Dogs, Horses and Lots of Sun

This weekend we packed up and hit the road for Madras, Oregon to the Boyce Corral Crooked River National Grasslands for the Oregon Brittany Club fall field trial. The drive to Madras from our house is about 6 hours and takes you through the Mt. Hood pass over to  We got lucky and didn't have any road closures due to the wildfires in the area but did have a lot of smoke to contend with at times. Upon arrival in Madras we were greeted by upper 90 degree weather, sunshine, good friends including our trainer and his wife and our boys who we hadn't seen in two weeks. Odin of course was super excited to see Ben and didn't stop "talking" all weekend even though it drove us all crazy.
Friday night we headed back into town for Mexican food and the OBC awards dinner. It was great to spend an evening celebrating the achievements of fellow club members and their dogs. A handful of awards were given out including a couple of thank you awards for members that have given endless hours of support to the club and events. After dinner we headed back to Sonny's motel where it seemed like everyone without a horse trailer or camper who was attend the trial was also staying there and best part, they had a pool.

Saturday morning we headed back to the grasslands for the start of the trial which was being run on horseback and had 8 different stakes that would be run over the three days. Loki would be running in Open Derby again and Odin would run in Open Gun Dog. Both boys would be handled by Chris since this trial was going to be run on horseback and neither Ben or I are skilled in the art form of riding a horse, carrying a starter pistol and controlling a dog all at the same time. Ben did get the opportunity to ride Chris's horse Kip so that he could go out on Loki's brace which ended up being at 2pm in the afternoon and in 95 degree weather. He had a good run overall even with it being really hot but went bird less which meant he was out of contention for placements since no bird = no placement in this game. After all 6 braces ran it turned out that only one of the 12 dogs found a bird so we didn't feel too bad. That evening we had a wonderful potluck with deep fried turkey, salads, lots of goodies for dessert and Reggie's special margaritas.

Sunday we were back around 10 to see the boys and to hang out with everyone since Chris was judging the Amateur All Age Stake and running Odin in the afternoon. We got to hang out with Tina and their new puppy Patch in the camper which was nice since it was even hotter and the smoke was blowing in. We didn't have great hopes for Odin's run since it was so hot, he is carrying some extra weight for show and is still in show coat but Chis and Ben mounted up and headed out with him for his brace and were back in less than the 30 minutes since Odin wasn't wanting to be a gun dog and Chris pulled him since even if he finished he wouldn't have placed.

After a round of goodbyes to Loki who would be staying with Chris and Tina for another few weeks for more events we packed up Odin and said our goodbyes to everyone and hit the road to make the trek home. We definitely had a good time this weekend and are looking forward to learning to handle the dogs both on and off horses when we start prepping for next season in January and coming to more events next year as we pursue field championships for both Odin and Loki.