Herding Ducks

3 for 4. Not too shabby for a pushy little jackass...

Porter & I entered the CKHGC club's inaugural duck trial over the weekend. It was a 3 day trial, with AKC in the morning and AHBA in the afternoon, so dogs had the opportunity to actually run 4 times each day.

Although Porter rarely practices on ducks, I couldn't pass this up  :) I thought it would be a good training opportunity for both of us to work on our trial stress & issues.

And we did pretty darn good. Not just with being able to qualify, but I never did feel like puking  :)  I didn't cry. I kept my nerves well under control, even when I realized that an HTD duck course sure looks an awful lot like B course! There were no fences & just wide expanses of tall grass around the perimeter... I was well aware of the possibility of Porter pushing those ducks straight out into the wild green yonder & having his own little slaughter...

But we conquered it. Twice! Which earned him his HTDd I title!

We also did one run of AKC A course, looking for that last leg... Didn't happen. But he really did a nice job once we got the ducks out of the corner on the outrun & chose to forego the fetch to the cone. He just drove those duckies right around the course! I got a "nice recovery - good choice to go on" in my comment section. I always get a lot of compliments on knowing when to quit  :)

Here is a video of Porter running HTDd on Friday. I also filmed on Saturday, but ended up with almost 2 hours of the inside of my jacket pocket & then the back of the lens cap...

Sorry about the terrible YouTube music... I had to cover up the wind noise.

I also had the usual great comment son my score sheets. I love that! 

If only I had a nickel for every time they commented on how pushy he was... Or maybe a Q instead of a nickel  :)

And when I first looked at this sheet, I was a little taken aback. I mean, I thought our Z chute was pretty darn good! LOL?

But it's actually "1 OL"  (1 point for off-line)