Tessa ran her first JH today. She didn't pass but we had so much fun!

After not much cooperation from her during training yesterday, I was sweating the "Trainability" score. The horses I thought we had down but today she started barking and growling at them prior to her run so that unsettled me a bit. Friends of mine told me that their dog's brace-mate had a big issue with the horses the day before.

I decided to walk along with the first brace to see how things worked and wow, those dogs were mighty close to the horses. The field was very overgrown, making it difficult to see the dogs at times. So I was getting a little more nervous, but still having fun...

Tessa was braced with Dexter, a 2-year old GSP who is really already at the SH level but is run through the JH anyway. He passed yesterday and today with pretty good scores.

So we walk down the trail on our way to the bird field. When we released the dogs they were off like two rockets. Within two minutes Tessa was sidetracked on the wrong trail and the judge asked me to call her back. I whistled and she came straight back at high speed, and ran right between the two horses, straight as an arrow, completely unphased. After that I felt so much better! She did eat an awful lot of horse shit though!

When we arrived at the bird field I just prayed for a point. I walked, she ran, and sometimes I ran too to keep up with what she was doing; she knew where birds had been, at that point the judge suggested to take her somewhere else, these were old bird sites, so I did, and Tessa came along without any fuss. Close to the end there was a semi point, I could hear the birds chirping in the briars, and she worked all around them, but never went on a convincing point. I thought she may have, and when the birds flushed, I fired my shot. Hey, at least I got to fire! Then the judge said "15 more seconds"... oh my...hunt 'em up Tessa ...taking her the direction the quail had flown but nope - time up.

Her score was 8 (hunting ability) 6 (bird finding ability) 4 (pointing) and 7 (trainability).

That was at 2 p.m. At 5 p.m. after the last brace, there was the free for all, and whoever was still there headed for the bird field. Not two minutes into it she pointed, and pointed, and pointed. Oh well!

I would have loved to bring some orange home tonight but I am actually okay with how it went, she was so much fun to watch, and they all said, the hunting ability was there and that's something you can't train into a dog. I don't know all the scores from today but I overheard a few other fails.

We have November 14/15 coming up next (on pigeons though), November 21/22 and December 4/5.

Here are some photos of today. The grounds (central Georgia) btw were absolutely stunning! Just beautiful.

Tessa' brace-mate Dexter:

The bird field:

Tessa holding a point, after the test:

Two pointers

Welcome GSPoindexter!  Sounds like you guys had a great hunt test too.

pixie -  I have to disagree with the statement "Taking a dog to a test is the same as taking an 8 year old to the amusement park with 5 of their friends."  When I take a kid to the park whether it is an amusement park or any other park there is no preparation or work involved other than get dressed and ready to go.  With a HT folks invest hours of work with their dogs on obedience, hunting skills, attention and focus, etc. If a handler is serious about the tests they and their dogs invest lots of time and resources in preparation even for JH, and more especially for SH and MH.  You can also tell when that time is invested and it shows whether or not a dog qualifies on that particular day or not.  There are allot of variables in qualifying besides the dog and handler.  Allot also depends on the weather, the cover or lack of, the location of the test, skills of the bird planter, somtimes even your bracemate,  and of course the birds.  I am lucky as I belong to a club who has a nicely developed grounds for hunt tests and field trials.  They also have very experienced folks running the tests and a bird planter that is very good.  We also have access to good birds  who fly pretty well unless it is really raining and wet.  Most of our participants participate in Hunt Tests, Field Trials, NAVDHA events  and hunt all over the country with their dogs.  The dogs are very high caliber all breed pointing dogs.  Our hunt tests, and I would wager to say the hunt test that Chris and Dagmar attended, are run in a very well organized professional manner. Many hours go into prepping for a hunt test and the weekend of the test the committee members invest lots of extra time in making the hunt test successful.   I do not know where you have participated in Hunt Tests, but if they are as you say I think I would not go back to them. 

No it is absolutely not like taking a kid to the amusement park and IMHO it belittles the people and dogs who participate in hunt tests to state that.

As for the statement "A good dose of luck is required"  I can agree with that as I mentioned earlier all the variables that are out of our control, but can make a dog and handler successful or not. Of course we can argue that luck goes into everything we do, but hard work will also pay off in the end as well. 

I also agree that a dog will get smarter and will be better prepared if they continue to work and mature, that in my opinion equates to training.  Same for the handler which is why I like to see folks  enter HT.  It is a great opportunity to get a dog on birds and practice, you make connections in your area that lead to other training opportunities. 

Maybe I misinterpretted your first statement, but it hit a bit of a raw nerve with me as I work hard to train my dogs for all performance venues I compete in and I like to think that hard work pays off in success and nice scores.  It helps too that I have great dogs (and yes, I am prejudice).

I now have a much clearer idea of a hunting test and my first observation (well, after seeing how damn close the horses were to the dogs) was that while it is more fun than I thought it's not really THAT easy even at the JH level. A lot of people made it sound like you just run the dog and it will do its thing. Much more goes into it. And while I agree that JH is most basic and does not require much "work" it does require some work. I spent hours upon hours (all added up over the past year) on her recall, and always worked on turning her, and tried to provide her with the best exposure (and that took some commitment at times) and that at least paid off yesterday. The pointing and bird finding may be part immaturity and most definitely inexperience as it is my bad that she has not been on many birds. It's not that you can have a pointing breed and decide to run it and it all magically happens for the dog with high scores. Now, I believe there are dogs that can do it without much or any preparation. Tessa is not one of those (and I am fine with that).

And yes, there are so many variables, too many to mention, that can make or break the test on a particular day or in a particular brace. That's what gives this some spice.

Watching the MH and SH - oh my. THAT requires work. The UT - even more. German hunting tests - even even more. Etc.

In the end, it gets people involved and active with their dogs in an area that is totally enjoyable for the dog. That's my main objective. I don't think Tessa gives two hoots about something orange hanging from the wall, but I know she loves every minute in the field wherever that may be and whether or not someone scribbles something on a scorecard when she leaves the field.

I therefore have to agree with Bev on this, but also want to add that I have the greatest respect for what Francine does and the levels she trains for.