Q finished up his Junior Hunter title last month. I am so proud of him! Now we have the experience of working through a major issue, his water entries. I believe I had overworked him preparing for seasoned tests and kind of killed the fun for his water work. But the good part is he learned a lot of technical stuff…. that tends to show up to our advantage in difficult situations. Bill Tarrant wrote in his book that the #1 mistake amateur handlers make is overworking their dogs. I believe I was doing that. So I shortened up our sessions, stopped doing blinds or handling for a while (there are no blinds in junior anyway) and it worked! He did a nice job and earned his title.

With the hunt test season over I still take them afield for training and we’re getting ready for the hunting season. They are over the top enthusiastic especially for their water retrieves now. Soon we will be in the duck blinds again. This is where they get to use all the skills they learned over the summer – my dogs enjoy the environment better than hunt tests where there are so many other people and dogs that distract them. (not to mention a stressed out handler) They know a lot and can do more than probably 90% of the dogs I have hunted with. They are sure to put lots of delicious meat on my table this fall!