Pat's Perspective

It’s mid-day on the 1st day of the 2016 National Championship.  It’s a bit a break from tradition to do a triple in the 1st series.  We have a nice mid distance land triple.  Like most early series in Nationals the biggest threat is over running the marks,  this test is no exception.  There are a couple of factors that are coming into play.  There is a long berm that runs down the middle of the field in route to the middle retired gun.  The dogs don’t seem to want to run down the top of the berm.  After sitting on the mat, you realize that the land at the end of the berm drops off suddenly.  This may be one reason that the dogs don’t want to take the proper line.  They tend to drop off the right side of the berm and that often leads to a hunt.  On both memory birds and especially the left hand retired gun,  the hay bales in the distance are a draw.  As the sun has risen higher in the sky the hay bales are more prominent.  It is very difficult to recover if you get too deep on these marks.  One handler just pointed out to me that there is quit a bit of hidden terrain that is effecting the dogs on the way to the left bird.  All in all this is a very nice test that is very time efficient.  They are off to a good start.