Trying Times

Today was a long day. I met Jim Elam and his team in Emporia at Steve's farm. Mike Griffith joined us. It was very windy, overcast and 50 degrees but felt a lot colder. The dogs did both water and land marks. Luther had a teaching moment that hopefully, will move him forward to being a better Field Trial dog. Here is the text on the top of the layout that explains what happened...

"Not every lesson learned is an easy one. Today was a hard day for Luther. His first land mark was in deep, deep cover. He went straight to the area and couldn’t find the bird. He hunted and hunted. Jim handled him to the area and he just could not come up with it. After more searching, he “popped”. He sat there waiting for direction. Popping is not good so handling him would send the message whenever he was lost, to sit and wait for someone to tell him what to do. Poor Luther sat there and started to whine. This grew louder and it turned into a sound like he was crying. I’ve never heard this sound from Luther! It tore me up. Finally Luther started to come in. Jim put him back in the truck. After lunch Jim ran him again. Luther reran that first mark almost perfectly. The second mark in the broomstraw was super and the 280 yard third mark was just about perfect with a great line. Luther restored his confidence. By the way--it took 2 men searching to find the fallen mark in the cover that he missed!"