Last Updated Thursday, August 20, 2009
Saturday,
August 1: Made it to Baldwinsville late this afternoon, after taking the scenic route through Skaneateles. Tried to find our favorite french bakery, but alas, no luck. Checked into the Comfort Inn, and found that getting the suite was the way to go - much larger than the microtel, with two bathrooms. And for only $69 per night - such a deal. Then we tooled around Baldwinsville a bit, including listening to a fairly dreadful Guns 'N Roses tribute band along the canal, and took the boys up to the gamelands for a little exercise. The Goon found a particularly disgusting mud hole when our backs were turned, so we had to go back to the Guns 'N Roses tribute band and dunk him into the canal, since the ponds at the gamelands were closed off, at least the ones I know about. Meeting Trish and the Old Dominon folks tomorrow around 8 up in Mexico to train.
The Goon basks in the glory of his mud roll, while Nils and Brian work out some issues of their own
Monday,
August 3: Just to mention Sunday first, it pretty much rained a ton all morning. The Old Dominon crew decided to bag training, but fools that we are, Vik and I and the boys slogged up to Carol's place and ran blinds in the pouring rain for three hours. Not straight through, mind you, as we took breaks to play with the puppy, give the older dogs a rest, etc., but we kept thinking the rain was going to let up any moment and so didn't leave. Hopefully the goon got his stupids out of the way early.
Today (Monday) was a much more productive day. I met Tom Rourke at the HQ hotel and picked up a few ducks, and then drove up north to meet Trish and the Silverbrook crew to train. It was my first real experience training with a pro, and I found it not unlike a Northern Piedmont training session - standing out in the hot sun for 8 hours and getting to run two series with my dog. Although today it was actually the same series twice. (and the blind three times). Without going into details, suffice it to say that the goon had plenty of the stupids to carry over for another day.
Had dinner with Harry and Nora in Baldwinsville, and while I had hoped my blatent attempt at graft and corruption (paying for their dinner) would work in our favor later in the week, I fear it will not. When I mentioned to Harry that I hoped he would factor the dinner into the score for goon's water blind, he replied that he just hoped I was around for the water blind. Clearly money wasted!
The Silverbrook folks came up Saturday, and apparently the HQ hotel where they are staying caters to a more risque crowd than one would have imagined. The Syracuse Swingers Club was having their monthly get together Saturday late into the night, and it was quite a break from reality for our folks. The hotel actually called them in advance to warn them, and they had to keep their doors locked or the swingers would have just come on it. All the participants kept their doors open until late into the night, and a walk down the halls was apparently quite the little eye opener. Lest you think I exagerate, here is the group's website. You must be over 21 to enter, please don't blame me if the look causes lasting damage!
Didn't get back from dinner until late, so I'll just slap up a picture from training today and hope to write more tomorrow.
Trish runs the working dog while Sue and Bert honor. Bird boy extraordinaire Bradly looks on, with Diane Shepperd and Viki Pepper
Tuesday,
August 4: Pretty decent day today - got in some training, the goon seems to be finishing up off-loading his stupids, and the weather was just great and getting better. Starting to get some handlers arriving too, and the whole thing is picking up. Trained with the Silverbrook-Old Dominion group again, and the goon was pretty much mediocre, which is a vast improvement from the past two days when he was looking up in the distance to see mediocre. So the trend is good and I'm happy.
Saw the Midwest contingent in the afternoon, and all seemed hale and hearty. They rolled in and immediately set up a water series on the fairly confined training area designated by the committee. I hope they can expand it a bit tomorrow, as a bunch more people will want to get a shot at the mowed strips and there really weren't any on the official grounds. I ran a couple of blinds by myself with the goon on a small piece across the road from the official area and although it had some fairly hard to see signs that designated it a restricted (by the dnr officials, not the raw committee) area, i luckily didn't see the signs until I had finished up.
