First water work of the season

[Anna Scott]

Did our first water training yesterday. We went to the property of a fellow who has recently joined out training group, as there was another group coming to train on my property. The property we used has umpteen concept ponds which the fellow has designed. They are really quite technical, with many points and dikes and multiple ins and outs. The first set up we did consisted of two land makes and an in and out with a short swim. We ran the water mark between the 2 land marks just to make a quick check on the water temperature. Day was warm, water temp was good and the dogs were loving it. The second set up was 2 water marks and a land mark, to dry the dogs off a bit at the end. The first water mark was real cheaty and had three dikes to go over. We were running off a mound and as you hit the top of the mound the middle gun was very visible. Some of the young dogs wanted to lock on it and not swing to the left gunner. I had them give M a "hey,hey" as she wanted that middle gun. When I sent her for the first bird she decided she would cheat the shore as it was faster so I called her back. On the second send she thought "oh I guess you really want that center bird so she took off on a wrong line again. Called her in and walked up about 5 steps and sent her for the left bird. This time she had a clear message of what bird and what line. She took the 3 ins and outs and went straight to the bird, with no cheat on the way out and no cheat on the way in. The other two marks were straight forward. We are hoping to do more training on his property as it is totally different from ours.
Spring training is moving into high gear. The only problem now is BLACKFLIES. They are such little beggers but have jaws like chainsaws. They don't just bite they tear a hunk out of you.

[Scoutpout]

woohooo water time! not sure what the heck our group is going to do this year.... the pond that got torn up and closed in late July just as we were all working to go to the Chessie club's WC run is back open again, but i suspect that now that part of it is "pretty-fied" its going to attract a lot of other people out to walk fish etc. The "emergency back up pond" we wound up using for the last 4 weeks before the test is not an ideal pond - its just a small irrigation pond, its maybe 50ft wide (if that) and about 200ft long. It did lend itself well to starting to teach "straight" last year, and the one end is a nice gentle walk-in that helped a couple of the youngsters learn about water. Super nice of the farmer to let us use it! Scout has been in the river and ponds where we walk for some time now (they're a bit of a walk in, and some of our training group would have big trouble getting to them), and his pool is open, so temps for his type are fine. Of course, the 2 big training clubs down this way have a couple of the conservation areas to use, with lots of differing water available.
I need to win the lottery and buy a property with some ponds on it!

[TuMicks]

Wow... isn't it a funny thing? Once you start training retrievers, so many things change. Handling skanky long-dead ducks, no problem. You weigh whether you want to buy some expensive water-proof/insulated boots for cold-weather training, pricey gortex outer wear... instead of designer clothes. I mean, I'm getting Cabelas gift certificates for Mothers Day and Birthday and Anniversary. Right? Some people my age covet big houses or sports cars or dream about taking a cruise up the rivers of Europe. I want a full-sized p/up truck and my BIG dream is a technical pond. I will go on line and look at rural properties back east (I have shirt-tail relatives in Alabama) and waste time imagine owning a couple hundred acres and sculpting it to meet my training needs.

I was thinking about black flies at our HT. No, we don't have any. But mosquitoes... un-frigg'n-believable. They would just rise up from the sage brush in clouds. I'd go back to my white pickup truck and the side of it would be black the skeeters were so thick. It's bad when you gotta spray your truck with deep-woods Off in order to get in and out of it. They were awful. But all I could think about was... Oh, dear Lord! I'm so glad we don't have black flies. Not only do they bite you... but I used to get big, red, angry, inflammatory reactions to them. Nasty things. Mosquitoes are just an itchy nuisances.

Hey Anna... where abouts are these ponds? It could be cool to try to find them on Google Maps and look at them with the Satellite view. (Of course, it could make me jealous... so maybe it's not healthy for me to know.)

[Anna Scott]

I will try to get some co-ordinates for you. We have 4 areas we have water access to. You might be able to google Tiny Marsh. There are several small ponds there which we use and a beautiful wetland area. You really need to use a canoe off the dyke system. They were put in by Ducks Unlimited. Another set of ponds we use were actually built for racing snow machines on water. They are quite large and don't have a lot of features in them but they are great for out to sea marks. They are on the 6th Concession (Newton Street) in Victoria Harbour ON. Bob's property is in Hillsdale ON (Craig Rd). He bought it several years ago and at that time ask Eden and I if we knew of anyone with a excavator for sale. It just so happened a friend had an old one and Bob bought it. We said he did nothing but dig for the next 5 years until "Dino" finally died. Right now he has a bull dozer and backhoe. His health is not good but he never seems to stop making plans for the property. Our ponds are 1994 Wood Rd Wyebridge (Lot 87 E Con 1 Tay). I really want to get more digging done but the guys we use are so busy on bigger jobs. I just keep hoping.
You're right about priorities shifting when you get involved with the dogs. I used to have closets full of expensive suits and shoes when I was working. Now I'm happy with a new pair of jeans and a T-shirt. Our next thing on the wish list is a Ranger. We have an ATV and my husband borrows a Kubbota for us but it is diesel and a little bigger than we need. It was a challenge to get used to driving the Kubbota because as soon as you took your foot of the fuel pedal it stopped dead. Ours were not always the smoothest stops. The Ranger is smaller and easier for us to handle.

We often laugh that we are the only people that drive by a swamp or a wetland and say wouldn't it be great to own that.
As for black flies, this is their season. We have 4 seasons in Canada; blackfly, deerfly, horsefly and then snow flies. We just can't win.

[TuMicks]

Anna! I don't know when that satellite photo was snapped of your property, but I think you were having a training day or something at that moment. (Our spy agencies are all over the nefarious dog trainers amongst our "neighbors" to the north!!! Heck, Hillary Clinton's server probably knows all about your property.) Have you ever looked it up? Either you were holding a training day or cars and trucks just sorta line themselves up along the side of your road in the fields. One of them is parked in the shade of a bunch of trees where I would be if I had dog crates in the bed of my truck.

[Anna Scott]

it may have been awhile ago or it could have been taken during the York trial. The one thing I like is that we don't limit where you can drive or park on the property as the back fields are used exclusively for dog training, hunting and sighting in rifles before hunting season. I use the term hunting tongue in cheek as no one has ever shot anything on the property. The turkey season is on and a friend has tried every day to lure one out with no luck. Yesterday when we were out the grouse were drumming, the geese and ducks were doing their thing (one goose had a real bass honk ) and we could hear a hen turkey in the bush. I met the friend who was turkey hunting's wife in the grocery store. She said she was exhausted with him getting up a 4:30 am and then coming home to tell her all the things he had hard and seen. Not sure but I think the turkeys are quite safe.
I will try to get a look at what is on google on my laptop.
As far as shade goes I try to leave as much as possible as I am not a sun worshipper.

[TuMicks]

I can understand what you mean now when you talk about running from a dike.

[Anna Scott]

What you are seeing is probably the Trottier dike. It runs north and south through the marsh and meets up with the Carolina dike that runs east and west. Beyond the Caroline to the west is the bird sanctuary. We have help band ducks back there. There are several observation platforms through out the marsh that give you a great view of the whole area. If you can see an area that looks like zigzags, these are the zipper ditches. The system is designed to control the water level in the wetlands. Every so often the DU does a draw down. They empty one cell and raise the other. The draining allows for excess vegetation to die off and new growth to occur. The were supposed to do one this spring but have put it off. Am glad because it would have caused problems for the FT. I love that marsh. It is just great to sit on the dikes and watch the performance that nature puts on.

[TuMicks]

As beautiful as the desert and mountains are, nature seems to go out of her way to make everything around water (ocean or inland) even more spectacular.