So here's what we did today

[TuMicks]

I am terrible about diagramming with perspective. But this illustrates what we were doing and how Rocket Dog ran it. We were in a huge bowl. The left hand bird gave all the dogs fits. It was thrown into pretty heavy cover. If the dogs ran past it, they ended up on the far ridge and just got thoroughly lost. Apparently the scent was just gusting around in violent shreds, being driven every which way by the wind. (Well, that's our excuse and I'm sticking to it.)

These were the first marks she's seen since our group broke down for the MN/Hunting Season/holidays/winter weather. So the big test for RD was how were her line manners going to be? Would she be creeping/breaking? I was trying to be mentally prepared for whatever. She had to be on a down-stay by the truck while another dog ran and I was on the line watching. She maintained her down. (Good.)

She heeled with me to the line. (Good) But you could see her revving up her engine getting those thrusters ready.

She sat on the line (Amazing) and eyeballed the guns. We took them as singles because it's all about the line manners right now. Long bird goes off and she could hardly contain herself. Only ONE FOOT moved and she did not creep. (Hurrah!) So I cut her lose.

When she came back to the line, I aimed her at the right hand bird and left the duck in her mouth. Gun goes off and she is so whacked and crazy, she spits the bird out. So we had to fetch-it-up (spit) fetch-it-up-HOLD (spit) FETCH-(nick)-IT-UP-HOLD... and finally, she was like Oh-DUH! Mom takes the bird then I can go!

Followed the same pattern when lining up for the third bird. She didn't spit it out this time. And that third bird was just eating everyone's lunch. The heavy cover and massive Sierra wind just did them no favors. But that wasn't the big deal today. It was all about control.

Finally she came back with the third bird and I tried to NO her off the guns (good luck with that, jack!) to send her on the blind. Of course she went hell-for-leather rolling down the hill after the long bird. Hit her with a prompt whistle. After that you can see from the diagram it was straight right-hand backs the whole way, into the wind and away from the suction of that middle bird. She sat great on the whistle. Pretty much took her casts.

So considering what I was expecting to happen, and if you grade on the curve... maybe she got a B or B minus. But I was pretty pleased.

[Anna Scott]

Running in a bowl with a stiff wind can create all kinds of interesting patterns. Our property has high steep hills on the northside which run down into a valley then it climbs to flatten out where the road is an crosses over to another low lying area. You never know which way the winds will be. The prevailing winds should be out of the northwest but when you get the bowl/valley effect they are always shifting. Groups like to train on it when they are going to certain trials because it gets the dogs looking up not just straight out. Not too much flat around here. That middle bird did its job getting the suction but it looks like RD did fine once past those initial scallops. I really don't know what M will do when we finally get out to train. Right now she is laying behind me snoring like a freight train.

[TuMicks]

I could have let her roll at a certain point... but the pro is insistent that at this point, I cannot demand too much of her, nor can I have too much control. I'm not sure where that balance comes in where you try to stretch them out and work on carrying a line.

There is a super high roller on the truck that has come through the program with many of the same issues as RD. He runs full throttle on blinds or marks and is a thrill to watch. At this point he takes a line and runs it with amazing precision. I believe (I don't think I'm being overly biased) that RD is showing a lot more maturity than this dog did at her age. The potential was there for sure. And the pro and owner stuck with him. But he was one of those dogs you just shake your head and say... "someday, he'll be a great dog." Well, his day is dawning. I hope RD comes along faster... but whatever it takes, well, that's what it takes.

[Anna Scott]

Because of our long winter we did a lot of parking lot training with my second dog. There is an historical site not far from us that has a huge parking lot. In the winter we would go there just to exercise the dogs. I would put out a huge pile of bumpers and then run Evander to them. The parking lot was about 300 yds long so he learned to run a straight line with no problem. But then he loved doing drills. Being lazy I would leave bumpers out on the 3 leg drill and he would go out and run it all by him self. I must get M out to do some of these things before the winter is over but old age is slowing me down.

[TuMicks]

That's a thought. Bridget hates drills. She just gets slower and more pissy the longer we do it. (Such a little drama queen.) But Ram Jet Rocket Dog is still vibrating and quivering and nearly wanting break (in a friggin' drill!) no matter how long we go. I should do it more.

