Fallowfen’s annual fun day – working test!
On 11th May we had our annual fun day come working test.
This day is to give handlers an opportunity to work towards something with their dogs and to test both the handlers and dogs ability in test conditions.
We started the day at 11 o’clock when i was joined by our 2 judges John Hilton and Barney Hall. John being a spaniel man and Barney a Labrador man so thought this would be a good combination. I choose John and Barney for 2 main reason’s they both work their own dogs to a good level picking up all season but more importantly I knew they would be fair on each handler without being to harsh in there scoring.
I set the tesst earlier in the week. The tests consisted of 4 individual test.
Test 1 was a timed memory retrieve between two sets of straw bales. I done this test first to settle the handlers down and to give the dogs a chance to have a quick burst run to get rid of any edge or tension they were picking up off there handlers.
Test 2 was a marked retrieve followed by a blind retrieve. Puppies which were dogs under 18 months of age were allowed to pick these in which ever order however the adults had to watch the marked retrieve then retrieve the blind retrieve first.
Test 3 was a double mark once again the puppies which were dogs under 18 months of age were allowed to pick these in which ever order however the adults had to watch both marked retrieve’s then pick the dummy which was thrown first.
Test 4 was a marked retrieve followed by a distraction, which was a bolting rabbit! Which is a dummy on a piece of elastic. The puppies then had to leave the distraction and pick the marked dummy. Once a gain a little harder for the adult, there were to marked retrieves then the bolting rabbit. The handler then had to send their dog past the distraction ant the first dummy to retrieve the dummy behind the first two distractions.
Both handlers and dogs had an eventful day whilst trying to avoid the rain, but when the sun did show up it made the day more pleasurable.
After all four tests were complete we stopped for lunch.
Whilst everybody enjoyed the hog roast i added up the score’s and made our cut for the final.
5 adults made the cut for the Adult final and 3 puppies made the cut for the puppy final.
The test we set for the adults was a blind retrieve over a jump followed by a duck call then a marked retrieve from the dummy launcher. Then duck call and marked retrieve came first then the handler set there dogs up to retrieve the blind retrieve from the jump first.
The puppy test was very similar, we didn’t use any shot due to the age of the dogs so they had a thrown dummy and a blind retrieve over a jump.
We had 25 entries 15 adults and 10 puppies.
3 golden retrievers
1 Cocker spaniel
1 Nova Scotia duck tolling retriever.
5 English springer spaniels
and 15 Labradors.
Results.
Adults.
1st Ella with her black Labrador Gin
2nd Paul with his golden retriever Seth
3rd “T” with her black Labrador Lillie.
Puppies.
1st Kieran with his English springer spaniel Arwen.
2nd Mark with his black Labrador Jetta
3rd Robert with his yellow Labrador Miester
Fastest retrieve also went to “T” with her black Labrador Lillie with a winning time of 14.13 seconds.
Steadiest dog also went to Ella with her black Labrador Gin.
Top handler went to Natalie with her black Labrador Floss.
I just want to thank everyone for there hard work in setting up the day and all the donations for the raffle and desserts.
Thank you to quest gundogs for donating raffles prizes for our dogs for the disabled raffle.
