The feather drag was done first and the 'observing judge' at the end of the drag said she never missed a beat, she hit the duck in full stride, scooped it up, jumped in the air doing a 180 and hauled butt back to me for a near perfect delivery. Next, we moved onto the rabbit drag where she showed some of her 'joker like' characteristics. The judges had laid the drag and then tried to hide themselves in a fence row of sorts. The wind had picked up a little at this point and was coming in an East to west manner across the drag laid from north to south. I released Bagira on the track and she was off like a bullet. She made the first turn with ease and was really working the track well at this point. However, she appeared to miss the second turn and after about 15 yards she realized the scent was not there. at this point she started circling with her nose down trying to locate the track. After what seemed like an eternity, she located the track and found the game and returned to me for another excellent delivery. Once the judges returned to the start of the track they informed me that she had located their foot scent and tracked them to their hiding spot, where she insisted on squeezing between the two judges knocking one of them over, and continued to the game. I was assured if she had tried to retrieve the apprentice judge she knocked over the others would've gave an excellent score :o)
We finished the day with water work. This has really grown into her strongest trait, she absolutely loves the water. The blind retrieve went without issue. I took her down the somewhat steep bank and gave her a line about 25 yards across the water to the dead game. She keyed in to the command 'dead bird' and as 'back' came out of my mouth Bagira launched in the water, took the line directly to the duck, scooped it up, and returned for a really great delivery.
The last category was the search behind the duck. Baigira hit the water and absolutely tore the pond up searching with an extreme high level of industry. During her search she, was able to push several ducks out of the cover, and after about 25 min the judges had seen what they needed to see. I was almost in tears with the excitement of watching her work the water, she was persistence, smart, and showed a ton of heart. The judge awarded her a score of 11 in search.
The day ended with the reading of her scores: Straight 10's ( very good) in all categories with an 11 in water work for a total of 183 points. This completed an amazing summer of hard work by us both and is well deserved for her. We are now preparing our plans for hunting season and the start of her VGP training plan.