[TuMicks]

2/25/16


What a GORGEOUS Nevada Day. Canada Geese honking as they flew at 25 feet above our heads. The mountains on both sides of us, a Southern Pacific train chugging past on one hillside... and Horses! There's just no diversion quite like having two horses charge right over top of the right hand mark to sort of mess with the dog's head and the handler's game plan. (Fortunately, didn't happen when we were on the line. But, it would have been amusing. As it was, I was manning the right hand winger and the horses charged past me not 20 feet from me. Could have sworn they smashed the duck into the dirt but they missed it somehow.)

These marks were not super-duper serious. We were a bit constrained by the limits of the fenced field we were in. The dogs aren't in tremendous campaigning condition yet. So we're just firming up fundamentals.

Ran Bridget as a triple. For some reason she cut behind the "long" gun and had a stupid sort of hunt. No problem with anything else. Main goal with Bridget was to make it fun for her. She's such a little drama queen, I don't want her feelings hurt this early in the season.

We took these as singles with Branna. Really still focused on line manners. I hadn't hung the ducks on the rack before she was back with the next duck. She is very fast. Loves water. Hits it like a ton of bricks, creating a tsunami. She doesn't leap into the water with a stunning stylish entry. She just hits it like she's trying to move it out of her way. Totally honest. Has never... even as a young dog indicated she wanted to cheat. She just loves water. I think if there's water on the way to or from the bird, she'd just as soon swim.

But then there was her spectacular blind work today. She clearly wanted another duck and didn't want anything to do with the plastic bumpers. She was a naughty girl and knew exactly what she was doing. So she got a little heat when she quit pretending and flat out went 180 degrees the wrong way. The ground had sort of rolled down and maybe she thought I couldn't see her. Don't know.

Oh well. The way I look at it, the dog either does it perfectly or learns something new. She's not perfect yet... so we'll surely see some more of this.

But what a spectacular day.

[TuMicks]

Typical Red Rock Desert blind spread. Gave a "3 down the shore" effect on the far side of the road (gotta come back and run here with marks sometime)... long-short-long on the near-side. Wind was not a factor. The ditches by the road side and the vegetation choking them made it tough to impossible for the dogs to line anything on the right. But Branna was not squaring anything, so she did a very credible job. Bridget had no problem. Land blind drills are a ho-hum sort of deal for her.

[Anna Scott]

Teaching to angle a ditch can be a tough concept. Do you do any prep work before hand? When we had some work done I had them build me a mound which we run off and also a shallow ditch in order to teach the concept. Ditches can be dangerous especially for high fliers like RD and M. I've seem some dogs take a nasty tumble misjudging a ditch and some even try to jump them if they are not too wide.

[TuMicks]

You know, Anna... I believe I should work with her on the concept more. But this is the funny thing about training out here... (and I'd like your thoughts...) We train on very brushy, sagey terrain. Desert Peach (thorny type low tree-bushes) clumpy vegetation I don't even know the names of. We know when dogs from other places come to HT, they get in the sage and just get lost... it messes with them bad.

I don't know how our dogs do this, but they figure out how to keep a straight line... or maybe I should say a true compass, through this stuff, they'll weave around a bunch of brush and get right back on their line. I say all that to say this...

RD did not take a perfect line through the ditches (they too were choked with vegetation) and it was a steep climb out of them, back legs pumping hard to get traction, but when she made it up, she got right back on her line. (Bridget did not, I let her get through the next ditch and then handled her back on line... and that was more typical of all the dogs.) I hit a whistle just as RD disappeared into the second ditch, (duh!) then had to whistle her back to the road where I could see her, I gave her a left (verbal) back... she disappeared for what seemed like a long time, then when she emerged, she was taking the correct angle up the hill.

So, yes... I think she is doing some things spooky well for her age. We have so much up and down hills and sharp dips in the terrain, I think I can find places to reinforce what I think I'm seeing.

BUT... HA! The group is not training today so I went to a little groomed park. All I wanted to do (very low expectations today) was establish a pile, then NO her off and send her to another. Uh huh. My super honest dog did a big banana back to get the big white bumpers she'd already visited. So, instead of handling I called her back in and re-sent her to the orange piles she couldn't see. She didn't give me that stuff again. Bad girl!

[Anna Scott]

When M or Chant start make decisions about which pile they are going to I will let them make the mistake, pick up a bumper and then start discipline casting. They must then take the casts I give, with the bumper in their mouth. I will cast them from pile to pile, call them in and then cast them back. It just makes listening more important the next time.