A beautiful warm and sunny spring day attracted 39 handlers to Ulceby, by kind permission of L and C Farming. Sue Lowe trained the puppies, Julie Campbell novice 1, Charlie Albone novice 2 and Tom Birchall the open group.
After lunch, there were four tests for each of the morning training groups. The more experienced the group, the longer the retrieves.
Test 1 was a double mark - with shot except for the puppies.
Test 2 was a two dog walk up. A mark was thrown into rough grass and a blind was in cover at the corner of a wood. The first novice 1 dog picked the mark and the second fetched the blind. The dogs swopped over and the test repeated. The first novice 2 and open do picked the blind first. The puppies had a short mark and then turned to pick a bright dummy placed upright in full view.
Test 3 was a mark down a hedge side and then a dummy in same place.
Test 4 was a picking up exercise in a corner with varying degrees of cover. Three dummies were out and two had to be picked. The puppies only retrieved on dummy.
Results
Puppy
1st Steve Crookes Danni
2nd Liam Priestley Ruby
3rd Sandra Ellis Q
Novice 1
1st Jamie Horner Bella
2nd Nessa Thompson Maggie
No third place, these were the only dogs with complete scores
Novice 2
1st Anne Crookes Copper
2nd Emily Bristow Lottie
3rd Liz Woods Briar
Open
1st Steve Crookes Opal
2nd Gary Wilson Blade
3rd Helen Smith Merlin