April 17th.
It was so good to get back out training this morning after a two week lay off. School holidays, the flu and massive numbers of dog boarders conspired to ensure that training was way down the list of priorities.
Our training group that had started off with so much promise in February has fizzled to just two. Training ground is now also becoming increasingly difficult to find as the full throttle of Spring farming has pushed forward. Livestock are out and crops are planted.
This morning we headed to the peace and quiet of Oristown Bog. On the surface this ground has everything required to test a dog's marking skills... wide open areas,a mixture of short and lightish cover backed by Birch trees.It is uneven underfoot so what appears to be a straight line means a dog has to constantly readjust it's perspective while aiming for a retrieve.There is almost always a crosswind which helps draw the dog in.
It is not great ground for blind work training as the uneven ground lends itself too much to a dog going off line..which in turn means more whistle work is needed. I find if I overwhistle and handle my dogs, (this observation purely applies to my chessies), when doing blindwork training they lose confidence and shut down very quickly. So although we mixed a few short blinds into the training session today, the main emphasis was on Marks and Memories.
I spoke earlier in the year of my plans to reverse the roles of Mossy and Bertie this Summer. Bertie is entered in his first Championship show in early May. Mossy's training has been progressing steadily and I would hope to have him ready to compete at a working test by the end of May.
The most difficult aspect to train for is steadiness in line as, at the moment, there are only two of us training together. Last year I tended to use the Working tests as an opportunity to show up any weaknesses in training.It had its limitations as you really don't have the same level of control at a working test to correct a problem as you do in training.
So although I would liked to have had my working test season well under way by now I find I've been holding back until the longer evenings allow me the opportunity to join a group training on the Cavan lakes.
Copyright Riverrunchesapeakes 2012
April 26th
ReplyDeleteI agree with you, too much whistling is difficult with chessies. The main thing i got after a few years working now is not to combine negative with the whistle. When they go out the wrong line, i don´t whistle them, i call them back and work them again on the right line. If it is necessary to whistle them negative (it means to many times) i go out and threw the ball for doing a nice stop at the whistle, sit them again and work further on. That´s my experience.