# good grief, GATORS in the pond!!



## hotel4dogs (Sep 29, 2008)

Second day of the weekend, our second try at a JH. Not feeling so good about it, since I didn't think he did a very good job Saturday, even though he passed.
Land marks were interesting. The experienced people didn't call them interesting, they called them ridiculous. On a hill, running up the hillside. Cover "heavy" according to the "experienced folks". But the weird thing...lots of assorted sized pine and spruce trees liberally sprinkled through the field. Someone joked that they should have mowed the field because it was so thick and tall, and someone else piped up and said a chainsaw would have helped more. (I didn't think it was all that bad, BTW). One of the judges said, "sorry guys, but this is what we had to work with. We've done the best we can". They did try to give the dogs as clear of a line of sight as possible to the marks.
First mark was the shot flier, a short mark of about 60 yards or so. But the problem was there was almost no way they could shoot it and not have it land behind trees. The dogs, for the most part, never saw the fall, just saw it go down behind some trees.
Which of course, happened to Tito. His went down behind a pair of big pine trees, and the judges looked at each other (I turned to look at them because I thought for sure they would call a no-bird) and then sent him out. He slammed it, and I was quite proud of him.
Second mark was about 80 yards on a diagonal, up the hillside and in front of a big line of pine trees. The dogs had to zig zag around a couple of smaller pine trees on the way, but most of them didn't have any trouble with that mark. Tito slammed that one, too.
The water marks...WE HAD TO SIT ON A BUCKET!!!!! Okay, what you guys didn't warn me is that the dog before yours would have shaken the water off while standing right next to the bucket, and you are going to get a VERY wet butt as soon as you sit on the bucket. 
Nice pond, real nice....except for the GATORS in the middle of it. It's a private pond, and they had 2 huge gator heads, think maybe 3 feet long, with big glowing orange eyeballs, floating out there to discourage geese from landing in the pond. We were all amazed to see gators in our pond, and unfortunately one of the marks went down right near one of the gators.
Anyway, first mark, a cheater's mark for sure. It was about 60 yards, but hugged one of the shore lines. Because this is a big private lake that they use for swimming and small boats, the shore line is clear and clean of most weeds. A bunch of dogs ran the shoreline all the way to the mark, then jumped in and got the bird. The judges said as long as the dog got in to get the bird at some point, they were okay with it.
Tito did his usual dock diving entry, then saw some tree stumps along the shore line and swam over to check them out. He got out, looked around for a second, then vaulted back in and went out and got the bird. Came straight back, did a nice delivery.
But the second water mark was what they called the money mark. This one was about 75 yards out, but unfortunately it was falling right near one of the gators. And we had a very high tailwind, the water was pretty choppy, and it was pushing the bird quite a bit further away by the time the dogs got to it, toward the little peninsula of land from which they were sending the bird. Most of the dogs stopped to check out the gator (and a couple high tailed it back to land as soon as they did) and by the time they realized it was nothing that involved them, the bird was no longer where it had been and with the choppy water was hard to see. A couple of the dogs got out on the peninsula, looked around, found the bird, and then got it.
The way the wind was, it also was a cheater's mark and several dogs swam to shore after getting the bird, and ran back along the shore.
Anyway, Tito went out after the bird, veered off to check the gator, and then when he turned back to get the bird saw it right away, and came straight back with it. 
He prefers water retrieves, BTW, to land retrieves.
So....
drum roll....
Our SECOND JH Pass!
(25 out of 39 dogs passed, which they tell me is a low rate for juniors, but I have no idea if that's true or not. The day before I think 34 out of 39 passed).


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## Pointgold (Jun 6, 2007)

YIKES!

When we were running my Pointer bitch in a NAVHDA test, she was swimming straight to the duck, and POOF! It disappeared. A big snapping turtle had snatched it up! But gators???? LOL


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## Maxs Mom (Mar 22, 2008)

I knew you guys could do it! 

I am so happy for Tito and Barb!!!


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## Tahnee GR (Aug 26, 2006)

Woo Hoo-big congratulations! Half-way there


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## RedDogs (Jan 30, 2010)

Wow!! You have ANOTHER interesting story!

Were any of the dogs bothered by the gator heads? [my dogs are bothered by statues of people and animals!]


Great job!


