Because Cyrus is so crazy in the water I started training him in April of 2004 on land and waited until he had the commands solidly before we moved to water training. In June we started the exercises in the water and I was shocked to see how we pretty much had to start from scratch. As the month went by he progressed quickly with the exception of the life jacket exercise. It took weeks for him to show interest in it and it wasn’t until we found a jacket suffed with a different material (feathers) did we have a break through in that exercise. All the way up until the end of August I was not looking at the September test seriously only as an experience for us but I soon started building up hope, as Cyrus got more consistent during each practice. Did we actually have a shot at a title? We did but I think due to my nerves since it was our first water test Cyrus really feed off of that which caused him to fumble his way through the easiest of all the exercises . He passed the single retrieve, tow a boat and swim with handler and failed the drop retrieve and take a line. We will definitely be practicing those in early spring and be ready for the test for July of 2005.