# Ottawa....



## sterregold (Dec 9, 2009)

....was mostly good to us!

I spent the last few days in the Ottawa area. Went up for our national holiday weekend. Canada Day was Friday--Wills and Kate were in town for the festivities but I stayed out in the country at my friends. Apparently it was insanely crowded in the city.

On Saturday I ran Breeze in her 2nd CKC Master hunt test and....she passed! Little girl did really good work. Started with the quarter to flush--she sat and stayed until I got up to her to release her. On of my friends lost her dog on this--he broke and she could not get him to stop. The land blind was next, startin on the top of a hill, down the valley past where a gun station was hidden that became visible as the dogs passed it and then back up the other side of the valley. It took me a couple of cast to get her out of that suction and then she finished the blind nicely. Once everyone had don the quarter-to-flush and blind we did marks. She lined the birds including the inline on the right and the sidehill on the left. They were challenging marks. Mark 1 came from behind a large tree so was only visible after it past the top of the arc, and fell behind a slight rise as well, so the landing was not visible. Then there was a big swing from mark 1 over to mark 2 which was shot from the line. Mark 3 came out without a duck call as soon as mark 2 hit the ground and was also shot from the line. My little girl front-footed the birds. Quite a few dogs had trouble with the long bird on the right--they flared the short mark and squared the hill, and got wind saves when they got deep enough. They were lucky the wind changed --the test had been set with a tailwind instead of a crosswind which would have denied them that help. Another friend lost his dog on the honour on the land marks.
The water series was a triple with a huge swing from mark 1 to the last bird down--more that 180 degrees around, and then the blind was by invitation, under the arc of mark 2 and down a little channel at the far side of the pond. Breeze banana-ed the long middle bird, but seemed to know exactly where it was when she got out there and then gave me a beautiful initial line on her blind. A number of dogs had real trouble getting into the channel for their handlers and ping-ponged at the entrance.

On Sunday I ran Winter in Senior. He had pretty much a perfect land series but then when we got to water he had trouble on the memory bird which was back in a dark cove, and after he wouldn't cast into the cove for me I picked him up. Interestingly all of the dogs but one that passed the senior test ran in the first half of the order on water when the lighting conditions had the cove bright.

So that sucked on Sunday as Win had been 5/5 in Senior, but the day got brighter when I found out that Bonnie's brother Baron who I co-own with a friend had passed his first Junior test--youngest entered (9 months old tomorrow) and did it in fine style!

We stayed up for a couple of days after the test, and went to train on the Ambertrail grounds at Maxville. Winter got a good lesson in casting over along shore!

Pictures attached--first two are diagrams of the Master test. Then Breeze and I talking with judge Jim Drager while the blind was being planted, and then Breeze and I leaving the line after running our blind. The pictures after that are Winter on the blind and the quarter in Senior.


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## DNL2448 (Feb 13, 2009)

Way to show em how it's done Breeze! You'll get it next time Winter! Thanks for sharing the diagrams, man those are tough! Congratulations on the pass.


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## hotel4dogs (Sep 29, 2008)

congratulations on the pass, sorry about Win but what a record of passes already! Thanks for the diagrams, those are awesome. Also loved the photos. What a great thread, thanks for sharing it with us.


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## K9-Design (Jan 18, 2009)

Very cool! Love the diagrams. Congrats on the passes!!!


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## Jamm (Mar 28, 2010)

Congrats!! Ottawa was super fun for Canada day. Looks like Ottawa did you and your crew good too!!


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## AmbikaGR (Dec 31, 2007)

Congrats!! Great diagrams and the pics are wonderful.


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