All the hard work paid off!

[Adam]

Alli and I headed out to Bloomingdale, OH Saturday for the NAVHDA Invitational. I took a quick look at the different set ups and said hi to a bunch of friends and headed off to the exercise area to let alli stretch her legs. While "running" we encountered 2 chukar that must've flown over from the field. Alli must've known she had a big day ahead of her tomorrow and got all her jitters out on those 2 birds! She found her inner Junior Hunter! I do have to say it scared the crap out of me as she is as solid as they come in the field!

Sunday morning came and I arrived and got the running order: first up for us was the field, we were the 2nd brace. After the disaster in the exercise area the afternoon before I was pretty nervous, but Alli handled everything like a million bucks! She had 3 points, 2 retrieves, an honor and 3-4 stop to flush.

Next up was the heeling and Double Marked Retrieve. I arrived and they were waiting for dogs. I did not get to see any dogs run this event the day before so I opted to wait for a couple dogs to go in front of me. We then were the 3rd dog up. Her heeling was flawless down to the pond and she was steady as can be and retrieved her first duck. As I lined her up she kept eyeing the area of the bird she just retrieved I got her mind straight and she remembered the first bird I sent her on and she went straight to the bird and made a flawless retrieve! New this year is heeling back out of the double mark which again she did flawlessly!

Last up for us was the 100 yard blind retrieve and the Honor by blind. We waited a couple hours before they called us to drive down to the blind. Alli was 2nd to go in the group of 4 dogs out there. Again new this year is heeling to and from the blind and honor by blind. We took our lead off and she nailed her heel to the blind! I lined her up but she kept keying in on something to the left so I had to heel her off and get her unfocused on that and finally got her or so I thought lined up where I wanted her to go. I sent her and she veered off course a little to the left but went right across the pond. Once across she ran to the right and somehow must've missed the drag because she ran quite a bit past the duck. I trusted that she'd turn around in the wind and run the shore back and pick it up but she kept going, got back in the water and I had to give her command back in the direction of the bird. She swam the edge of the lake to where the line was and once she got there I gave her one more command. She went right up on the shore picked it up! I tooted on the whistle and she came back with the duck! We heeled out of there and I had an uneasy feeling in my stomach, I didn't know how the judges would score it. But we had one more thing to do so I kept my spirits up, so if we were good we wouldn't blow it. Next up we had to heel to the honor which was good: I sat her and she handled it like a pro. Heeled out and the test we've been training for all summer was over!

We waited what seemed to be hours for our scores to be read. My "blind retrieve" judge read them off-well sorta-he just said "We gave you a 3 on your blind retrieve the rest of your scores all 4's!" 196 and NEW VC!!!!!!!!!

VC BIS MBISS GCH Honey Run's Spittin' Image CD MH RDX VCA CGC

[northern cajun]

Congradulations!

[wems2371]

BIG Congrats!

[CherrystoneWeims]

Congratulations!!

[ACooper]

Man you guys really know how to get it done! Congratulations.

[GUNDOGS]

GREAT JOB, you got my adrenaline going reading about it i can only imagine how nervous but excited you must have felt so congrats!!..ruth

[snips]

Good job you guys! Hard work paying off!!! Very good feeling!

[bhulisa]

Congrats on doing it all (and then some ) with your dog!

[phermes1]

I have a lot of respect for the effort behind such an accomplishment. Congrats!!!

[AHGSP]

CONGRATS Adam and Alli! Helluva good job!

[bruns333]

Big congrats Adam and Alli! You guys are a great team.

[mountaindogs]

Congrats!