One of the (many) things we've working in is our "hold". It's been a mighty struggle getting this nailed down with Brooks, it's one of the things IRISHWHISTLER identified as a major issue and he gave me several recommendations for working on, and hopefully correcting these issues.
It's been about 4 weeks since we came back from Connecticut, and we've been working very hard on "hold", we've made progress, but sometimes it seems like we've gone one step up and two steps back. For whatever reason, Brooks still thinks we're playing, I'm sure if it's a maturity issue with him, or I'm just a lousy trainer. Probably a combination of the two. I don't have direct access to water, but I've been able to use a trout pond at the local dog park the past couple weeks. The water was a bit scummy most of the summer, but it's looking better now that fall is here.
One of Mike's recommendation was to put a small "place" mat near the edge of the water to give Brooks a reference point to return to. We've been doing this on land retrieves and it's worked well, with Brooks returning to heel with a good hold on the Dokken, and releasing it on command.
Today I used a small square rubber for his "place". Initially I had him sit at heel with a 25' check cord attached to his collar. I threw the Dokkens in close and sent Brooks. A soon as his picked up the mark, I reeled him in with the check cord, telling him to "hold" in a firm voice as he came out of the water, and quickly "J-hooked" him into heal position while telling him "hold". We did this 6 or 7 times, and he did it correctly the last 5 times. Upon taking the Dokken from him, I told him to "shake" which he did. I did a couple more close in tosses without the check cord, and those went well, Brooks correctly holding until I told him to "give", them allowing him to shake off.
My wife was off to the side of the pond, and I had her throw several longer marks. We did a total of four, with Brooks holding the Dokken correctly on 3 of the 4 marks.
This video was the first of the long marks.
https://photos.smugmug.com/Head-tilt...MG_0473-X3.jpg
I really can't thank Mike enough for all the help he has given us, I was feeling pretty lost and frustrated, and Mike gave me an honest evaluation of where we were with our field training, and he gave me very clear and understandable recommendations that have helped us greatly.
