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Beaver’s Youth Hunting Test 2012, October
Spirit of Chippewa Achmik
On Friday October 5,
2012, I participated
in the DRC Hunting
Trial with cold game
for young dogs with
Beaver; the day
before was his first
birthday.
Unfortunately, we
were faced with
stormy sometimes
even violent
weather.
At first, the gun-
shyness of the dogs
was examined. When I tried to have Beaver
strolling around, he did not really withdraw from
my position, so I issued a “back” command; this
caused him to run away into the forest ignoring
the shooting completely. Obviously he was
pleased with this situation and did not return for
a while.
The judge Mr. Hinrichsen-Verkennis asked me to
call the dog back, and his suggestion sounded a
bit as if he would say: I wonder if that will work!
However, upon my “return” whistle Beaver
showed up immediately and returned to me with
no delay.
Next came the retrieve of a duck
from the water. This happened at
a medium size pond with a reed
strip tall as a man vis-a-vis. The
duck was cast into the reed with a
low curve, very difficult to identify
and almost not audible due to the
stormy weather. Despite of these
conditions, Beaver had observed
the scene very attentively and
upon my “start” command he
swam straight toward the target
area and began to search in the
reed. When
the judges
had seen
that Beaver
could search with intensity and
durance, I was told to give him a
helping “look at this place”
whistle when appropriate and so
I did. It worked perfectly: Beaver
came out of the reed with the
duck in his mouth and delivered
the prey orderly.
The next task consisted of a follow-up of a rabbit track.
Mr. Hinrichsen-Verkennis tried his very best to provide an
accurate tail, but the storm avoided an easy recognition
of the scent. So, the dogs had to do work hard until they
reached the prey. Beaver had lost the track and followed
the scent, but then came back, detected the real track at
his own, progressed now utilising thoroughly his nose and
returned with the rabbit orderly.
Next task consisted of a search in the forest with quite a
lot of underwood. Two rabbits and two ducks had to be
found and retrieved. Beaver again did a good job and
accomplished his mission amazingly fast. I noticed that
with pleasure although I also recognized that he began to
slow down a bit at the end of
the exercise.
The last test of the
examination consisted of a
mark in a white beet field (not
yet harvested!)
Beaver failed to identify the
target site well what he usually
does, he had to utilize his nose
and that also worked fairly
good. However, it could be
seen that there occured some
lack of concentration at the
end of the day.
Area of a the search
Results 2014
Ergebnisse 2014