Another Day At the Office

Tony and I traveled over to the Mid Coast Maine field Trial yesterday and it turned out to be a good trip for most of the dogs.  Frankie, Trash, and LJ (in that order) won the puppy stake.  And then Frankie came back a couple hours later and won the derby with a woodcock find (probably the same one from the puppy as mentioned below).  Second in the derby went to Brian Breveleri with Gabe and 3rd went to Jazzy with John Adsit.  Not bad for only his second trip to a field trial.  Joe Dahl and Jeff Mahaney judged the puppy stake and Joe told us afterwards that Little Thuddy  and then Abbie were the next two pups.  LJ started a little slow (for him) and wasn't able to beat out Tony's two shags.  And Little Thuddy spent a little too much time running the mowed lanes and not attacking the cover as much as the three above him.

LJ was in the first brace and had a really nice find on a woodcock where we could see standing on an edge from about 100 yards away.  As we got to him, Trash who was braced with him came in and backed then the bird flew and so did the pups.  Shortly there after Trash found the same bird for her own find.

I missed Frankie's run in the puppy as I had to go run Jack.  The wind was blowing hard all day and it was almost impossible to hear the bells beyond 75 yards and Jack is usually well beyond that.  He did have a woodcock find but it was after time and I had to use the Garmin to find him.  Later in the day the wind subsided a bit and Chris Mathan had an afternoon she will long remember.  In the 7th brace Kit had a grouse and woodcock find to be the first dog of the day to finish with clean bird work and then she followed it up with a grouse find for Rita in 8th brace.  Those two performances held up and she took first with Kit and second with Rita.  Great work in a 21 dog wild bird stake that included a lot of really good dogs.

Except for the wind the weather was great.  They have a gun dog stake to run Sunday morning and another shooting dog stake to follow.  They have a great group of people, nice grounds, and put on a quality trial.  Word is the Joe McCarl and Steve Groy are coming up from Pennsylvania to judge the Championship on these grounds the last weekend in September.  Considering the bird that were moved and the grouse we herard drumming late in the day it should be a good trial to mark on your calendar.

The Big Thudd took a lot of pictures hopefully he'll share them when he gets back to "work" tomorrow.  Chris was also taking pictures and I'm sure she'll post them as well.