Video--3rd Place Ruffed Grouse Society Jim Foote Chapter 7th Annual Fun Hunt Competition

Bruno competed in the Ruffed Grouse Society Jim Foote Chapter Seventh Annual Fun Hunt Competition held at Wild Wings Game Farm in Alba, Michigan, located southwest of Gaylord.

Thirty dogs competed in 15 braces to locate, point, retrieve when shot, and honor the points of their brace mates for four chukars placed afield per brace in a twenty-minute time period.

My GSP Bruno was drawn to run with Hugh McMaster's English Setter Chip in the 13th brace at2:30 p.m. Everyone in the RGS circle knows and very much likes Hugh; he is a gentleman, offers very helpful assistance and tips to anyone seeking help, and is example for everyone to follow in terms of being active in conservation and promoting young forest habitats for ruffed grouse and woodcock. I cannot tell you how thrilled I was to be in a brace with him and his setter.

For four weeks before this competition, Bruno and I had been incredibily busy in the young forests of NE Lower Michigan apprenticing with our mentor banding woodcock for Michigan's DNR. My friend and mentor Paul, his three English Setters, Bruno, and I were in the woods three to four hours per day, four to five days each week, walking an average of 40+ miles/week searching for, capturing, and banding woodcock. We were in top form and fitness, and we were ready to do well in this competition. My friend Mark was my gunner while I handled Bruno.

Bruno was off fast and quickly located, staunchly pointed, and retrieved perfectly to my hand the chukar Mark had expertly downed with one shot. Bruno then found and solidly pointed a second chukar, which stubbornly refused to be flushed by Mark from the prickly berry cover that surrounded a tree in the middle of the brace field. Mark finally succeeded in flushing and shooting the bird, which Bruno again retrieved perfectly to my hand and to the congratulatory applause from Hugh McMaster and his fieldmates. This was very sporting of Hugh and his team to recognize and cheer my young 1.25 year-old GSP for his splendid field performance.

In the final few minutes of the brace period, Bruno located and found his third chukar, which judges Paul Fisher and Sean McKillip recognized, but this time we withdrew Bruno from the bird to give Hugh's setter Chip an opportunity to locate and point the bird and for Bruno to have an opportunity to back and honor Chip's point. Unfortunately brace time expired and Bruno did not have an opprtunity to score additional points for backs.

At the end of the day, Bruno finished an impressive 3rd place in a field that offered very experienced dogs and stiff competition. And, it certainly was fun! Atta boy, Bruno! Here's a video interview with the 3rd place finisher Bruno:

NAVHDA Natural Ability Test, Prize I, 212 Points, Perfect Score

Saturday morning, September 9, my wife's birthday, was cold, breezy, and wet, but the weather steadily improved as the day progressed. Friday night Bruno and I camped at the KOA Campgrounds just north of Muskegon, Michigan. We awoke early to arrive at the Michigan Chapter's NAVHDA Test Grounds to compete in the Natural Ability Test for puppies up to 16 months old. Bruno was a mere 8.37 months old at test time. He was scheduled to run at 10:30 a.m. and by that time, the conditions were near perfect for a bird dog to perform his magic. And that he did scoring perfect scores for Use of Nose, Search, Water Ability (swimming to fetch two dummies thrown a ways out from shore), Pointing, Tracking (the part of the test on which most puppies score poorly), Desire to Work, and Cooperation for a perfect total score of 112 and a Prize I award. I was so proud of him!

Bruno overcame several challenges during the Natural Ability Test. During the first 20-minute part of the test, NAVHDA judges Butch Grover, Lisa Pehur, and Michael Garriott observed and evaluated Bruno's use of nose, desire to work, cooperation (obedience to commands), and his searching and pointing abilities in an 80-acre field into which two chukars were released. I became a little concerned after ten minutes into this segment for Bruno hadn't yet found a bird. Shortly after the halfway point of the field portion of the natural ability test, Bruno started to become very birdy, but he couldn't find the bird I knew from his actions was nearby. The judges surprisingly expressed concern that time was running short and encouraged me (I felt they actually pressured me) to move Bruno to a new place to find birds, but I resisted. I could tell that Bruno was working a bird and that it was close by. Within seconds, he nailed the bird with a rock solid point. I walked ahead of Bruno to flush the bird and confirm that his point was true, and in doing so, the three judges and I were very surprised to learn that the bird had been running and hiding in a foot-deep, dry irrigation channel that was completely covered by thick vegetation. This field in was the judge Butch Grover's home chapter training grounds and he said that he had trained in this field for years and never knew that this shallow, narrow irrigation ditch existed!

