Diane left you a message on your cell phone, but I thought I'd give you more details about today's field trial results.
I judged Open Dogs first thing in the morning (as a substitute), so the girls all got to rest in. The dog we put up first won Absolute - always a nice validation. :)
Bossa had a really nice first series in Open Bitches, taking a long line along a road and making the check, although overshooting a bit to the far side of the road... the dirt road made her take a while to find the check. She was called back high. In second series we had a really short line between trees, and she didn't really understand what to do and stood around grazing, so she dropped to second (behind eventual first and new field champion Star). In third series she defended well taking a bending line around a tree. She finished in second (class of 12) for her first six points!
Bossa works a lot like Asti - moving fast and making fast decisions.
Olive was drawn in fifth brace and Asti in sixth for FC. I was late to the line and hadn't heard the additional bits of line, so I was a bit sad to see Olive break off to the left at high speed, but it turns out that was the continuation of the line out of the cover. Olive was called back fourth.
Second series, Olive's rabbit started in a dead tree stump and we had good line on it. She and her bracemate both started on the first part of the line fast, but Olive nailed the check and did a TON of line. Easy win.
Third series we had another tight release into cover. I think I released too soon, before Olive really had the line. We lost that on my lack of handling experience. Olive placed third out of 12 field champions. A solid performance given how rusty we all are.
I was really proud of all three girls. Bossa is still very green but got the idea fast - the few bits of trailing practice we've done clearly helped, the judges were impressed with how she worked the check. Asti was very happy to be in the field and really looked good (and had MUCH better recalls than in the old days). And Olive looked great in my first time handling her in the field (aside from one run at DCA 2010). Her tracking background really shows - she's more methodical than Asti, who works more on instinct.
Tally ho! - John Willmore, CA
Bossa and John at the field trial in the southern California olive grove.
Congratulations to all of you!
