What the dogs are doing...

The terrain in this test is affecting the dogs in many ways...add to this a relatively close and rather exciting flyer (high and wide) and memory factors. 

A number of dogs are going wide on the left bird and then driving up the rise. While a portion of them bound several strides and then check down and produce numerous and varied hunts--including some out in the field and others around the tree which harbors the holding blind and retired guns/thrower--others are driving deep and never recovering. Some have taken this route to recover the long bird. Also on this shorter retired, some dogs are staying in the water and as it narrows to a channel to the right, some dogs stay wet and go up the channel and then get out on the near shore and hunt between the water's edge and the flyer guns before recovering and going back across the water and over to the bird. 

On the long bird, some dogs are driving straight up the slot and coming up with the bird in nice fashion. Others eventually round it up. Still others fall to the right on the first hill that's online (about equi-distant to the flyer guns) and then go over the left edge of the mound and out in no-man's land well to the right of the gun station, which is of course now retired. Hunts are produced there in which the dogs sometimes recover but more often result in handles. Other dogs get way left, often left of the left bird while attempting to recover the middle mark; some of these eventually wind the bird while others have to handle. Still others get deep in the woods and the brush-line at its edge; a few of these have picked up while others work their way back to the bird. 

Work on the flyer has also been interesting; many dogs get behind the flyer guns and end up hunting around the mound and the sloping hills found there and seem to get lost in the process. The bird is wide to the right from where these dogs are hunting, and when handled some dogs still can't get there in acceptable fashion.

It's a tough test and it's taking its toll.