Over Memorial Day Weekend the North Dakota Pointing Dog Club held its inaugural field at the Timm Ranch near Kensal, ND. Thank you to Curt and Tanya Timm for hosting us, and providing such wonderful grounds to hold a field trial on.
With Avian Flu affecting much of the upper Midwest we had a crash course on the regulations to import birds into North Dakota and the proper permits and paperwork required to do so. Thank you to the people at the Animal Health Division of the North Dakota Department of Agriculture and North Dakota Game and Fish for all of your assistance in helping us get everything in place. We had great flying healthy quail from Woodland Acres in Fairmont, MN. Thank you Alex Fredin for helping transport the birds to the trial.
We had a very nice entry for this three day field trial with professional trainers Art Armbrust, Greg Dixon, Tommy Hagan, and Josh Holden. We also had competitive amateurs from North Dakota, Minnesota, Montana, and Wisconsin.
I want to say a thank you to Todd Manns, Greg & Liz Dixon, Jeff Wallace, Bjorn Peterson, Bruce Mueller, and Josh Holden for volunteering their time and effort in judging our trial. A special thank you to Lance Shulz and Bill Holtan for stepping in at the last minute to fill in and judge the Open Limited Gun Dog/Open Restricted Shooting Dog and Open Gun Dog/Open Shooting Dog, respectively.
Saturday started with the Open Limited Gun Dog/Open Restricted Shooting Dog. We completed that stake, the Amateur Walking Derby, and got a few braces into the Open Gun Dog/Open Shooting Dog. That evening the majority of the field trial party made the short trip to enjoy a meal and refreshments at the Bordulac Bar & Grill.
On Sunday we finished the Open Gun Dog/Open Shooting Dog, Amateur Walking Gun Dog/Amateur Walking Shooting Dog, and the Open Derby. This left the Amateur Gun Dog/Amateur Shooting Dog as the only stake left to run on Memorial Day.
Thank you to everyone that helped in running of the trial. The committee of Chris Benskin, Kelly Jarmuzek, Shane Anderson, Alecx Fredin and Sue Mueller put a lot of work into making this trial run happen and run smoothly. Thank you to Bruce Mueller, John Zeman and Bill Holtan that did the majority of the bird planting.
Thank you to Dean Reinke and Nestle Purina for providing bags of Pro Plan for the trial.
In gratitude for all of Bill Holatn's help the NDPDC has donated a portion of this trials proceeds to the Izaak Holtan Memorial Scholarship Fund.
Now that the first one is in the books we hope to be able to run a spring and fall field trial annually.