Well, Bruno wasn't done yet. In the next nine minutes, he proceeded to quickly locate and firmly point six more chukars. Obviously, some of the puppies that field tested earlier in the morning hadn't found all their birds! Bruno's field performance here greatly impressed us all!

The next big challenge Bruno faced was the tracking part of the natural ability test. This is the part that most puppies either fail or perform poorly on. A rooster pheasant has its primary wing feathers pulled so that it cannot fly. A judge then plucks 2-3 breast feathers from the bird and places them on the ground of a closely-cropped field (typically the ground cover in the tracking field is only 2-4 inches high) where the bird is released and driven on foot by the judges across the tracking field 50-80 yards into a new area that offers more dense cover, such as a woods or corn or bean field. The dog handler and puppy are placed behind a barrier so that they cannot see the release of the bird and where the bird runs. After the judges had prepared and released the rooster, they called Bruno and me to come forward to the bird release site that was located forty yards from the blind behind which were instructed to stay. But along the way to the bird release site, we had to travel along a hedge-and-tree row into which Bruno turned suddenly and squarely to point a hiding rooster that had eluded its puppy during an earlier tracking session and somehow sneaked back undetected toward the bird release area.

"Wonderful!" I sighed to the judge who accompanied Bruno and me as we walked from behind the blind to the starting area. "What's this rooster doing here?! This could prove to be a distraction for my pup and keep him from focusing on tracking the released bird."

"Well, do the best you can," he said, as we arrived at the bird release site, where I received even more great news.

"You're going to have a tough track," the judge who released the rooster greeted us. "Upon release, your rooster jumped forward a good eight yards and then another four to six more yards quickly after that." He then proceeded to explain the test, the expectations for the puppy and how the judges evaluate the puppy's performance. "Any questions?"

"Yeah, can we start over and release a new bird?" I asked jokingly to break the tension that presided the release site.

"Good luck."

I took a moment and knelt down beside Bruno who was standing in the heel position, placed my left arm around his front shoulders, and confidently whispered encouragement into his right ear. Then I firmly commanded him aloud,"Find bird. Find!" As I released him I silently prayed for divine guidance and assistance. Bruno and I had trained solidly for three weeks to improve his bird tracking abilities. It was show time now--do or die. After commanding and releasing the puppy to track, find (point), and retrieve the bird, the handler is required to stand completely still and not say anything to his puppy. The emotions that raced through me after releasing Bruno ranged from hopeful optimism and confidence when he seemed to be tracking the bird well to helpless panic and despair when he seemed to momentarily have lost the bird's track and scent. NAVHDA's Natural Ability Tracking Test is as agonizingly tortuous for the handler as it is tremendously challenging for the puppy. The test demands their total concentration. One distraction and the puppy is off-track.

Bruno blew right through the rooster's initial lengthy hops and appeared to be hot on its trail!

"That's it, buddy! Find!" I cheered for him in my mind. Bruno appeared to be tracking the rooster confidently for the first 25 yards, then suddenly he reached an area where he seemed uncertain as to the direction the bird had run. For what seemed to me to be tens of heart-palpitating minutes he searched back and forth across this area for bird scent but in reality after just a few moments of searching caught scent began confidently tracking the bird again.

Seventy yards from the starting point, Bruno crossed a ditch and proceeded into thicker cover where from his appearance I knew he was hot on the bird's trail.

"He's close!" I thought. Then boom! Bruno squared staunchly on point. The rooster was hiding under a thick mat of cover in the ditch. He then raced into the ditch, grabbed the bird and jogged calmly and confidently back to deliver the live rooster to my hand! I was one proud papa!

The judges were so impressed by Bruno's performance on all portions of the natural ability test, they gave Bruno at age 8.37 months a top and perfect score of 112 and Prize I!

Atta a boy, Bruno! Well done! What a birthday present to bring home to my wife!