Things have taken a turn for the tougher this morning with a land quad and the judges are firmly in control. After 20 dogs have run there have been 6 handles and a pick up - meaning a third of the dogs have been thus affected. The test features a very tight pair of converging retired birds in the center, flanked by a diverging flyer either side with both flyers shot away from the test. All birds are pheasants.
The long retired flyer on the left, a memory bird which is often picked up last, has caused 3 of the handles. To recover this bird the dogs need to carry a line into the field away from the other three birds, which occupy their various positions all on the right. Heading for the retired flyer, the dogs must resist the suction that curves them back towards the center with its tight converging pair. Although the retired flyer, at 230 yards, is the second longest bird in the test, the dogs are showing us that the field is a lot longer than 230 yards, and when the retired flyer is not promptly located a hunt or an overrun can result in a dog being gradually pulled towards the "gravity well" of the center of the field - at which point a handle becomes necessary to recover the bird.
The converging pair - which are also both memory birds - seems to have produced less trouble than one might think considering how tight these two birds are. However there have been problems here as well, with both birds of the pair being the cause of hunts and handles.
As happens with quads, we are seeing experimentation with different retrieval orders. So far the predominant order, after recovering the go bird, is to retrieve the birds in order: go-bird, left-middle, right-middle, long flyer. However some teams have had success sending for the long retired flyer second and we have seen a few dogs pick up the right middle bird second. At this time there does not seem to be one best retrieval order.
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