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## hotel4dogs (Sep 29, 2008)

Yes, I saw 2 goldens and a flat coat fail specifically because of the gators. They were pretty spooked by them (remember, these things are floating around, tethered, but they swing in a big circle and suddenly are looking right AT the dogs) and headed back to shore and MOM (or DAD) right away.




RedDogs said:


> Wow!! You have ANOTHER interesting story!
> 
> Were any of the dogs bothered by the gator heads? [my dogs are bothered by statues of people and animals!]
> 
> ...


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## GoldenSail (Dec 30, 2008)

What?! They can swim when there are gators around? Wow, this is just another cool element of field training is that the terrain is so different from state to state!

(Oh, and congrats! Go Tito!)


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## mylissyk (Feb 25, 2007)

GoldenSail said:


> What?! They can swim when there are gators around? Wow, this is just another cool element of field training is that the terrain is so different from state to state!
> 
> (Oh, and congrats! Go Tito!)



Dummy gators! I sincerely hope they never use a body of water that has real gators!


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## GoldenSail (Dec 30, 2008)

mylissyk said:


> Dummy gators! I sincerely hope they never use a body of water that has real gators!


:doh: Okay--got it :doh::doh::doh::doh:


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## Maxs Mom (Mar 22, 2008)

Barb told me there was a person at the test from FL. He said he trained his dog to stay away from gators, so alas they did not pass.

Don't quite get the point of "gators", ok I understand distraction but gators?


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## Pointgold (Jun 6, 2007)

hotel4dogs said:


> Yes, I saw 2 goldens and a flat coat fail specifically because of the gators. They were pretty spooked by them (remember, these things are floating around, tethered, but they swing in a big circle and suddenly are looking right AT the dogs) and headed back to shore and MOM (or DAD) right away.


 
See, this would really make me mad... how on earth would someone know to train with gators, and besides - GOOD DOGS for swimming back to save their own lives! Sheesh...


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## hotel4dogs (Sep 29, 2008)

One of the goldens that failed was up from FLORIDA with a pro...and yes, he was pretty mad.
I mean seriously, how can we train for that?



Pointgold said:


> See, this would really make me mad... how on earth would someone know to train with gators, and besides - GOOD DOGS for swimming back to save their own lives! Sheesh...


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## hotel4dogs (Sep 29, 2008)

Oh, there was no point to them except that that's where they were. The people who own the huge private property where junior was held that day were nice enough to let the club use their property, and the gators are just part of the pond.
The judges said they have to work with what they're given to use. Nothing anyone could do about it.




Maxs Mom said:


> Barb told me there was a person at the test from FL. He said he trained his dog to stay away from gators, so alas they did not pass.
> 
> Don't quite get the point of "gators", ok I understand distraction but gators?


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## Maxs Mom (Mar 22, 2008)

hotel4dogs said:


> Oh, there was no point to them except that that's where they were. The people who own the huge private property where junior was held that day were nice enough to let the club use their property, and the gators are just part of the pond.
> The judges said they have to work with what they're given to use. Nothing anyone could do about it.


Ok that makes more sense then. Not the club put them out.


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## HiTideGoldens (Dec 29, 2009)

Congrats again to Barb and Tito!!!! The gators seem to be a bit much, but I guess you have to work with what you're given. It does seem a bit unfair to someone who had done gator aversion training with their dogs though. That'd be like throwing fake rattlesnakes around here - where a lot of people do snake aversion training - and then rewarding the dog for going near the snake! But, on private property I guess you can only do so much.


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## Loisiana (Jul 29, 2009)

I'm still catching up from my weekend away, but I wanted to give you a huge congrats for your first two legs!

So if I'm reading this right, you didn't have any in and outs for your water marks?


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## hollyk (Feb 21, 2009)

Team Tito is on a roll. Congrads!


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## hotel4dogs (Sep 29, 2008)

No, no ins and outs, which was surprising because they're pretty common around here I'm told.
But they were cheating marks for sure.




Loisiana said:


> I'm still catching up from my weekend away, but I wanted to give you a huge congrats for your first two legs!
> 
> So if I'm reading this right, you didn't have any in and outs for your water marks?


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## sammydog (Aug 23, 2008)

WOOOOO HOOOO!!!

:You_Rock_

Way to go Team Tito!!! I was wondering if you signed up for two days!!! Sounds like very interesting test, I can tell you we are not gator trained!!!

Did you happen to get any ribbon pictures or anything? Mira wants to check them out, hehe!


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