The trial season ended well. We ran in the Region 2 walking CH in Petersburg, DE on what are some terrific grounds to work a walking dog. It was a very nice trial and Peacedale Duke showed his stuff for Richie Frisella with 8 great finds and a stop-to-flush in his hour to take home the championship in a very nice stake. The ideal cover of this venue is well suited for a sensible bird dog and made for a lot of fun watching Duke perform. The attached picture is from one of his finds during the trial.
The following weekend we attended the Delaware horseback event on the same grounds. On Saturday it was for the Open Horseback stake with Keystone's Red Rage and we ended up doing a little more training than trialing as it sometimes goes. But Ernie Saniga ran him in the Sunday Amateur Horseback stake and took 3rd. An interesting placement in a horseback stake for 'Mickey' with an amateur handling him for the first time.
The season ended with a phone call from a stranger asking about the dogs and referrencing an article in the Nov/Dec 2008 issue of 'Sporting Classics'. After digging up the issue we found writer Tom Davis was waxing a bit about his new female pup out of Chip's Torquato and Keystone's Red Ryder. Tom has been sending us some fantastic reports of the bird finding abilities of his pup 'Tina' throughout the fall! Attached is picture of her from the magazine article. Tina has successfully pointed and has had shot over her points sharptails, wild pheasants and even was nailing covies of wild huns for the gun in North and South Dakota at 9 months of age and less. Sounds like a true winner! Sig Degitz also has been reporting great grouse handling prowess with his littermate female 'Marley' in WI as she has been pointing and handling grouse all through the fall. With the female we still have from the litter it sounds like the females were the hit from this repeated cross.
