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  1. #1
    Senior Dog TuMicks's Avatar
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    Control is the name of the game.

    Here is the set up for the day:

    -july23-jpg

    These were brain-dead marks. Nothing much to recommend them. Probably the longest (on #1) would be 120 yards. They are so spread out, they are essentially singles. It was the integration of the blinds (again, maybe the longest one was 150 yds) that produced the challenge. I think the difference between FT and HT is that in HT, the hazards are more immediate and in your face. We don't do long blinds and marks so we don't give them the distance challenge. But it's all about control up close. You can go from zero to DQ in the first 40 yards, very typically.

    As an aside, we are doing what amounts to very simple set ups because we have only young dogs in our group. The exceptions are two "big" dogs who have had significant problems that have caused them to flat-line in their training repertoire.

    For Bridget (a theoretically "finished" dog) I took them around the horn, thrown as a triple. I picked up the go-bird then ran the two blinds then picked up the last two marks. She had no problems at all.

    I got RD off the truck, by this time she had been hearing the gun for a couple of hours and she was totally amped. When we came to the line, we did ran the blinds without preliminaries. Nevertheless, there was duck scent all over the place and she could easily pick out the gun stations. So she absolutely wanted to go where she knew the ducks were. Immediately, she was getting nicked for loopy, reluctant sits on the whistle. She figured out that wouldn't work so the sits got better. BUT...

    The adage is that you handle a slow dog fast and a fast dog slow. So, I was taking my time after the whistle-sit before I handled her. For the first time in I don't know how long, she was breaking before the handle and heading off in her own direction. So she got some significant correction for that. Bottom line it was a hacky job. But we got the two blinds. Then did the marks as singles, the main deal being that she had to remain rock steady until sent. I am pleased to say that she is doing that really well.

    But, oh-my-oh-my-oh... she is totally coiled, locked and loaded after those birds go down. Good golly Miss Molly. She is about to explode. But so far so good. The steadying seems to have taken. Now I just have to make sure I don't let her lapse.

    Oh, she also got a correction on the honor. We do the honor on a down-stay. By the time the third gun when off she had gotten up into a sitting position. So that gave us a chance to reinforce DOWN means DOWN and STAY means STAY.

  2. #2
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    -land-series-july-24th-jpg

    Run in a field with a gazillion randomly placed hay bales.

    Obviously, RD's land blind had a few shortcomings. We ran the land blind prior to any marks. But again, she knew exactly where the ducks had been and she'd been hearing the guns go off for quite a while. At this point, we weren't sure we'd let her have her marks since she was pretty determined to do her own thing on the land blind. As you can see from the diagram, she pretty much would not take a back cast.

    -water-blind-july-24th-jpg

    I was pleased with her water blind. First, she jumped right in. No attempt to cheat whatsoever. Second, she did not square the entry and head for the point of land, she swam past it. Third, her inclination was to stay in the water, hence she started to follow the water around the point. Fourth, she took a cast that put her up on the far shore really well placed to grab the blind, and only needed a little bit of handling to reach it. She was a good girl.

    Consequently, we came back and did the two long marks as singles. She was rock steady. Had no trouble marking them, even though the random hay bales seemed to throw some of the young dogs off. Then she honored and that was it for her.

    Rome wasn't built in a day.

  3. #3
    Senior Dog Scoutpout's Avatar
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    that all looks so extremely difficult....yikes.

    And big congrats on the steady! i'm hoping i don't get yanked off my feet tomorrow. still using a slip lead for the honour and blind hold. and i don't want a repeat of yanking out of my hand and trying to beat the retrieving dog swimming to the floating mark... ohhhhh, soooo soooo bad....

    we have dead duck day tomorrow, after missing a week and there being no "class" last week. so two weeks...our homework had been - pick up what you're sent out for, as the last class, Scout decided on the land work he would only pick up dead things, not any never-been-alive things...to the point of seeing it was a dokken/bumper, then heading over to the gunner and bird bucket. oy.

    so, he's only had dokkens and dummies for the 5 or so times we've had time to "play" in the interim. The looks i've been getting from him are priceless, he gets ramped up when he sees the field bag (as opposed to the show bag) come out, and when i use the duck call, man, he's trembling. "go" and he goes out to the mark all quick like, gets to it, turns and looks at me like "what the H*LL is THIS???" gets a reminder to bring it back, begrudgingly retrieves it (although, he's bringing to hand, yay! not dropping 2 feet from me!), gets praised, and positioned for the next one. It gets better each send, almost like, ok, if THIS is all I get to play with, fine...

    anyway, have fun if you get to go play tomorrow - off to bed for us now so we can get up and at it before it gets warm - land stuff 1st, then off to the water training spot as it gets later in the morning.