The weather is getting better as the week goes on as well. From the pouring down rain from Sunday, to clear and highs in the mid-80's today. For opening day on Thursday its supposed to be a high of 72 with little chance of rain. For the east coast in August it really couldn't get much better. A few pictures from today:
A pretty busy working line. From the left, land owner Carol Lantiegne waits in the holding blind, Viki Pepper spectates under the tarp, Diane Shepperd mans the remote releaser for the wingers, Sue Hartsoe runs the honor dog, Roy Shepperd runs the line, and Trish Jagoda handles the working dog
Bird boy extraordinaire Bradley lurks in the bushes
A few of the Silverbrook girls catch a little shade under the trailer
From the left, Trish Jagoda, Dave Mellender, Matthew Garrett and Sue Hartsoe
Trish kicks off Lacey while Roy Shepperd runs the line
Wednesday,
August 5: Pretty much everyone was here today, and training on the grounds. Some jockeying for spots, but a lot more places were opened up, including the field I poached yesterday, so nobody got shorted.
Getting ready to go to the opening banquet, so I thought I'd just throw up a couple of training pictures and hopefully be able to write more tonight. As will be obvious from the folowing pictures, Matthew Garrett from Silverbrook Kennels has aroused my ire, and will be punished accordingly - he knows what he did!:
Here we have Trish attempting to explain a training concept to Matthew - I think it was "have your dog look in the general direction of the blind before you send him"
Your humble blogger and Diane Shepperd share a laugh at Matthew's inept response to losing control over his charge, as can be seen in the background
I have no comment on this one, other than it probably helps to know that Matthew is a Mississippi native.
Toward the end of the training session Jeff Riebling rolled in and assisted me in working on the goon's honors. The goon wasn't great today, but he wasn't bad either, and I'm pleased with the progress he made this week. BTW, please note that the leash never came down :)
Wednesday,
August 5, 10:30 PM: Excellent banquet, highlighted by some guests of honor from NAHRA's infancy that shared some very personal recollections of how it all began. Kent Repka, who was in all the early organizational meetings, gave a very well-received talk about those early days when NAHRA was just an idea trying to get some traction. G. Ray Arnett, who really spurred Richard Wolters to lead the charge, sent in a letter with some wonderful RAW, Gene Hill and Dave Meisner stories. There was also a very entertaining documentary from the first NAHRA Invitational, when only the top 30 dogs were invited to compete, and those dogs received an all expenses paid trip to run. Joe Letta, who was one of the eight dogs (+/-) to pass that test was in attendance as well. The whole evening really focused on NAHRA's history, and it was a great experience. Sorry I don't have any pictures from the evening; for some reason my san chip didn't hold them.
Interesting stories from the HQ hotel continue to come out. Apparently a major portion is under renovation, and if one was assigned a room adjacent to the construction area, it was entirely possible that your water was cut off. The maid service also appears to be observing some sort of DMZ, as several of our guys' rooms weren't really serviced to a satisfactory degree, including one of the judge's rooms which had to be changed. I suspect that Leatherstocking will not be pushing the Clarion for future events.
So it all begins tomorrow. Workers report at 6AM, test dog to go off at 7AM. I want to be there for the judges' instructions, but don't expect to run much before 330 - 4 PM. A long day of waiting, but that's the luck of the draw. I'll try to have a pan of the test and a few details of the judging tomorrow.
Thursday,
August 6: A very good first day. Less blood than I expected when I first looked at the test, but still plenty to go around. Fortunately only two drops, but a few others with issues. First, the test:
Dog and handler walked up to the line off lead, and were invited to either lay down in a lay-out blind, or crouch in front of it. To the best of my knowledge, nobody was dumb enough to get in the blind. Handler started the test with a call, which had to be made from a kneeling position. Once you called, you could stand to shoot the birds. Most people just stayed down. The first bird was all the way on the right, and was a shot flyer from right to left. The gunners were good, and I only saw one no-bird, and that was one that they hit, but flew back into them. The bird fall area was actually pretty consistent for almost 50 flyers. The path to the bird was 90 degrees across a series of mowed strips, and the strips, coupled with all the scent that accumulated made for a not particularly easy pick up. The second bird was right down the center, and landed in the middle of a high strip between two mowed areas. Most of the successful dogs headed straight down the mowed path, and cut in at the end of the row and picked up the bird. A number of dogs got into trouble by getting back into a hole on the right side, and you lost sight of them and had no clue where they were until they eventually turned up again. I can think of at least two handlers, who, if given another shot at it, would blow a quick whistle when the dog first crossed over that right hand mowed strip. The last bird down was straight out to the left, and landed in a clear strip but the dog had to navigate a number of high strips to get there. At least two dogs had to handle on that bird as the go bird, and in both cases the dogs got a bit too far to the right, and got sucked into the scent area from the blind, which was run between the left and center marks. All the marks were around 60 yards, and I thought the test was quite a little tester. Very wide open, but the strips were not something most of the dogs saw on a regular basis, and while I think some training earlier in the week helped, it was still a tough little test. The blind, however, was just a horror of judicial cunning.
