Two good dogs, and a crazy, crazy training day.

[TuMicks]

We are currently driving quite long distances to get to water. Drove about 40 miles to public land along the American River but found that there was a gate that was locked. We should have had access, but whatever. So we went back to one of our regular training areas, no water. Had to settle for a land set up.

Double with a Bull-dog and a single land blind. Distances were not too long but we put in as many factors, which is to say... bunches of sage brush, a dip where the mark disappeared followed by an angle up the hill to the mark. The second bird was thrown slightly IN (something we don't do a lot of) so if the dog blew past on the wrong side up-wind of it, they could get a nose full of the left hand bird and roll into a big switch. The land blind was off the hip pocket of the left hand bird, not too challenging but the young dogs wanted to return to the mark. We had to keep distances fairly short because it was so hot. (We had no ATV so all the equipment and birds had to be carried out. And if the work got real hacky, we didn't want dogs to be out there in the sun overly long. No water to cool them down, and no shade.)

Bridget: Hammered it. La-dee-dah. Bridget is an exceptionally well trained dog who will look like a million bucks on land work, but totally give me the jazz on water. SO... unless and until we can do serious water work, we can't fix her problems.

Branna (a.k.a. Rocket Dog): Did a very good job. Wanted to cave into the left hand mark when doing the blind, but handled out of it, no prob.

The deal is that RD is with the pro. Her line manners with me were so CRAPPY, I thought she was losing ground, getting worse. But, she's just FINE with the pro. Still really hyped. Still fast as a bolt of black lightning leaving the line on marks and blinds. Holy smoke she is a fun dog to watch!

But... there is a pattern here. Bridget gives me the jazz on water. Rocket Dog is crazy on the line with me but not the pro. Hmmmmm...

[Scoutpout]

uh oh... i see what you're seeing. help? back to regular obed. basics? not fun necessarily but may be helpful? sucks you don't have water. water where we're doing the saturdays has dried up, apparently never used to, until about 2 miles down the road some new buildings went up. they're trying to find a place to work water, as they think we've all done well enough so far on the basics on land. thats a 45 min drive, so hope the water is close to it or back this way. I've now got a dog who is annoying the crap out of me, when he's waiting in the truck, he starts to bark. unacceptable. nice to see him soooo enthusiastic, but he can't be making that kind of fuss. ecollar has no effect, he just shakes it. so as i'm working him on "quiet" out of the truck, i hope that carries over to in the truck. up to and at the line, he's hyped, but controllable without danger of me falling on my face holding on. don't want to calm him down too much, want to keep the enthusiasm up. balancing act for sure.

[TuMicks]

The pro who is "rehabilitating" Rocket Dog must have 2 schools of thought about noise. Her standards are extremely high. QUIET!!! And in the past she told me to make RD wear a bark collar ALL the time (while awake, that is). I noticed that now with RD back on her truck, there isn't any bark collar, but... also it doesn't seem to be necessary. Maybe RD is still super hyped... but she ain't stupid. She knows she's on the boss-lady's truck. So she's quiet in her box.

There is no question that whining and barking for RD is her way of saying... "you might be making me stay here, but in my head... I am so GONE." So for her, noise control is very, very important.

But it sounds like right now, you aren't worrying about steadiness, but rather drive and other basics. It is great that your dog knows what she was bred for. Woo-HOO! Birds!!!

Well, while RD has seemed much better with the pro earlier this week, today was the acid test. Live fliers. This dog spotted the flier station and knew immediately what was up. The routine for her is that she can't do her marks until she does a good job on the blind. So for her, it's always plastic bumpers first. Uh, well... you could tell that just the knowledge that live fliers were on the menu, totally rattled her. She wasn't prompt on her whistles, got corrected on that... then did a credible job on the blind. Next it was the two dead bird stations. Nailed them. THEN the flier. Well... not so much. She totally broke. But that's OK. She got a good correction in and should be a little further along in understanding that good things come to dogs who wait.

Honestly, this drought sucks. I don't think we can get to a level of training where we could be competitive. So I'm praying for a Donner-Party style winter and good water in the spring. Then we'll assess how we're doing.

[Scoutpout]

so interesting to hear what others are doing and finding and training. yes, just want to keep the drive up while shaping the behaviour that we're looking for, i don't want anything to dampen that, but yet don't want to allow really bad stuff to become habit.

ah, the patience thing. funny thing about dogs....they can wait all day for some stuff with no problem, but when they really really really want something, they have a hard time getting the "wait"

and we can't even say we've had a drought up here - decent amount of snow, and lots of good rains in between dry-ish spells. rivers and creeks and lakes are up i'd say from last year. a couple of the clubs in the area train on conservation land, with good water. so maybe their plan is to team up with some of them. He hasn';t seen a duck now in 10 days. we've just been working on "take" with his obed. dumbell, thats coming, but not there yet. from take want to move to hold.

[TuMicks]

Step at a time. If you can avoid creating bad habits, then it's just a matter of layering one behavior on top of the one before. My problem is that I was in the process of allowing RD to backslide.

We have a couple who own property and have water rights and they can pump water enough to make a small pond. That's going to have to be it for the rest of the year. And we don't want to wear out our welcome so maybe it will just be once a week or so.