  4. #4
    Senior Dog TuMicks's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Scoutpout View Post
    that all looks so extremely difficult....yikes.

    And big congrats on the steady! i'm hoping i don't get yanked off my feet tomorrow. still using a slip lead for the honour and blind hold. and i don't want a repeat of yanking out of my hand and trying to beat the retrieving dog swimming to the floating mark... ohhhhh, soooo soooo bad....

    we have dead duck day tomorrow, after missing a week and there being no "class" last week. so two weeks...our homework had been - pick up what you're sent out for, as the last class, Scout decided on the land work he would only pick up dead things, not any never-been-alive things...to the point of seeing it was a dokken/bumper, then heading over to the gunner and bird bucket. oy.

    so, he's only had dokkens and dummies for the 5 or so times we've had time to "play" in the interim.
    The looks i've been getting from him are priceless, he gets ramped up when he sees the field bag (as opposed to the show bag) come out, and when i use the duck call, man, he's trembling. "go" and he goes out to the mark all quick like, gets to it, turns and looks at me like "what the H*LL is THIS???" gets a reminder to bring it back, begrudgingly retrieves it (although, he's bringing to hand, yay! not dropping 2 feet from me!), gets praised, and positioned for the next one. It gets better each send, almost like, ok, if THIS is all I get to play with, fine...

    anyway, have fun if you get to go play tomorrow - off to bed for us now so we can get up and at it before it gets warm - land stuff 1st, then off to the water training spot as it gets later in the morning.


    That is so funny. I know exactly what you mean. Bridget will boil out to get a duck. Throw something plastic and she grudgingly galomps out to it like... "ok, if that's the best you can do... but I ain't thrilled."

    BTW: I think the fact that Scout wants to break on you is not a bad thing. There is an old saying that a dog has a mixture of NO and GO in him. If he's all NO (indifferent, or unwilling) you can't give him GO. If you have enough GO (i.e., wants to break and run out and get the objects) then, with enough patience, you can instill the right amount of NO .

  5. #5
    Senior Dog TuMicks's Avatar
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    -july-25th-jpg

    Gosh, everything went well with RD. She had to do her blind before she was allowed to do marks and she 2 (or three... can't exactly remember) whistled it. (When I think back t when I finally gave up, sent her to the pro to be steadied... she has come such a long way.) She did not get out of the water until I handled her out. She didn't even seem to think about taking the land route back. Jumped in and swam back. Another thing she does that some dogs have difficulty doing is she will tread water and wait for my handle.

    She had no problems with the converging birds on the opposite shore. Although we haven't really worked on marking, (I know, that seems sort of weird) it's something I believe she is pretty good at. But we didn't really know whether she could mark or not until we could get the line manners worked out.

    So for RD, it was a pretty good day. And, actually not a bad week.
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails -july-25th-jpg  
    Last edited by TuMicks; 07-26-2015 at 04:02 PM.

  6. #6
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    I really like your water set up. M and I have been working a lot of water blinds this last while. I like the one you have parallel to shore and get in the water and stay in the water till I say get out. Today we did some schooled blinds on the concept pond. The first one starts at the rounded end of the pond, passes through a narrow channel into open water then passes the first point and over a second point to the far end of the pond. I guess it is about 200 yds (will measure it one of these days) The second blind is shorter. It goes through the rounded area of the pond, over a tree limb that has fallen in and just catches the tip of a point then back to the blind planted on the peninsula. If the dog catches the point too fat they are sucked around the corner. After these 2 we ran a threepete from another angle on the pond. On the first blind M wanted to get in thin and run along the curved edge of the pond (it's faster) so I had to call her back. Once she got the line the rest of the blind was done well. Second one she has a tendency to want to get back on the line to the first so after a whistle or two she was fine. With the threepete she did the first one really well because it was straight into the water get the blind. The second of course she wanted to suck back onto the line of the first so had to have a couple of whistles. The third was a major battle. She decided she was going to cheat some cover that was on the line, then she thought she would head for the middle blind, once pulled off that she decided she would cheat the point and not go over it. At that point I called her back and the little monster came in on a line that was perfect for the blind. Lined her up again sent her and didn't have to touch the whistle until she passed through the channel and then only because I wanted to make sure she didn't hang a right around the island. Some times it is just a battle of wills.


