At 6^th June The Worcestershire Gun Dog Society organides a Working Test at Sudeley Castle. The weather was over cast but very muggy (hot all day). Also they had predicted thunder storms.

 The judges on t he day were Mr Paul McDonald & Mr Hugh Kerby

 1^st test

The first test of the day for me was a blind Retrieve, this was on a bank of a field with a wood on the right hand side and trees in front on the top of the bank. The retrieve was about 60 metres in total up the bank into the field behind the trees a shot was fired to help the dog. (The only thing was the shot echoed from the wood giving the dog wrong direction), Kane (Sanjon Arezzo) went towards the sound of the shot I stoped him and sent him back which he did returning with the dummy to hand (18out of 20). Gerrard (Sanjon Aramis) did not do so well on this test deciding he knew better than me and went hunting the wood  (0 out of 20)

 2^nd test 

This was a split Retrieve about 50 metres out a seen out to the right and a blind to the left about 40 metres apart. You have  to go for the blind first to get full marks or the seen to be marked out of 15 instead of 20 the only problem was there were sheep walking around the field.

Kane made hard work of the blind but got it then returned for the seen which he did in more style (16 out of 20)

Gerrard had already messed up his day by failing the 1^st test so I was not worried which order he went in but he did the blind nice then the seen scoring the same as his brother (16 out of 20) 

 3^rd test

Water judge Mrs Fiona Wensley

 This was the water retrieve, we stood about 8 metres back from the edge of the water and a seen retreive was thrown on to the lake about 10 metres out.

Kane is very keen in the water the so he did this very well (18 out of 20)

Gerrard is again too keen at water so I decided to block him with my arm to stop him running in which worked but he still moved forward a bit (13 out of 20)

 4^th test  

Hunting -  the nice thing about this working test is the hunting, as every dog gets a fresh piece of ground not like most working tests where we all run on the same field (not so bad if you are the first few dogs but after about 5 dogs have weed on the field it becomes a marking session) the other week I ran 39th dog on a field you can guess  what that was like! The ground we were running was white grass, in the valley there was game in it so there was a good chance of finding something.

Kane ran ok taking in about a 100 metre beat it was o.k. but I have seen him do a lot better. The test ends by sitting him up when told to by the judge, he stopped straight away then I called him in.  Hunting is scored out of 40 (35 out of 40)

Gerrard’s run was a lot better than Kane’s he took the ground in at a good pace covering about 150metre beat he did not sit as quick as Kane but he did do it.

I was pleased with the way he finished the day  (39 out of 40)

 Luckily it did not start to rain until the last dog had finished all the test then the heavens opened, thunder and lightening  it went on for about half an  hour then stopped luckily in time for the results.

Kane did well he was 1^st in Novice scoring 87 out of 100 Gerrard did o.k. scoring 68 out of 100 but only completed 3 tests so next hopefully he will do better. All the tests were things that would happened every day in the shooting field. I would like to say I did enjoy the day I will return again next year.

Jon Roberts

Judge Mr. Paul McDonald, Handler and owner Jon Roberts and Sanjon Arezzo (Kane)