Blimey, we passed!

Took Corto to his first exam - "brugsprøve" or something like "use test" - today.

It goes like this, with a trail shaped like a mirrored P:

1) Walk 25 m with the dog on a lead (from the bottom up to the middle)
2) Take the lead of, hide it well away. Walk 3 x 25 m with the dog "at heel" (end at the top of the vertical line)
3) "Stay" the dog there, walk to the starting point. At the judge's command, call the dog home.
4) Walk 1 m away from the dog, throw a dummy - at the judge's command send the dog to retrieve it and (!) bring it back and deliver to hand.
5) With the dog sitting 1 m from you, the judge fires a shot away from the dog to test for gun shyness.

You start with 40 points - for any errors, points are deducted. You need 35 to pass...

We had 38 :)


("Black Amandas Armed and Dangerous" - that's Corto's official name...)

Only error - on the way back to me from 3), Corto decided to pay a visit to two labradors sitting 10-15 m further back. I (surprise!) managed to call him back from there, though, and get him back in place at my left leg. Everything else worked well.

First attempt, Corto is only 10 months!! (proud me smiley) Castor, our first dog, passed at third attempt at the age of 15 months.

He's an intelligent little critter - the challenge will be to use that intelligence the right way as we go on training towards field trials.