The "Lil' Pumpkin" wasted no time getting her AKC Junior Hunter title! Going "four for four" Trip, CH Boulder's N Fusion's Power Trip SH, qualified in two weekends (four hunt tests) for her Junior Hunter title at the tender age of 8.5 months old. Trip was trained by both of us and handled by Aaron.

It was never our intention to have Trip pick up her JH title at such a young age (see our philosophy on training young bird dogs) but, just as she has from the day we brought her home, Trip exceeded our expectations. While we felt Trip was ready to run in the hunt tests, our primary goal was to expose her to field events and socialize her to this new arena.

Although we started Trip's bird work early on, we made sure very little pressure was put on her. We asked just enough of her to keep her enthusiasm high and her stress levels low. Keeping her training sessions short and fun allowed her to "be a puppy" while developing a deeper love for doing bird work. Her control work (teaching "whoa" and "here" - commands we believe to be the most important for a bird dog to know) was done out of the field as a part of her overall "life skills" training. With a solid understanding of these commands away from birds, we could then easily apply them in the field. In addition to Trip's strong pointing instincts, she's a natural retriever. By understanding how much she loved playing retrieve games, we knew we could foster this skill by enjoying retrieve games with her every day. Retrieving was FUN, FUN, FUN! She was showered with huge praise when she brought back objects we tossed for her or proudly carried them around without hard-mouthing. We honed in on Trip's natural retrieving skills and, through play, began encouraging her to retrieve/carry birds from the time she was a 10 week old pup.

Trip is now getting ready for her first hunting season and for the show ring. Breeder/co-owner Judy is training Trip to show in conformation. We're (obviously) excited about our sweet and most special girl's very bright future!

Check out Trip's page on Judy and Edj Hetkowski's Boulder Vizslas website.