers!!!

I will keep you posted on her progress.

Later,

Duckbuster

[LABS4ME]

D.B. That is AWESOME! I hope you get the good word over the next couple weeks. Sounds like she has really made great progress over the winter... After the QAA, the fun really begins! You gonna run any amatuer stuff or all open? When you get a chance send a pic with her ribbon once she gets her QAA!

Dave talked to Greg last week and he is really pumped about getting Trace entered in some trials. I think he leaves to start coming home around April 1st. He plans on hitting 3 on the way home. I guess Trace has made good headway to this winter. He sees a definite improvement in her weaknesses she had last year. I know Dave is pretty excited to see the results.

Who are you using for training again? I know you told me once but I forgot. I may (still a BIG may) have a new pup before the end of the year. Strongly considering Greg, but am looking at others.

I know what you are saying about the canadian dogs coming done "titled" and running the quals. I seen the same thing once before when my friend ran his dog... Ran very strong still think he should have gotten a second (so does everyone else) but the 1st place winner was a titled canadian dog that was going to be campaigned here. That left second up in the air between his dog and one run by a very well known handler....... well guess who got the second place nod? You don't hear a lot of moaning in the QAA galleries, but there was some that day. I still to this day think that Drake ran a cleaner trial than the other dog, but sometimes it shows it helps to be well known.

Keep in touch... my e-mail is ken @ wincolandscape dot com

Good Luck!

Ken

[duckbuster]

Hi LABS, how was the fishing this weekend? Did you freeze your a#@?

Well I wanted to let you know that my yellow got it done this weekend in Princeton. She is now a QAA dog by winning the Qualifying. She ran a great trial.

Shoot me your e-mail & I will get into it more with you.

Thanks,

Duckbuster

[duckbuster]

SORRY, The moron that I am I didn't notice your e-mail address on your last post.

[LABS4ME]

D.B., got your e-mail... That is great! I'm glad to hear she is really shining! My buddy's dog is going the other way right now... He is committed to work on her through the end of the summer. You show that perserverence and determination will come through. I hope others take note... this is a dog that was on the bubble last year on whether to proceed with continued training or not, and Wade still saw something in his dog. He was committed to going through one more winter of training and a summer of trials, and he achieved his goals. We can all use this as a little lesson to stick with our goals and training regimens to bring our dogs along to the level you expect of them, from a started retriever all the way through a finished dog able to mark multiple birds and crisply and quickly handle to cripples and blind retrieves.... I hope D.B. doesn't mind that I'm copying over his e-mail that he sent me... I hope everyone who owns a hunting dog feels this same pride when they achieve whatever level of accomplishment they desire of their dog... It also shows what these dogs can achieve with solid training. Even if you never run a "formal" trial or test, you will not regret getting your dog trained to this level of work. It makes hunting with them a true pleasure.

Wades e-mail...

"Hi Ken: I can't tell you how proud and excited I was Saturday of our little female. Man she ran a great trial!!

They started with 34 dogs in the Q she was number 27. They started with a triple and had the flyer shot out of order, shooting it 2nd and as the long memory bird. This screwed up a lot of dogs because they wanted that flyer in the worst way. Our dog ended up running second to the last dog and she just stepped on all 3 birds. In fact she was the only dog to get an applause. They brought back 17 dogs for the blind.

The 2nd series was the land blind. She had a one, safety whistle, blind.

The 3rd series was the water blind which was kind of difficult. You had to catch just a sliver of the 1st part of water but if you got in to early you were fighting an up hill battle. The wind really started to blow and this was the problem if you got in early, you now had to try and cast them into a very strong wind. She ended up having a tight 5 whistle water blind. They now brought back 9 dogs for the water marks.

The 4th series was a water triple shot from left to right with an honor. Sending the dog for the middle bird 2nd seem to be the down fall for most dogs. When you went to pick up the left bird last they all wanted to suck right back to that middle bird. Steve took the left bird 2nd then drove them down the middle for the long middle bird. Only 3 dogs did the test without handling, of those 3 only one dog did not hook the long middle gun. That one dog turned out to be ours.

This might sound corny but I can't tell you how proud I was of her. After the summer we had with her last year not finishing one of the 15 derbies she ran, this is a wonderful feeling to have. Some of the people we train with questioned me about sending her south again this past winter. I just kept saying I wanted to give her at least 2 winter's on the truck and give her the best chance for success. She really did mature over the past several month's.

She is do to come into season here on the 22nd of the month so I took her off the truck and she will be home with us the rest of the summer.

Thanks for listening!! It's great to have someone to talk to about dog trials and dogs in general.

Wade Duckbuster"

Good Luck!

Ken