On Friday I ran my 8 month old pup Cazi in the San Diego NAVHDA chapter's natural ability test. There were 10 pups that ran and if I heard the results properly every single one of them scored well enough to prize. Over hearing a couple people talking I got the impression that Friday's group of pups was pretty impressive all the way around and from what I was able to watch all the dogs were freaking rad and kicked ass.
My girl was about 10 days into season on Friday so I had to keep her away from the other dogs and couldn't spend as much time spectating as I would have liked but what I did see was very cool. There were GSP's, Pudelpointers and pointing Griffon.
It was very cool meeting some new people and seeing these pups work.
Cazi and I had a great day and a lot of fun. I felt a little more nerves than I was expecting but nothing bad and ole Cazi did what she was born to do and Scored a 110 for a Prize 1. A 112 is the max points one can score and we were docked a couple on the tracking test which I believe was may fault as a first time handler in how I set her up and released her. I was allowed to hold her collar for a yard or two down the track to make sure she was on it but I basically stepped up and sent her on her way at the start instead of a few steps down the track. She still tracked enough to earn points but because she had to spend some time figuring things out we didn't get the full points available.
It truly was fun and great to see the other pups and if anyone has a pup younger than 16 months I highly recommend, if you haven't already, checking out your local NAVHDA chapter and running a test.
My girl was about 10 days into season on Friday so I had to keep her away from the other dogs and couldn't spend as much time spectating as I would have liked but what I did see was very cool. There were GSP's, Pudelpointers and pointing Griffon.
It was very cool meeting some new people and seeing these pups work.
Cazi and I had a great day and a lot of fun. I felt a little more nerves than I was expecting but nothing bad and ole Cazi did what she was born to do and Scored a 110 for a Prize 1. A 112 is the max points one can score and we were docked a couple on the tracking test which I believe was may fault as a first time handler in how I set her up and released her. I was allowed to hold her collar for a yard or two down the track to make sure she was on it but I basically stepped up and sent her on her way at the start instead of a few steps down the track. She still tracked enough to earn points but because she had to spend some time figuring things out we didn't get the full points available.
It truly was fun and great to see the other pups and if anyone has a pup younger than 16 months I highly recommend, if you haven't already, checking out your local NAVHDA chapter and running a test.