FC/AFC Snips Sixth-Sens Wyatt MH 2012
What An AMAZING Year!
Well 2012 has come to an end and it's sure been a wonderful and crazy ride. Bruce Shaffer campaigned Wyatt for me pretty hard this year with the goal set out to finish his Field Championship. The trial season started in Jan at Sandhills Pointing Breeds Club in NC with Wyatt taking a 2nd in OLGD. From there he traveled up and down the coast from NC to CT and from NJ to OH consistently placing in "broke dog" stakes on nearly every Trial ground he stopped at. Wyatt finished his FC earning a 1st place on Memorial Day weekend in AGD, at the Oak Ridge Pointing Dog Club trial in Polk, PA and myself handling to carry over that "ONE LAST RETRIEVING" point. He had enough points to finish before that but that last retrieving point haunted us for a few trials. Of course, the following weekend he would come back and again win a 3 point Major retrieving stake with Bruce at the helm!
Wyatt also made an appearance at the 2012 GSPCA NAGDC In May, performing a very respectable run in the first series, to advance on to the second series among the final 10 that earned the opportunity. Unfortunately, in pouring down rain he had a Chukar flush up in front of his face and he couldn't hold back that "puppy like" temptation to try to make a grab for it. Seeming to know he had screwed up, he regretfully came over to me and stood at heel as if apologizing for what he had done. Needless to say I was still extremely proud of him to have made the cut against such quality GSP’s.
We took the summer off and evaluated and strategized plans for the Fall season. Come August we found that Wyatt was ranked in the top 5 GSP’s in OGD in both AKC and GSPCA stats. With this knowledge, we decided to go ahead starting the Fall season and make a run at that #1 spot, while starting to work on his AFC. As the Fall pressed on, Wyatt continued to make consistent runs placing in many OGD/OLGD and AGD/ALGD events adding to his ranking and adding to his AFC points.
At the conclusion of 2012 Wyatt fell short of his AFC by 1 point but accumulated many other impressive statistics. With 27 placements, under 45 different Judges that placed him, Wyatt finished up the year ranked #1 Open Gun Dog in GSPCA with 106 points and #1 GSP Gun Dog in AKC with 154 dogs defeated. He finished up OLGD ranked #7 in GSPCA with 52 points and #6 GSP Open Limited Gun Dog in AKC with 88 dogs defeated. An added surprise was that in the few Trials I was able to attend and run him myself, I was able to get him ranked #8 with 60 points in Amateur Gun Dog in GSPCA and #6 GSP Amateur Gun Dog in AKC with 95 dogs defeated. One final surprise that was unnoticed by us till nearly the end of Dec., was his ranking in "AKC All Breed", where Wyatt finished up as the #9 Gun Dog in the country against all Pointing Breeds.
I have to give many thanks to all the clubs that sponsor and organize all the Trials. It's an enormous amount of work from all the club members to pull an event off. A special thanks goes to all club Secretaries for all of their hard work. Without these folks, none of this would have been possible.
Thank you to all of the Judges that dedicate their time to this sport. With the high caliber of dogs running out there, their job is not easy deciding on what dog should wear the blue any given day.
Thanks to Brenda Roe and Rick Hopkins of Walnut Hill Kennels for her Quality breeding program and allowing me to purchase such a fine dog. Rick and Brenda have been there from the beginning as well as cheering us on.
Big thanks to Bruce Shaffer for all of his dedication training and handling Wyatt. He trained Wyatt since he was a pup, turning him into the dog he is today. Even harder than training Wyatt, Bruce also trained me. When I started this journey I didn't even know what a field trial was and now I'm handling one of the best dogs out there.
And last but not least, the biggest thank you goes to my wife Lisa and my kids for all the sacrifices that they have made along the way. Lisa has had to juggle the kids to babysitters, as well as having to work on many of the weekends that I was traveling, to get this all done. Lisa is very patient and tolerant of this passion that I have. Without her sacrifices none of this would have been possible.
As I stated in the beginning, it's been a Wonderful and crazy ride. Now it’s time to hunt!
PS. This past weekend at the Old Dominion Vizsla trial in Caret, VA; Wyatt placed 2nd earning him his 10th point to finish his AFC. What a way to start the New Year in
2013!
2012
27 placements
1st - 10X
2nd - 6X
3rd - 8X
4th - 3X
45 different judges
#1 OGD GSPCA
#1 OGD AKC “dogs defeated” GSP
#7 OLGD GSPCA
#6 OLGD AKC “dogs defeated” GSP
#8 AGD GSPCA
#6 AGD AKC “dogs defeated” GSP
#9 AKC All Breed Gun Dog
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