Mia earns her RD rating from the WCA!

I am thrilled to announce that Mia earned her RD (Retrieving Dog) rating from the Weimaraner Club of America on October 7, 2012.  Mia did beautiful land and water retrieves and received many compliments from the other weim owners.  The RD test requires the dog to complete a land and water double.  The dog is supposed to be steady on the line (with no restraint from the handler) and should not move until sent to retrieve by the handler.  In RD, a controlled break is allowed if the dog moves.  As long as the handler is able to verbally stop the dog before leaving the circle, you can still qualify.  Mia did break a couple of times but I was able to control her by reminding her to sit.  The RD test also requires that birds be retrieved to hand and the handler is not allowed to touch the dog at any point during the test.  Mia is very close to being ready for RDX but we have to work on her steadiness on the line.  She is very steady in training but working real birds increases her adrenaline and drive exponentially.  We also need to do some work with her releasing the bird on command.  She does pretty well the first few retrieves but then starts to get greedy and wants to hang on to the bird.  I am hoping to run her in RDX in the spring if she is ready.  

The RD test also requires the dog to retrieve birds through water decoys which is what you see in the middle right side of the picture.

Thanks to Gretchen Stephenson for taking pictures of my girl!