Autumn’s grade 3 and first season
Just a quick update on progress with Autumn, from September until November we trained towards the Grade 3 gundog test, this next grade was a little more difficult, it introduced the stop whistle whilst hunting, previously only used stop whistle on set piece, it required the handler to stop the dog twice on the whistle whilst hunting and dummies went down.
It also covers the normal heel work, this time off lead and following a pattern, no longer in a straight line, longer sit stay – which has always been a little harder for Autumn, she likes to be where I am all the time J and lastly retrieve over a hurdle like a tree of hill where the dummy cannot be seen.
This level of training was harder than anything we had done before but I was much calmer than I thought I would be, we had also had a few weeks working on a shoot before the test, so were able to put some of the theory into practice, on the day of the test, Autumn worked perfectly, she did not run in on any dummies, hunted lovely and even walked to heel (well as to heel as Spanners do!!)
The outcome was that we got Distinction at Grade 3, levelling her 3 and half year old brother, which was fantastic, during the training the hardest part was the stop whistle when a dummy went down, she would stop on the whistle but if a dummy went, she wanted to collect it, this is still an area to work on.
This season we were working on 2 shoots, both were welcoming family type shoots, different types of terrain and exposure to birds and the guns, during the season we have had both highlights and lowlights, which is only to be expected over the season, however underneath the lowlights, the potential of Autumn and her ability is clear to see, just now for me to channel this further working towards next season.
Highlights were picking up of her first birds and bringing to hand, flushing the number birds she did, even on the end of her nose, her work rate is huge, one concern as a thinner trialling dog is stamina, she definitely has that in abundance and lastly making everyone in the shoot room laugh as she falls asleep stood up at lunch because the floor is too dirty for a princess like her
I am really looking forward to a summer of training, moving forwards to picking up instead of beating as I think this is Autumn’s natural ability and next season having her out working 2 or more shoots.
