You could say today sure was an interesting day. It started off with an early wake up to get all the dog chores done before we had to roll out for the trial we were attending today, tomorrow, and Sunday. Well, I got my chores done and left my dog Kirby out in the airing yard because I knew it would be a long day of being in his dog box on the truck and I was just letting him stretch out for a while. Well, after about ten minutes of him being out I hear a huge eruption of two dogs fighting. Kirby, and another male, got in to where there were four females in heat. With tensions at a high Kirby and the male got into a fight and Kirby, in simple terms, got his butt whooped. He came out with a puncture wound in his right lip, a small puncture wound on his muzzle, and a few small cuts around his left eye. His eye was OK, just around the eye was skinned up.

Well, after that was out of the way we finally arrived at the trial in Thomasville Georgia. The first series was a triple with a retired gun on the left and the right bird was a live flyer. With Kirby's adrenaline still pumping from his scuffle earlier in the day he proceeded to "creep" out on me approximately 6 feet or so. During this time birds were being thrown and Kirby was focused on one bird and one bird only. When it was time to send him he picked up the first bird clean. Time to send for the flyer station. This is where it all went to hell. Kirby had no idea where this bird landed and he backsided the gun station and hunted for what seemed like ten minutes! Finally he dug the bird out and we were on to bird number 3. Surprisingly Kirby did very well on this bird, picking it up after only a small hunt.

So after the first series in today's Qualifying stake I was feeling pretty low. Thinking I lost Kirby due to a dumb mistake I was ready to throw in the towel. Luckily, I was called back to run the second series land blind. With a near flawless, 3 whistle, blind we were on to the third series! The third series was a long water blind that crossed one point in the water, and the dog had to swim past another point. Kirby, again, ran a great blind. Working as a great teammate taking the casts I presented to him perfectly.

Now tomorrow is the real test. The fourth and final series! Kirby has to knock it out of the park to make up for his stumble in today's first series and we also need some help from some other dogs botching this last set up. Kirby was the youngest of 36 dogs to start the qualifying today. Now he is one of 13 left in the trial. I am ecstatic to be in the 4th series of our first ever qualifying. The only thing that will make it better is a red or blue ribbon!