Self image

Well, the weekend went pretty badly - other than Teaz doing decently at NCCCRC's obedience trial on Friday, and me not having any problems driving up there and back, it was rather awful.  Proxy flunked both Open B and Utility, Dodger passed both but with low scores due to uninspired work and got his first GO leg the same way.

Then the hunt test.  In Master, Dodger had to be double handled on a fairly easy land triple, partially due to bad luck and partially due to a mistake I made.  In Senior, Proxy refused to go on the land blind, maybe because of pressure last week in training except it looked more like she flat didn't know what she was supposed to do.  I may have also rushed her on the line as well, I don't know because at that point I was simply exhausted.

Sooo, it's probably time for me to reassess whether or not I can continue to do advanced field training.  We worked hard these past weeks getting ready for this test and both dogs went out in the first series. That hurt, a lot; actually, it still hurts a lot.  For decades a big part of my self image has been me as one of the top field trainers of Curlies in the country, which doesn't mean much really but still, it was there.  Now?  Looks like I'm going to have to give up a big chunk of who I am.

I know that there will be those who will say that I shouldn't make decisions based on how the dogs acted when I was so tired, but the fact is I was pretty beat up even before we left for Dixon on Friday morning.  We'd been out to Prado three times that week, Tuesday thru Thursday and even tho it was only for 2 - 4 hours each time, it really took it's toll.  I had already dropped working Teaz in Junior since she wasn't entered in this test, now I am going to try making Proxy the priority instead of Dodger (since it doesn't look like I'll be able to get him back up to speed in Master in the time he has left) and see if that works.  I guess if I really wanted to hold onto field work, I'd drop training for obedience and agility as well, but I have always been a multi-event trainer, so I guess I'm even more invested in that than field work.

So, we'll see.  It's a bitch being old and broken at only 54.  I'm going to go take a nap.

Fauna we don't like...

...at Prado.  As I was setting up a water triple with double blind at Fred's for Dodger to run, Helena motored up in the golf cart and told me that a rattlesnake had bitten one of her workers, who fortunately was wearing boots so the fangs didn't go thru.  They'd tried to get it, but it got away into the heavy bushes on the other side of the water.  Right near where I'd set the line to run from of course.

This isn't the snake in question, it's one I saw while looking at wildflowers in one of the county parks a couple of years ago, but it is most likely the same species.  I went ahead and ran that setup, but for Proxy I put the line on the other side of the pond!  Hopefully they will find and dispatch the bugger before the hunt test this weekend.

Later we went to the front field to run some marks and blinds there, and OMG the flies are getting insane.  They know that winter (such as it is here) is coming, so they are going crazy trying to do something - I suppose lay eggs that are going to winter over or something.  I was twitching and swatting the whole time I was there.

 

Let us in let us in!!!

And just as I was picking up the winger after we were done, here come four Pointers from waaaaaay down the other end of the field, right thru where one of my marks and one blind had been.  Ya know, I like Pointers, Leslie has cool ones and I may have one some day.  But the people who train them for field work at Prado have got to be some of the most clueless folk and these ones were no different.  They let all these dogs out of their truck, maybe 400-500 yards away and then just ignored them while they ran amok.  They were very lucky that I was done before that happened!

I guess I shouldn't have been surprised - when this guy drove in the front gate, he was going way too fast and almost spread himself all over the front of a semi that was taking silage out.

Field training in southern California

The last AKC hunt test of the year is in a week and a half, so I've been out to Prado several times recently, to see if it is at all possible to get a leg!  ;-)  Noticed that the crawdads at the T pond are acting weird...

 

For some reason, before they come out on land, they wave their claws around above the surface of the water.  Dunno what it's for!

 

A couple of them waving their claws and one on the shore.

Not much for flowers this time of year, except for these big yellow ones which are all over.  These are at Gordy's in one of the very few surviving clumps of cattails (the trialers don't like having any cover in the way of their marks).

Dusk at the T pond!

One of those great weekends

The mutts and I went up to the Sacramento area for the three Sacramento DTC trials and the two Donner Trial KC shows, all held at the fairgrounds in Roseville.  Saturday were two trials and Proxy's debut at working on OTCh points.  In the a.m. trial, she was Second in Utility for 4 points and in the afternoon trial she won Utility for a nice 10 points!  She wasn't entered in Open as I thought she wasn't quite comfortable enough in the ring yet... ;-)  Well, she did manage to flunk the signals on Sunday!

On the conformation side of it, on Saturday Teaz won the point and on Sunday Proxy won it.  Unfortunately, both days we were trying to put the point on Brisa, sigh.