Thursday 4 August 2011

Vizsla Working Test

Entered our second working test on Sunday. Feeling a little more confident we drove to Oxford and met some familiar faces :)

First up hunting - nice open ground. Chester's preference over a wooded area. He ran out a little too far to start to missed some of the ground but then quartered well. Judge asked for a recall but I put in a stop and then called him as this is the usual way we stop hunting. No comments from the judge (I don't think she said anything to anyone!) so would be interested to see the scores.

Seen retrieve - the overall opinion was that this was a long distance for a puppy and some dogs might not make it. No concerns there for Chester but he didn't mark it particularly well. Was about 1m off, spotted it and came running back. Ran straight past me and dropped it. doh!

Memory retrieve - walk out to marker on heel, leave dog, walk to next marker and place dummy, walk back past dog to original position, recall dog then send for dummy. I knew straight away I had never called Chester from a dummy so he was likely to go back but not too much I could do about that. As predicted, lovely heel work and a wait but on my recall he looked a little confused but went back for the dummy. Then it all went wrong and he ran round in circle with the dummy. Very very naughty!! The judge was not impressed and neither was I.

At this point thought I might go home but attempted the water after lunch.

Water retrieve - short distance, thrown by the judge. It was a hot day so Chester went in to cool down then ate some weeds. I gave him the command to 'get on' which he actually understood (!) and swam out to the dummy. Bought it almost all the way back but dropped it in the shallows. Not brilliant but at least it wasn't terrible!

Feeling very sorry for ourselves and our embarassment at the test we made up for it slightly and got a confirmation test done of which the comments were really nice:

'Super young male of 15 months. Quality head piece and chiselled. Super expression, eyes need to darken - quality bone and feet. Good lay of shoulders, strong ribs adequate quarter at this stage. Good tail set, needs to relax in top line. Good coat texture, moved ok, just needs time to fulfil his potential.' Graded: Very Good

What a shame I don't actually plan to show him!

Having decided we shall never enter another working test a friend persuaded me to enter another in a couple of weeks as she really wants to enter the Special Beginner class.

No idea how it's going to go. I'll do my usual training before then but I think I'll be even more nervous this time!

Got my scores back from the first test we did and they aren't terrible (for a beginner!!)

Hunting 29 (highest ws 34)
Water 7 ... oh dear
Seen retrieve 5 ..... oh dear again
Memory retrieve - 20 YEY full marks

I think consistency is the key and we're certainly not there yet!

Onwards and upwards!

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