Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Here's description of the Master Test.

First series (land).  Triple, with two blinds.

First bird - from left, thrown left to right
Second bird - center, thrown left to right
Third bird - flyer, from right, thrown right to left.

I set up Argus on right side.  I was not worried about him breaking on flyer.

Got up, had a no bird on the second bird, so went back three.

Got up again.  Set up Argus on right.  He saw all birds go down.  Helped him mark with gun and he moved well with me.

He took birds up in order, flyer, center, left.

Two blinds - first one we took was bascially up the middle, to the right of the center bird and further back.  I set him up on the left since he takes direction better from that side.  (Buck would have had him on right to help steer away from suction of center bird).

Argus took a good initial line.  A little right of the bird.  He responded to a couple of whistles, casts to left.  Got bird.

Second blind was just to right of the left bird and deeper.  He took a good line to it.  One whistle and recast.  Got bird.

Second series (water).  Triple with one blind.

At the big technical pond on property.

First bird - from left, thrown left to right.  Behind little spit of land, landed in water, but the wind blew it right to left onto the shore.

Second bird, straight away, thrown right to left up on land.

Third bird - right.  Thrown right to left into the middle of pond.

Argus got go bird.
We lined up for middle bird, but he started out, but the wind took him to the left, so he selected the first bird.  Let him roll.  He got up on land, continued into water and got bird, came back on nice line.
Lined up for middle bird again, tried to get him a little to the right due to the wind.  Argus had good line, and worked to swim against wind.  He got up on land about five feet to the left, easily got bird, good line back.

Lined up for the blind that was in a channel up on land to the right of the go bird.  He took good line, drifted left.  Whistle stop and since he turns to the right, he got in a good line.  Back right and he took it.  Drifted again to the left.  Back right - great line back and got bird.

Third series - Land/water - stick pond.

First bird in water - right to left.
Second bird on land - left to right.  From left trees.

Argus got both easily with a little hunt on the land bird.

Overall no handles on any marks.  Great lines on all blinds and handled well in water.  Couldn't have asked for anything better.

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Poodle Club of America - 2015 - All Passes

Argus passed all the events we entered this past weekend at PCA.

Upland WCX
Master Hunter
WC
WCX



Sunday, March 29, 2015

Argus in HCC

Had Argus clipped into his HCC two weeks ago.   Tired of combing him out.




He is looking great.

Pick up duty at Markover

Did pickup duty at Markover on Saturday.  All pigeons - which Argus does not like.  He would spit out when he got back to me.  So, did a little forcing on hold- much better. 

Actually, it was good that it was not a mixed bag (pheasants and pigeons) as Argus could not choose.  When we have done mixed bag before, Argus would select pheasants and ignore pigeons.  This time, he couldn't do that.



It was snowing out, nothing accumulated, but it did get Argus wet.  He was shivering by the end of the morning session.  I put on his camo vest for afternoon - much happier.

Water still frozen around here, so no opportunity to do water work.  We'll just have to see how PCA goes.

Sunday, January 25, 2015

Training at Baker Ave

Snowed yesterday so went over to Baker Ave to see if we could do some work on the asphalt.

It was too icy, so did some blinds in the snow in the small field.  Argus did really well, but wasn't sure if he was following our footprints.

Here's pic of the yeti.


Monday, January 12, 2015

Addieville in snow

Great day at Addieville.

14 birds - 7 chukars and 7 huns.  We found all but one.

Heavy cover - with birds hiding deep in grasses - not flushing - holding tight.  Argus had a couple of traps.

Did some hunt'em up training.  Overall great day in the field.




Monday, December 15, 2014

Pickup duty at Markover

Here's a couple of photos from pickup duty at Markover.  We did one early this year.  Always a lot of fun.

Markover

A rainy day, but still a lot of fun.  Had about 50 retrieves throughout the day.

He still does not like to pick up pigeons, but did better.