Atta Boy!!!

Yep, that's right... 2 ribbons means 2 passes for the weekend!! We are so proud of our little Coopey! :)

The Hunt Test was down in Deer Island OR which is about 20 minutes SE from Longview.. the same general area where Cooper was trained last year. We decided to take all 3 dogs with us, even though we knew it was going to be a hassle but we wanted Ellie & Russell along to keep Cooper company and assure him that this was going to be a fun trip and not a stressful one. We pulled into the test grounds at 11:05 pm on Friday evening! There were other campers there, we hoped we made a quiet enough entrance that we didnt stir up dogs and wake anyone.

It poured almost all night and was still raining the next morning. The week prior I was having some anxiety about doing the tests with Cooper, I was a little nervous and felt a bit awkward about it all. But as the morning got under way, I was feeling just fine. I was prepared with rain pants and a poncho; ready to run our dog, hoping for the best but expecting nothing!

Our first session on Saturday was water. The first bird he did well... his second bird he started to swim out to where the duck landed but then he veared off course and started swimming towards the decoy ducks. I thought to myself "Oh shit! This is going to get ugly"... He approached the decoy, sniffed it out, realized right away it was not his bird and he literally did a 180 and bolted over to the real bird. Which showed me he knew EXACTLY where the bird was, he just needed to trust his own judgement and trust the straight line I sent him on. I was super excited because overall he did better than I had hoped!

In the afternoon, our land retrieves were okay.. He marked the birds perfectly, meaning he watched the bird until it hit the ground and upon release, he went straight to the birds. BUT he did not want to pick them up. I had to really work to get him to pick up the first bird, LOTS of praise and encouragement and I kept saying "Cooper Fetch it Up".. When I would say that, he would look at the bird and then pop his head up and look at me as if it say "Repeat Piper, I'm not sure I understood the command" so I would say again "Fetch it up" and he would look down at the bird and quickly back up at me... "Really?? You want me to pick up what?" .. "Cooper, Fetch it up" .. "Nah, how about I go walk around a little and leave that for the next dog".. When he did that, I took a deep breathe, and stood there in silence for a few seconds. I didnt want to be harping on him and I needed the break to gather my patience (which I was not loosing at all, I just was trying to figure out what else I could say to him to get him to WANT to pick up that damn bird!) LOL He didnt wander for long or very far, just a few seconds is all.. It took him a minute or two to FINALLY pick it up and bring it to me. The second bird was not quite as dawnting of a task, but he still needed the encouragement.

I was so excited because we felt pretty good about the possibility of getting a pass.. and sure enough that evening during the awards ceremony, Cooper received his first pass and ribbon! Derek and I were very proud of him... He did so good and he was happy. The other exciting part of the awards ceremony that night was that Coopers daddy Earl had earned his 1005th point that day!! which is a MAJOR MAJOR accomplishment. He is the 1st dog (of all breeds) that was born, raised and started in our region to achieve 1,000 points!!!

Earlier in the day we were all pooped and needed to dry off, so we layed down and napped for a while, waiting on our fellow dog friends to finish with their tests.

Sunday was a semi-dry day and this time we started with Land first. Pretty much the same scenario as the day before with our land. We had new judges this day so they were seeing our dog for the first time. He needed a bit more encouragement to pick up the bird on Sunday but he did it!! On his first retrieve he stopped to pee on his way back BUT he kept that bird in his mouth the whole time. And on his second retrieve he stopped to poop on his way back, again keeping ahold of the bird which is a huge accomplishment for Cooper. He KNOWS what he is supposed to do, but still has issues with fetching up birds.. :)

Our water retrieves which I thought would be easy-peazy were not quite what I expected from Cooper. By this time the birds are getting pretty well used and I became quite concerned when I realized the birds were sitting VERY LOW in the water. So on both his water retrieves, he did not trust the line I sent him on and he veared off course, searching all around trying to find the bird. The exciting part of it all was that the water was not very deep so at times he was walking in belly high water and because he couldnt see the bird, he started to use his nose to find the bird. It was really cool to watch him sniff the top of the water trying to catch wind of the bird! and sure enough, he did! It is hard to explain the excitement and joy of watching your dog accomplish things you were not sure he would.

We were a little concerned he might not pass Sunday's test, because it was sloppy on both land and water, but the objective is for the dog to "mark" the bird and bring the bird back. He did that, although not perfectly. Actually during the water test, the judge was standing behind me and when Cooper veared off course away from the bird, the judge grumbled under his breathe because he saw what I did which was a very low bird in the water and he knew it was going to be an issue so I believe they gave some lee-way in their judging based on the difficulty of the birds. But at the end of our test, he qualified for another pass!

We were SOOO happy with Cooper over the weekend and I was proud of myself for doing it. Once I got Cooper to the line to run his retrieves, I had NO nerves or anxiety at all.. I was calm cool and collected actually, which was a little bit of a suprise. I was a little nervous waiting my turn in line, but at that line it all dissappeared and I just did what I had to, to get Cooper to retrieve those birds. Cooper's original trainer Butch was there that weekend, although he didnt get to see Cooper run, he seemed quite happy to hear Cooper got his first 2 passes!

We have some work to do and will probably try to get Cooper in another hunt test in August or September. Our goal is to get his Started Title this year so we can focus on Seasoned for next year. He will need 2 more passes to get his title. :)

The newest silly thing for Cooper is car rides.. He used to hunker down and travel laying down, never wanting to sit up and see the sights. Now that almost every car ride we take him on leads to water retrieves of some sort, he spends the entire ride looking out the windows, moving back/forth from left to right rear windows, waiting to see water! And when he sees water, whether it be a pond, lake, river, puddle.. He gets over-excited!! He has yelped, but typically he perks up, stands on the window ledge and digs/paws at the window to get out.. He is SO excited to see water and thinks we should stop at EVERY water he sees! It's quite comical..