The thing that made the marks doable was the fact that the dogs were, for the most part, taking them at 90 degree angles, which is not an unnatural thing for the pups to do. The blind, on the other hand, cut across them at pretty much a 45 degree angle, and had a number of subtle dips and elevation changes that were brutal. You kicked the dog off, and the direct line to the blind ran through a bit of 2-4' high cover. I don't believe any dog, certainly none that I saw, took that cover. If you did fight to get that cover, and the dog came out just a hair to the left, he was out of sight behind some really high stuff. While I know the judges would have been overjoyed to see you take that cover, the potential for disaster was too much for me - doesn't pay to try to be a hero in the opening series. Just to the right of the cover, some sadist had placed a goose decoy, which pushed the dogs farther off-line to the right of the cover. And probably the same terrorist put yet another decoy to the right of that one. The best line that most of the dogs got was to go between the two decoys. That still pushed you a bit off to the right, but if you missed the gap and went all the way to the right you were likely on the way to a quick whistle. After clearing the decoys, you then carried down a dip that fell off to the right (are you starting to sense a theme here??). If you didn't keep control, and the dog kept going right, you lost him in the high cover and had to dig your way out of that just to get going again. Farther on, you went up a hill, and carried to the blind, which was put just on the far edge of a mowed strip. Another big problem that affected almost every dog was that while you knew the dogs were taking all these alternate strips, you really couldn't see if they were in or out of a mowed area - you could see their head, but couldn't see the lower body to know where they were. Thus many casts were changed by the strips - many an angle back turned into an over when the dog just flowed down the mowed strip - had you known where the dog was you'd have given a straight back, but you just couldn't tell. Most every bad blind was the result of the dog getting to the right and not wanting to get back. For the later dogs, the whole area was just a cess pool of drag back, and a lot of refusals were from the dog figuring he was right on top of something and wanting to be left alone to dig it out. Overall a very tough but fair blind. Plenty of opportunity for the dog to go out of sight, but you knew where the pitfalls were and had to avoid them. One of those blinds where if you just survived it you were pretty damn happy.
Here we have Tom Johnston and Mable watching the left hand mark go down while Judge Williams looks on. You can see the unused layout blind in the foreground. Tom and Mable, as well as all the rest of the Northern Piedmont and Old Dominion dogs (well over half the field) are still in.
Jackie Lutskus from Northern Piedmont handling Juice. Jackie had one of the best saves I've ever seen when Juice got sucked over to the scent from the blind when picking up the go bird on the left. She didn't panic, called Juice in until she had firm control over her, and put her right on the bird. Good on the other two marks, and then 2 or 3 whistled the blind. Outstanding job in her first Invitational! But the real reason I picked this picture is that I can't believe how much crap she's holding in her teeth!!!!!
Here we have our redoubtable president Plewa running Bruce Jenkins' Belle. Frank had good runs with all his dogs.
Here's Dick Ofstedal from Four Points running Chase. Dick made the best effort at gamesmanship by trying to start his test without the obligatory crouch. Harry was having none of it, but I certainly admired the effort! :) Dick worked his butt off last year at Stillwater and really made Vik and me feel welcome so I wish him the best of luck this year. Pretty sure he's back tomorrow.
And here we have my little guy taking it easy at the motel tonight. He had me worried all week in training, but the boy came through big time today. Clean marks - bit of a long hunt on the flyer, but he stayed in the area and won't get dinged much, and his blind was very workmanlike. Got the line between the decoys, and stayed pretty much on line. Had a couple of minor cast refusals when he took off down the open strips, but I stayed on him and he always came right back on line so I was one happy handler. Especially since at this point last year I'd used two handles to get through the land series.
