Fully half of the Marshfield Kennel A Litter (Diva, Drake, Jack and Mako) participated in Sebasticook Chapter’s Spring Test at the Natural Ability level.  I’m really proud of the turn-out.  Everyone, except me, has young kids.  Some brought them out in the terrible weather, others spent the day away from their family; everyone sacrificed something to be there.

OK the bad news first:

The weather was horrid and the pointing conditions were bad.  The birds did not fly and the dogs figured it out fast.  Two of the dogs did not pass for a failure to point; Diva did poorly in her pointing and nearly did not qualify herself. 

Now the good news:

Drake and Diva did pass the test.  (In fact, Diva scored higher than Colt and Winnie did in their passing NA tests.)  Everyone who participated learned something about their dogs and themselves.  Also, Sean’s Griff, Norman, passed his NA test, as did a pup I owned for a couple of months.  6 of 16 dogs tested had some close tie to me.

Amanda showed in driving rain and was not frightened by the "natives" so that's a big plus.
 

And my take on everything:

The weather was bad and I’m not going to use that as an excuse for poor pointing.  (Especially considering some dogs had no trouble at all.)  However, Diva had five or six finds and caught each one.  I think if weather conditions had been good, the birds would have flown and pointing would have improved during the test (but she may not have found six as the birds probably would have cleared out of the field).

The weather really exposed the pointing problem.  If you had a problem, it was going to come out at this test.  It’s like some NA water entries are odd (muddy or steep) and if you have a problem at the water, the conditions expose it.

I think the timing of the litter was really pretty bad.  The pups went home in October, and most “sat on the shelf” until spring.  They really needed bird contact over their early months, which were occupied by bad weather here in New England. 

That being said, however, some of my owners overcame the weather obstacle very well.  I know many of the pups are pointing very well.  Drake was pointing birds planted in snow.  Roxie went for some pro-training in early spring.  (The dogs out west are also pointing well, but it’s a bit warmer out there.)  I kind of allowed myself to use the winter and the breeding as an excuse, and it came back to bite me.

These pups are only 9 months old.  They have a chance to test NA until November.  Diva will be re-run, and I think some of the others will too.

But a comment here on the NA test itself.  I’m not a huge fan of it.  I know it’s supposed to gauge if the dog has the basic building blocks to make a good finished hunting dog.  I contend it’s more important to have a good finished hunting dog than to measure its “potential” to become one.  In other words, I’ll take one Utility dog over a truck-load of NA pups.

To me, one of the most useful parts of the NA test is it says “this is what your dog should be able to do by 16 months of age.”  My brother, Sean, calls it “guidelines and deadlines.”  A few of us learned that we are headed in the right direction, but not quite there yet.  But that education is what we paid the tuition for.

I’m proud of the owners who have tested.  It demonstrates dedication and commitment.  Do I wish we’d have had better scores?  Sure.  But it’s more important to me that we take what we learned and move forward.