Roxanne's adventures on her journey to Florida for AKC Obedience Classic

Sugar and Ben had to jump into this water and retrieve downed birds as well as do blind field retrieves.

Roxanne & Sugar waiting their turn

Jan with the hunting hat.  Just who wore the hat first? Hmm.

As some of you know Roxanne and Jan took their dogs to Remington, VA (between Manassas & Culpeper) over the weekend to a Jr. Hunt Test where, when they arrived they discovered that since it was a Spaniel trial, the dogs had to flush the birds first.  This is something neither Sugar nor Ben had done before.  I hope you all get to see the video that Jan posted showing how the dogs flush the birds and then find them once they are down. The work they have done in  utility practice as well as the prior field work helped them string together commands to make it work for their dogs. Commands  like "let's go", informal recall, "far enough" along with the random sit, & signals all came together to work for success.  Both Ben and Sugar qualified whereas only one Spaniel qualified.  I have a suspicion they wondered where these people came from who swooped in and did so well. They will shake in their boots next time they see them coming. TeeHee!  Kudos to handlers and dogs for a job well done.
 Roxanne shared some photos from S. Carolina where she managed to stay ahead of the storm and get some down time on her way to the AKC Obedience Classic in Florida. Of course, Roxanne needed some  time to practice formal utility drills so she set up a mock ring at her hotel before moving on. This is a bonus of owning your own set of jumps.  She took Sugar to the beach and allowed him to retrieve bumpers from the surf which he dearly loves to do. I am sure she utilized all that space by the lighthouse for long go-outs since that really helps get the dog thinking he is going past the ring gates in the ring so he moves at a better clip than if he  thinks that he always stops  at the gates.  Bonus: all that swimming & running makes for one tired dog to sleep in the car while on the road for a long drive.

Off to the South Carolina beach

Notice Sugar at the foot of the lighthouse