And in the category of "no good deed goes unpunished" this is a picture of Wayne Howell from Northern Piedmont, Wayne's formerly pristine Ford Expedition, Officer Obie from the New York State Police, and the idiot truck driver who managed to run into his parked Ford Explorer while Wayne, without a dog in the hunt, was throwing birds for us. Fortunately the Leatherstocking folks up at the clubhouse made sure the truck driver stayed around to provide insurance information so eventually Wayne'll get paid back, but what a PIA!
The logistics today were wonderful. We didn't get started at 7 AM, but I'm sure the test committee was drunk when they made that announcement. We did get started by 8 I believe, and the test really flowed smoothly. Dogs were always where they needed to be, but not stacked up in a pile waiting either. Cindy Tallie was a great marshall - kept the likes of me in line, but did it ever so nicely! A RAW gallery is not unlike a herd of cats, and she kept us all in check, where we needed to be, and out of the way of the working dogs. And even called my cell phone to let me know I was called back!
Tomorrow we start with group B on the upland, then group A again to lead off the trail. Should be a pretty early day so maybe I'll have time to write a bit more tomorrow.
Friday,
August 7: Apparently I was wrong about Thursday's call backs, and we lost a third dog. Seems there was a mix-up somewhere, and one of the Virginia dogs that was originally told she was in was actually out. Not surprised that she was out, but being told one thing and then another is tough.
Today was an upland hunt in the morning, and it started pretty much on time, at least by 7:30. Scenario was a road hunt (it was called just a couple of guys driving along the road, not actually hunting, when they see a pheasant run across the road, but we all knew!) where your bubba partner jumped out of the truck, ran up to the field and took a shot that he missed. You then had to take your dog and hunt it up. No actual trucks were used, the test started with the dog in a holding blind about 15 yards off the (lightly used) road. You then quartered about 80 yards along the ever present mowed strips to a hen pheasant flush, and then quartered another 50 yards or so until you were released by judge Jim Karr, who followed every dog along on the hunt. Good mechanics with two sets of gunners, so while one set finished up and was walking back to the line on the side, the next dog and gunners started the next scenario. Had one equiptment failure, and the test committee had a replacement launcher back in place in about 5 minutes - very impressive. Only complaint on my part is that every time you turned around we were putting out markers to warn ourselves off of ground bee nests. A couple of dogs got stung, one about 6 times so it was not an insignificant problem, but not really much else you could do about it other than warn everyone when one was found.
Upland test - if you look closely a bird is just about to be downed.
Judge Harry Williams scented the first 30 yards of the field with a highly annoyed duck.
Jackie Lutskus and future GMHR Major taking a break after Jackie's run with Juice.
After lunch all the dogs that finished the upland then ran a trail, and we finished up around 4PM - later than I thought but still not bad. I think the judges set up at least three trails for the dogs, maybe four. I was next to last dog to run and my trail was set up about 10 dogs before I ran. The trails I saw started out downwind right along a grassy treeline, went about 40-50 yards, and then cut left along one of the ubiquitous mowed strips to the bird. I only saw one dog that had trouble, and he appeared to be on his own personal mission unrelated to the test. I think he got the bird, but I'm not sure how badly he was dinged. Had good work to that point so I hope he's still in.
Overall I'm sure most of the dogs are still in. I certainly didn't see all the dogs by any means, but the ones I did see all seemed to do a creditable job. I'm not sure how the goon and I will be scored, because it seemed like we spent most of our time trying to come up with the pheasant after the flush (he was steady) and I'm not sure what part of our work was actually scored. It just seemed like it was over before it began - unlike last year in Minnesota, where the upland seemed to cover almost a half-mile(if you think I'm exaggrating, ask someone who was there!)
I haven't received a phone call from the test secretary tonight, so even though I didn't stick around for call backs I figure I would have gotten one if we were out. So it will be on to water tomorrow, triple and a blind and I bet an honor but who knows. May get a diversion too - I kinda hope we do, as we're been working on them alot lately. Based on the degree of difficulty of the land series, I expect we'll get a stout little water series as well. I figure I can probably afford a handle on a mark, and if I have a decent blind I should be okay. But if I got dinged more than I think on my upland I may not be able to get away with the handle, so I hope I don't have to make that decision. To the best of my knowledge, all of the northern piedmont dogs are still in, and all of the virginia dogs except the drop from yesterday and maybe one more today. So my guys are mostly in pretty good shape. But the water always tells the tale, and I expect a bunch will not make it through tomorrow (in general, not my guys in particular!)
