{"id":1807,"date":"2018-10-21T06:55:58","date_gmt":"2018-10-21T14:55:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/coverdogsetters.com\/?p=1807"},"modified":"2018-10-22T10:29:41","modified_gmt":"2018-10-22T18:29:41","slug":"blast-off-triumphs-at-the-northern-michigan-coverdog-championshiip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coverdogsetters.com\/?p=1807","title":{"rendered":"Blast Off Triumphs at the Northern Michigan Coverdog Championship"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Ch. Blast Off<\/strong><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Owned by Justin Evans, Blast Off, son of our Grand National Grouse Champion Full Blast, scored a bigtime win in mid-October by claiming the Northern Michigan Coverdog Championship.\u00a0 Facing a\u00a0 high quality field of 54 of the best coverdogs in the country, Blast Off waited his turn until Day 2 in the 9th brace.\u00a0 It was worth the wait as “Sam”, under the whistle of Mark Forman and DunRoven’s Drifter handled by Rich Hollister attacked the hour hunting course.\u00a0 Drifter was eventually named the RU Ch. in this event so the judges had a one-on-one direct comparison of the two eventual winners.\u00a0 Blast Off scorched the course, running hard and going to not just the nearby objectives but reaching when needed to check out likely coverts.\u00a0 First “Sam” scored a beautiful grouse find with the quarry accurately located and Blast Off demonstrating his high and intense pointing posture.\u00a0 This was followed later with a sharp woodcock find.\u00a0 This is the second trip to the Championship circle for Blast Off as he earlier had earned a RU Championship.<\/p>\n

As with all dogs, there is a back story to “Sam’s” outstanding win.\u00a0 Four years ago, Justin was just getting into competing grouse dogs.\u00a0 It’s challenging to get a dog who\u00a0 can compete against the best\u00a0 dogs, who are often campaigned by folks who’ve been dedicated to this sport for decades.\u00a0 They’ve got the lines and individuals who can produce winners and understandably they are keeping the best for themselves.\u00a0 As Dick Brenneman and I have each been trialing for more than 50 years, at this point we recognize we can’t keep doing this forever and that bringing young folks into the game is critical to its survival.\u00a0 When Michigander Ken Moss bred our Full Blast to a daughter of his Grand National Grouse Ch. Moss Meadow Traveler, we decided to offer Justin the pick-of-the-litter, stud fee pup. The dam’s side of the female was from our Ch. Pennstar and we were confident that there would be pups in the litter who could compete with the best.\u00a0 I recall Justin and his son driving out to get their pup.\u00a0 While on his way, we were texting about my similar drive\u00a0 to pick out our first English setter pup.\u00a0 I recall on the way home how my 8 year old son whispered, “Dad, look at his tail”.\u00a0 The pup was laid out, sleeping on the front seat between us.\u00a0 His tail was straight up, at 12 o’clock!\u00a0 That pup, Wire,\u00a0 became a Grouse Dog of the Year and a foundation dog for our kennel with his genes contributing today to bird dog performances across America.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Owned by Justin Evans, Blast Off, son of our Grand National Grouse Champion Full Blast, scored a bigtime win in mid-October by claiming the Northern Michigan Coverdog Championship.\u00a0 Facing a\u00a0 high quality field of 54 of the best coverdogs in the country, Blast Off waited his turn until Day 2 in the 9th brace.\u00a0 It…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coverdogsetters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coverdogsetters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coverdogsetters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coverdogsetters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coverdogsetters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1807"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/coverdogsetters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1807\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1818,"href":"https:\/\/coverdogsetters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1807\/revisions\/1818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coverdogsetters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coverdogsetters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coverdogsetters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}