Honour satisfied

 It was a grand day for a competition. The dog knew something was up when I packed the shooting bag with essentials for the day - spare lead, water, chewstick treats...... Keenly jumped in the car and off we went. The hosts laid on bacon rolls and tea for breakfast. There was a general air of nervousness about the place. One or two of our team members were verging on panic and went off to "have a heart to heart" with their canine companions.
Our opponents arrived. "Oh No" the dog and I both thought when we saw him. "They've called in Real Professionals". For there he was - Rory the Trainer. No pressure then. During the briefing we were reminded that this was a Fun Day and 'serious competitive behaviour' would be frowned on! Worse still, He-the-Trainer was on the Gundog team that our spaniel team were paired against. So he'd be able to witness our every move.  That would be fun. We did have one Labrador on our team, Troy, who was handled by a junior champion but the others were all Cockers.

 There were four sets of tests, each involving two retrieves marked out of 10 and team members ran alternately - ie One of them followed by one of us. The first test was a marked retrieve followed by a blind retrieve. Scenting conditions were very poor. Gunner easily picked the first (10 points) but deviated towards the gun for the second - which, in fact, was in the same place as the first. Given corrective instructions he was straight on it (7 /10). The second test consisted of three hidden dummies; a shot was fired and the dog had to be sent to 'find' first one and then a second. The dog lost one point on the first but scored 10 on the second. Third test was a dummy into the pond and then a dummy thrown to an accompanying shot beyond the pond. With one exception, all the dogs 'saw' the second dummy fall in the reeds at the edge of the pond.  It was made more difficult because once the dog rounded the side of the pond he was out of sight to the handler. Gunner scored 10 on the water retrieve but took a while to be handled out of the reeds and back round the corner to be sent back for the second - 5/10. "Honest, persistant dog" commented the judge. The final test was two marked retrieves - in each case a dummy thrown to an accompanying gun shot. The BGiatW scored a full house for those. "Nothing wrong with the Dog" commented the judge. Rory-the-trainer was complimentary in his own way as he explained to those about him that this was the dog that he didn't think "would amount to much" when he first saw him and who had proved him wrong ever since! High praise indeed. (He and his labrador scored a total of 74/80 so we were not far behind him!!! Well done the Dog!!!)

So although our team came last, Gunner came home with a certificate for the best dog (71/80) in a non-winning team! Not bad for his first competitive attempt. The handler came home with a prize too (a bottle of wine)! After lunch - generously provided by our hosts - a dummy throwing competition was staged whilst the scores were added up. Competitors had to throw 5 dummies into a dustbin from a marked distance - and yours truly scored 4/5 and won! "I'll expect the same accuracy tomorrow!" remarked our Shooting Instructor - he who had roped us into this competition in the first place!
Honour was satisfied all round....