Friday morning around 4:30 John, Nellie, Gambler, Glory and I hit the road for a 3 day hunt test held in Mondovi, WI which is around 3 hours from us. With our loaded truck and positive attitudes not a care in the world until we were 3/4 of the way there and our check engine light came on in the truck.

The Low: Finding a service station to check out the truck.

It was down a quart of oil, we put oil in, it is due for a tune up so why not start now and put a new air filter in. We found a service station and the nice gentleman in the garage put his computer on the truck and said it was getting to much fuel on the right side (what ever that means). He cleared the check engine light and we were set hopefully to get back home at the end of our weekend.

We made it to the test grounds, watched the test dog, thought this test is doable for the Gman. Then the rain came. I went to the truck and I stayed in the truck. I thought this test I will stay in truck so Gman doesn’t have to smell me, see me or run to me.

The Low: Watching your boy head to the line knowing you can’t be there to cheer him on.

Even know I don’t like people looking at me handling and Gman blows me off, I think this was much harder to watch than running or watching and seeing him fail. Gambler was entered in the AKC Master level test.

The test was the land series first, a walk up triple with a double blind. He was steady to all the shots, he had nice line manners, he hunted a couple marks short but got them without any handles, one blind was not the best but the other blind he had many refusals as he didn’t take John’s cast and once again thought he could do the test himself. That is a thank you for your donation. We were done with the test by 9:30 am so we had all day to wait for our friend Mike and his dog Pearl to show up back at the motel.

The High: Spending the weekend with a best friend and his dog that we bred. What started out as a business deal has turned into the best 6.5 years of a friendship that I couldn’t of asked for.

Saturday was Glory’s and step sister Pearl’s day to shine. Both girls were entered in the AKC Senior level test. Glory has run two other Senior level tests this summer, Pearl’s last AKC test she ran was a Junior Hunter back in 2008. She has never ran a Senior test. Mike entered her so she could have something to do this weekend.

The High: Watching the puppy you bred run in a hunt test.

Pearl did a good job on the first land series, she was called back to the water series. She picked up one mark on the water and then had to be handled on the second water mark. As Mike would say she had a 100 whistle handle and that was too many whistles so she was called in. She didn’t pass.

The High: Watching Glory during her Senior test.

Glory needed to be handled on one land mark, for some reason she over ran her marks which she generally never does and she had a couple cast refusals on her blind. She did get called back to run the water series and she was dog #1 on water. The test was a very meaty test for a senior dog. It was like a master level test with one bird mark taken out. She had a medium hunt on the first bird retrieved, second one was better then then water blind she had a couple of refusals, when the judges added up her score in the end she didn’t have a passing score.  Both girls failed, big low for the day.

The High: Gambler being a good adolescent boy and not falling for peer pressure and having a beer.

The High: Having a nice hotel to sleep in and being able to bring the dogs in too. Ok so we were rebels and only paid for one dog and smuggled the other two in.

The Low: Realizing it was the first stay away hunt test since Norman had passed.

Sunday only Glory competed. Mike went with us and spend the day with us up until the end cheering Glory on, thank you Mike for being such a wonderful friend.

The High: Having a cheering squad at the test and many online friends with us in spirit.

The High: Having time to paracord.

The High: Getting some sweet pictures of my glorious girl.

The test on Sunday went pretty much like the test on Saturday. Got to run both the land and water series to find out at the end you didn’t make the cut. Glory also had a potential puppy buyer come and watch her run and cheer her on so that was another high for the day.

The High: Driving back home to get mail and see that Glory indeed went 4 out of 4 UKC HRC Seasoned tests in which on #3 test day she got her Seasoned title.

The Low & High: Self explanatory.

Thank you to my online friends that were there to cheer me up, this is what I learned from them:

Nothing ventured, nothing gained. You’ll get there….Thank you Pam

John asked me on the way home what we should do now. Option #1 train and run no tests at the moment, option #2 keep training and run tests. My thought is exactly like Pam’s, I will pick option #2 because you don’t know until you try and the test you don’t enter might just have been the one. I also told John option #1 wasn’t a option since I had Glory signed up for another test in 2 weeks. 😉

I’m not going to lie and say it isn’t very depressing, it is very depressing and I do cry on test days. I have such high hopes for my dogs and such high goals that when it doesn’t happen I do get sad. I wonder what I have done wrong, why my dogs are great in training and can’t pull off a couple of AKC passes. It is when I am at my low point when my friends come through for me again.

Thank you Amy for this beautiful song to keep my goals straight.

It’s not about the wins and loses, it’s about the time spent with your loved ones and realizing that Life Is Sweet no matter what. It is what you make of it.

Last but not least thank you Mel for this quote that is now my motto for the Gman and I.

Because of you gals I am going to train harder, keep my head held up high and I am going to handle Gman at his next AKC test. I’m not promising any tears but at least I can say “I tried”.