There does seem to be a disturbing development, however, and I'm not sure if I should really even mention it on this blog. But in the interests of full disclosure, I feel I must. It seems that a horribly misguided effort to engage in wanton dog fighting is taking place back in the bull pen area among some handlers when they are not running. I must say I haven't seen such savagery in quite some time, and just don't know how to put a stop to it without offending some folks that I can't afford to. But here are some pictures - please don't let your children see them!:
Friday,
August 7: Well, its all over but the awards banquet. I don't have numbers, but a fair few fell by the wayside today, including the goon i'm afraid. Good marks, but spent some time off line to the blind - we'll see tonight. I hope I had enought points to give, but I might have given back one too many. In any event, I thought I'd throw up a picture of the series, and then more later in the week when I have time:
Three marks were thrown, first bird on the right, thrown to the left, then the center bird thrown left to right, and then the short dump bird on the left thrown to the right. Long center bird was about 80 yards, right bird about 60 and the left hand bird about 40. Most dogs did fine; a few handles on the center bird and right bird when the dogs got deep. The center bird was tricky because it fell behind a big bush and the dog couldn't actually see the fall. The test was actually the blind (in blue). This picture does not do any justice to it. Just under 100 yards, you went through some light cover that fell off to the right, and then had to keep your dog away from the left hand shore that had tons of very inviting coves to explore, in addition to the scent coming from the blind planter. Most of the dogs that got into trouble beached and got tangled in the overhanging branches. The bird was planted about 4' off one of the overhanging bushes, so you couldn't just go fat and stay completely away from shore. Basically you had to treat it like a channel blind. Near the end of the day a couple of dogs got hung up on the right hand bank, but the real problem was on the left.
A few final pictures - better late than never.
As some sort of commentary on the judges' water series, some mean-spirited handlers put up some nooses in the judges' tent. Since there were only three I assume John Fincher was off the hook!
This is Mel McKnight drying birds as they were received from the dogs on the water series. Mel and Maria dried every single bird that was used, and really kept up the quality of the birds throughout the day. All of the handlers owe them a big thank you, as the birds that the last dogs to run got were just as good as those retrieved by the first dogs to run. Thank you also to Roy Shepperd who helped out with the birds in the first land series. Mel's dog Bingo passed the test, and we're all really happy for Mel. Bingo has come a long way in a short time, and I must say, that as much grief as I will give my buddy Mr. Garrett from time to time, the job he did with Bingo during the entire test was absolutely first rate!
Wayne Goodrich and Chance waiting in the holding blind.
One of the very classy things that Harry did as a judge was shake every handler's hand as they finished up the water blind. Pass or fail, you got the "last series hand shake" from him after he took your bird. Here we have Chris Giardina from Navesink, and Mike Tome and Tom Johnston from Northern Piedmont. Chris is another handler that has really accomplished alot in a short period of time - I remember I met him at an Evan Graham seminar just a couple of years ago and he was just starting out. But you could tell then that he was going to stick with it, and he certainly has. Mike obviously was happy coming off the line, but managed to convince himself within the hour that he wasn't going to pass. Luckily he was wrong. And Tom and Mable are just such a neat team to watch. Everybody's having fun, nobody's in a hurry, and they ended up with their second RAW pass.
Well, thus concludes my contribution for another year. Having now run the last four, I think this one was probably the hardest - certainly it had the two hardest blinds in combination (although the Minnesota water blind may have been tougher because of the gale, this land blind was significantly harder than the Minnesota land blind). The marks were pretty much the same degree of difficulty as the previous events. To me, you had to survive the first two days to make it to the water series, and then if you survived the water blind you passed, and if not you were on the Group W bench with me. The judges were very clear that you couldn't get away with disappearing into the overhanging bushes on the left, so everyone knew what they had to do. Your own fault if you didn't. I don't think anyone ran out of points on the water blind - if you got that far you either did it and passed, or didn't and failed. Very Darwinian, but eminently fair.
As always, thanks for the use of the hall. See you next year in Spokane!