838/ 2 days = A Weekend

This weekend Ben and I covered a total of 838 miles for dog events which meant a lot of time spent on the road, not a lot of sleep, copious amounts of caffeine and most importantly spending lots of time in fields, but at least it was sunny and warm. You might be asking yourself  what would cause us to do this, well we enjoy doing these activities with our dogs and seeing them grow in their abilities and of course spending time with our friends who are also into doing dog activities. If we had kids we would probably be those parents that were running their kids to all their different activities/play dates but since we don't, we have dog activities.

Saturday was the craziest day with Ben and I heading in separate ways, each with a dog. Ben was heading to Koopman Farms in Oakville with Odin for his Master Hunter test at the Puget Sound Vizsla Club's (PSVC) hunt test at the lovely hour of 4:30am since he had the first brace of the day. I had the luxury of getting to hit the road a little later at 6:30am with Loki to head to the Northwest Pointing Dog Association's (NWPDA) Field Trial which was being held at the Shillapoo Wildlife Area in Vancouver since we were in brace 1 of open puppy.

Ben and Odin were braced with our friend Andy and his Irish Setter Chase so it made for an interesting run since both Odin and Chase have been having some struggles this season. Andy and Chase had a very short run and took themselves before he every got to the bird field. Ben and Odin did a little better and at least got to the bird field before they had issues and were eliminated.

Loki and I were up for an adventure as I was handling him in the field trial for the first time ever since our trainer wasn't able to be at the event. While I had thought that maybe I would see if another handler would run Loki for me I decided and ultimately knew that I would never hear the end of it from our trainer and the other guys who we see at each event so off were were for 15 minutes of what everyone said would be a fun time. After making our way through 5ft tall grass, blackberries and thistle, a few hiccups with the run and some cuts (on me not Loki) we were done with our run. When the judges stared to announce placements and withheld 2-4th in the open derby I knew we weren't guaranteed to get a placement unless we earned it and were happy to walk away with our 4th place finish in open puppy. While Chris would have been able to get the 1st with him since Loki was on and running good I am happy with our 4th place since I did myself.
                                        
Sunday, we both headed back to Koopman's with both Odin and Loki since they were both running in their respective classes. Odin and Ben had a much better run but and made some improvements in areas before Odin decided he knew better and headed straight for the bird field since he knows the course too well and punked Ben so they were sadly eliminated from the test. Since Odin is going to take a while to finish his Master Hunter title (average for people is 2-4 years to accomplish it) we decided that Ben should run Loki and get his final pass to finish his Junior Hunter title. Ben and Loki had a good run despite Lok's running very big and on the edge of the field for the most part, but he did find two birds and got his pass. This last pass completed the 4 he needed to get his Junior Hunter title.
                                        
Now he's back to field trials in pursuit of his puppy point before he hits 15 months old in August while Odin and Ben continue to work on master hunter.