Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2009 1:42 pm Post subject: Zorro's a 'Grade 2' ol' gundog!
He did it! He passed his test with a merit, but oh my......he didn't like the cold, wet and frosty dummies - no he did not! Infact both Zorro and the other dog that was taking the test today didn't do nearly as well as they would normally do in training class, and both performed 'new ways to avoid doing what we've been told to do' that we hadn't seen before!
Zorro did his obedience nicely, and the 'go back', and the retrieves into open and cover all went ok but did he ever play up with the direction retrieves!
When I sent him out to fetch a dummy for this exercise, he just stared at me in a long-suffering way. So I gave the command again (with rather more frantic hand signals) where upon Zorro set about giving himself a good scratch ( ) and then on my third command he.......(I'm so embarressed at this one ).......closed his eyes! So I did the only thing possible in the situation.....I went down on my knees and begged him!!! Very, very slowly, Zorro gave a heavy sigh, stood up slowly and brushed the frost off that was starting to settle on him, and took a long, leisurely stroll out in the rough direction of where the dummy had been thrown, taking a few moments out of a heavy schedule to sniff some horse poo and check the weather forecast on the way and muttering gently to himself about 'retirement and it being not what folk made out it to be'. When he finally (after the tester and I had had a bit of chat and told each other our life-stories and were at the point of swapping phone numbers and arranging to meet up for a coffee morning, if we ever managed to get back home again) tripped up over the dummy, Zorro gazed sorrowfully at it, before looking back over his shoulder at me and asking if it was really 'that' neccessary to have to pick it up as it was awfully wet and cold and, oh my life, it even had a spot of snow on it and that would play havoc with his sensitive gums! Through that 'special bond that handler and working dog' share (ie cursing), I made my feeling on the urgency of picking up the dummy clear and then at some point in the next hour (hypothermia was setting in and time became blurred) Zorro arrived back, dangling the dummy by a thread out of the corner of his mouth and rested his weary head upon my thigh and begged not to have to do that EVER again!
If only they'd been giving out Oscars instead of Gundog awards then Zorro would have swept the board!!!
But I am proud of my boy! And I have loved doing the classes (as has Zorro and he has had a terrible crush on his teacher!) and I can't wait to start the level 3 - Jeez.....can you imagine what Zorro's response will be when I ask him to get into a cold, 'UN-HEATED' dirty pond to fetch a dummy?!
Zorro with Annie Wales - the instructor who Zoz has a huge crush on, and JJ, his class mate (who also passed his test)
Brilliant Becs!!, how did the sit while you walked on go? , I just love the way you relate a tale and look forward to the book on Zoz`s transistion from Assistance Dog to Gundog
Can see how he loves his teacher, he`s got his eyes closed or is that him dreaming of that soggy dummy he had to force himself to retrieve
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).......closed his eyes! 
.
