This year Elk Run Kandy Corn pedigree and Elk Run Quiggleypedigree joined the North American Shoot to Retrieve Association Regional Qualifier event.
Here is how those field trials are ran: You run in a brace with mostly English Pointers, English Setters and German Shorthairs.
Each field is 5 acres and they plant 5 birds on the field by 4 wheeler while you and your brace partner sit in a house
so you can't see where they plant the birds.
Then you start together you walk while the judges ride on 4 wheelers (1 judge per dog) there is a 30 minutes time limit on your brace.
You get points for the dogs point, retrieve, obedience, ground coverage and if they get a back on the brace mate.
They usually plant the birds one in each corner of the field then one in the middle and you pretty much race to find the birds,
because the more birds you find the more points you get. The highest points get 1st place then down the line.
You run 2 braces a day, each field is a different trial and the trials are ran 2 to 3 days and each day you start over.
This week-end was so cold and muddy, the wind was about 25 miles an hour, but anyway, Kandy Corn took 2nd place in the "Open" division out of
24 dogs, she ran against regional champions and national champions. She received a total of 843 points. The 1st place dog (Regional Champion)
had total points of 907 and the 3rd place dog also a Regional Champion had a score of 835.
The field she was running in has a ditch running between it and the woods, the ditch is about 8 to 10 foot across and about 5 foot deep it
was full of water. On her second point Mike flushed the bird (they use quail) miss with the first shot, but hit it with the second and
it fell in the woods. He sent KC on the retrieve across the open water (it was about 28 degrees out at the time) she found the bird,
swam back and retrieved it to Mike's hand. Other handlers did the same thing by dropping a bird in the woods
and no other dog went across to fetch it.
Elk Run Quiggley also ran in the "Amateur" Division and received 2 second places.