    You are so right about field work being control, control, control. We have a friend who is a pro trainer staying for a couple of days before going on to the next field trial. This weekend he won the first open with one of his dogs and then for the second open he couldn't get any through. The dog that won the first one is a high flying yellow that charges out of the holding blind so today all he did with her was have me do the announcing of "guns up, dog to the line, chat with the handler. If she came out of the holding blind not under strict control she got a correction and it was back to the blind. It took 2 times for her to gather herself. Dave also told me that one of his black males was dropped on the land blind because he barked twice in the holding blind. He never got to run him on the blind. I saw this dog work today and he is very well mannered and sat in the blind quietly and came to the line quietly. So as to your other thread with others kind of dis the obedience of field dogs they really need to see these dogs in action. People who are serious about field work like yourself don't let their dogs out to run around at an event. I will admit there are some at these events that do but I am not sure how serious of trainers they are or how well they understand the pure training of a field dog. There was a really great series of articles in Retrievers ONLINE written by Marilyn Fender about "Chaining" behaviours from the moment you open the crate until the dog is set up on the line. I know I really have to keep on myself not to become sloppy or complacent.
    I keep think of you and your weather. We are having our one week of, to us, hot weather. The temps are around 90 with the humidex. I hate it! If the thermometer gets above 72 I am not happy. I don't know how the southerns do it.

  7. #7
    Senior Dog TuMicks's Avatar
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    Well... we have 4 seasons here, so I couldn't really tell you to come here to escape you're serious winters. But I'll bet ours are nothing like yours. Summer returns in spades this coming week, maybe near 100 F. Umbrellas, plenty of ice water, shorts, SPF 400 (kidding... only 100) and bug spray. It is still tough work. But the main thing is not us, but the dogs. Hard chargers like M, RD and one other dog in our group... they only have one speed. So we have to be careful.

    But to your point about your blind set up... you did the right thing, from what I've been told. You HAVE to win before the training is done. (Even if it's only a sorta win...) So, as you can imagine, in the heat we don't want to get in a huge battle of wills. Maybe that's part of why out set-ups are pretty short with all the concepts in close. The other reason is the experience level of dogs in our group. By fall, when air temps are less and the dogs are that much further along, we may be using more territory and longer distances.

    Yeah, geeze-a-whee. I had no idea that dogs were allowed to run around getting into other dogs' faces at Obedience shows. I was blown away. I'm so naive. Now I know why the gals at the Doilies and Dog Training Club wouldn't let us show up with an e-collar. Silly me. I was seriously only interested in doing it NOT to make RD run their little routines. Heck, we can do that, right now thank you very much. It was because I didn't want her to encroach on other dogs. But I guess that's not their deal. Screw it. You have the good fortune of meeting Obedience and Conformation people trying to get a WC. These folks, I imagine are seeing your dogs or other field dogs and are more open minded. Those that haven't, can't understand the passion and drive of RD and M (and others like them) until and unless they see it. They think the dogs run because we shock them or something????

    So anyhow, our big problem last week was land blinds. Largely because of ME. I have 66 year old reflexes and RD is SO FAST ALL THE TIME!!!! I was way behind her constantly. Tomorrow being Tuesday we'll have a big array of land blinds. I'll see if I can improve a little.

    More later!

  8. #8
    Senior Dog TuMicks's Avatar
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    -july-28th-jpg

    So the issue was, would she and I do better today on our land blind. Yes. She carried her line, stopped, took a cast. The junction of the ditch and the road at the end of the blind did not throw her off.

    Did the blind before the marks, as is our habit right now. Also took the marks as singles. I gotta say that singles or not, almost ALL the dogs could not get the middle mark. For some reason, they couldn't/wouldn't cross the ditch, and when they did, the wind didn't help them. It either died at that spot, or whirled around. But Branna was using her eyes and remembering what she saw. Frankly, she marked it, she didn't hunt it down.

    Another interesting thing... when I was hitting the transmitter to release her marks, I inadvertently blasted off #1 for a second time, instead of the short breaking bird #3. So I had to pull her off the erroneous bird and line her up on the short one. This took some control, right? And, of course, the short bird was very enticing. But she stayed at heel. Then I was sure she would over-run the short bird. But she didn't. Right to it.

    So, honestly... I think we're both making some real progress.

    Tomorrow we'll be on water of some sort.

  9. #9
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    It has been so hot and humid here that I have not wanted to even go outside. Tuesday we trained at a friend's property that has really technical water. M was really off and I was no better. It didn't help that I had left the collar transmitter in the other vehicle so I couldn't get a good correction when she started to blow off whistles and do it her way. The only good thing I can say is that she was steady on the double.
    Don will be here next week and he will straighten both of us out.
    We may get out tomorrow as the weather is supposed to break tonight.

 



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