Two Irondog Day!

[mattoleriver]

Today was a beautiful day for Earthdogging and Griffin, CH Quail Creek's Oregon Native ME, made the most of it by successfully completing two Master tests and two Senior tests! Griffin has passed both a Master test and a Senior test on the same day several times but this was the first time that he has attempted to do it twice on the same day. Griffin is by no means a "flashy" worker but he is very consistent and the only real extraordinary moment of his day---well, other than completing two Irondogs in one day---occurred in the last test of the day when the rat escaped his cage and made a successful dash to freedom!

It was near the end of the second Senior test when the rat wrangler had some difficulty removing the rat cage from the tunnel and that gave Griffin just enough time to exit the tunnel and stand at the rat wrangler's feet directly beneath the rat cage. I knew from past experience that if Griffin sees the rats before the wrangler has them safely hidden away it makes the recall much more difficult. What I did not yet know was that in the struggle to remove the rat cage from the tunnel the cage had fallen open. I was already calling Griffin back to me when the rat found the opening in the cage and jumped out right in front of Griffin. Everybody was caught off guard by this strange turn of events. The fact that I was already calling Griffin was just enough of a distraction to keep him from pouncing on the rat. The wrangler made one quick lunge toward the escaping rat and I started frantically calling Griffin back to me. Griffin was really pushed to his limit deciding whether to chase the rat or come to me. After a quite bit of hesitation he returned to me and was still well within the allotted time. The last anybody saw of the rat he was headed for the border in double quick time!

George

[bradl]

That's incredible George. The quadra-Q is impressive enough, but to recall off a loose rat is astonishing.

[Greg P]

Nice job! My grandson had his 2nd birthday party this weekend, so we had sit on the shelf. No earthdog for us until next month. I'm jealous!