Ceilidh Fails her WC...Happily

Ceilidh and I failed our WC test at the SoCal DuckDog Daze, but happily. She did it with enthusiasm and style and not a speck of fear. Yeah! We had the problem I was expecting,which was going out, getting the bird, and not returning directly to me.I didn’t have time to get it fixed before the trial.

On the land birds she nailed her marks, then ran out, got the pigeons, came about half-way back to me before veering off to her left to her cache pile. No amount of begging on my part would motivate her to go back there, get the birds and bring them to me. On the first water bird, she again nailed the mark swam straight out, got the duck, then left the pond on the opposite bank and ran all the way around the bank to proudly bring me the duck. On the second water bird, she again nailed her mark, got the duck, left the pond and started going around the pond again, but took the long way which had her intersecting with the first bird boy, where she dropped the duck and decided to swim across the pond back to me.

It’s just a training issue and I’m sure she’ll pass sometime in the future. I'm just so pleased with her "badness" as it's such a pleasant change from the paralyzing fear she displayed at the 2002 BYC. I really hadn't planned on entering her in a field test ever again after that, but she's come such a long way that I couldn't let the opportunity pass us by. Ceilidh was great! This time she didn’t jump in the judge’s van trying to get away from the big scary gun noises.