# Field Training January 2014



## hotel4dogs (Sep 29, 2008)

Horrible is an understatement as far as weather!


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## K9-Design (Jan 18, 2009)

We've had a VERY productive past few days field training.
Well Tuesday through Thursday last week it rained ALL DAY LONG for three days straight. Wednesday Kelli (kfayard) and her dogs Cannon & KC came for a visit, so we were really dedicated dog trainers and went out and field trained on Thursday morning in the rain, complete with rain pants, jackets and boots. Bally worked on his 3-handed casting and demonstrated walking fetch, Slater demo'd single-T and wagon wheel, Fisher demo'd walking baseball. Cannon got to work on his casting, walking fetch and beginner wagon wheel. KC did hold & heel. Then everyone got marks with the ducks.
Friday morning the clouds were gone but it was FREAKIN COLD. Okay....relatively. High of 42º, sunny and very windy. I met with my two flat-coat friends at Lazy J, a few other folks eventually joined us, we had a great training group. Started with a full double-T setup one of the flatcoats was working on -- took the opportunity to use it as a tune-up for Slater and he did great. We then went to the hay field (now cut down with bales), set out five holding blinds and three blinds for everyone. All three blinds were tight to the holding blind, way deep of it. 
Today Kelli, Kristin and I went again to Lazy J, this time not so cold or windy but overcast (52º). Started out with BB blinds for Slater and Millie. Admittedly I have only done BBB once, with Fisher, and since I wanted to make sure my "bird boy" went to the right spots I used little construction flags, and I found the biggest problem was Fisher kept going to the previous flag the last bumper was at and I had to handle up a storm. This time we didn't use flags, and I REALLY thought the drill went GREAT for Slater. Slater feels a good bit of pressure having to "choose" to look off a gunner to run a blind, and by the end of it he was completely ignoring the bird boy, crouching to launch and wagging his tail as I lined him up --- really happy with that! The longer last few BB blinds I got some handling, and amazing how precise you have to be in that tight a quarter to get the dog right on the money. I finally see the value in this drill and will DEFINITELY use it in the future!!!
After playing with some live ducks with Cannon, KC and Bally we returned to a different part of the hay field and set up a large indented triple and a long open blind way off to the right. I ran not the triple but two doubles....both with the long bird as the memory. The first one the marks diverged, the second one the marks were exactly in line, the short one (go bird) at about 50 yards and the long one (memory bird) at about 150. One neat feature of the field, there was no cover (golf grass!) but light sandy mole hills everywhere that made an interesting pattern for the dogs to run through. Slater did super on both of the doubles then lined the blind. He had a good day  Bally ran the marks as singles, really cute because he first picked up the short bird, and blasted a mole hill as he pounced on the bird, and when he ran the long in-line long bird next, he ran exactly over the same mole hill and kicked up dust. He had no hesitation going through the old fall 

No field training tomorrow or probably any next week except for yard work with Bally.


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## gdgli (Aug 24, 2011)

Freezing and snow. Not good for training.


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## hotel4dogs (Sep 29, 2008)

Anney, how many people/dogs can you accommodate???


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## K9-Design (Jan 18, 2009)

You all are welcome any time


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## Alaska7133 (May 26, 2011)

Got out with the training group yesterday. It was super warm at 30F. But up at higher elevations it's an inversion. That means it's super warm up high and precipitation falls as rain then hits the colder air down low and freezes. So we had ice pelts falling for the 3 hours we trained. The group is mostly goldens with a couple of Tollers thrown in for variety. The Tollers were super hyper but had a harder time picking up the ducks with their tiny mouths. Fun to watch. We all threw walking singles for each other. The snow was mostly 12-18" deep with ice crust on top. So we dragged a sled with a pile of bumpers and a variety of birds. Some dogs got shorter distances, some longer. There were 2 dogs that never had birds before. So it was fun to have new dogs have birds. One boy was 13 yrs old, so it was nice to see him have his first pigeon since he probably won't be around a whole lot longer. My boy Reilly just has such amazing enthusiasm. He chatters his jaws and just shakes for every retrieve. Doesn't matter what he gets to retrieve, he's so happy. You can't buy that kind of enthusiasm. Lucy is coming along nicely on yard work. We're moving along in distances of mini T. I still haven't a clue on whistle sits, so today I'm working with a field trial friend and her Firemark puppy on whistle sits. Hope I can catch on.


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## Alaska7133 (May 26, 2011)

Met with my field trial friend yesterday. Disappointment, she told me I had skipped ahead with Lucy and needed to go back to Backs again. Lucy isn't turning to one side or the other when I direct her. She goes whichever way she wants and isn't recognizing left or right turn when I send her Back. So she showed me some tricks. Lucy is easy to work with these days, I just need to take some time to show her that left hand means she needs to turn to her right and go straight back. So I'm standing in front of a mirror trying to make sure I'm easy to understand. I also found out I was standing too close to her for Back. Then we worked on whistle sits. I feel like such a clumsy oaf. I did tell her my idea of running a derby this spring before Lucy ages out. She told me no way would Lucy be ready. But she did say that Lucy was on track to run senior hunt tests in the spring. She suggested being ready to run qualifying field trials with her in 2015. Something to shoot for. So I'm back to the platform and carpet squares working on Back and turning the correct direction. Lucy's eager to please. Its nice to have a dog that is smarter than me!


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## K9-Design (Jan 18, 2009)

Stacey when I help new people just learning to handle they tend to be all up on top of the dog too. The closer you get the more your pressure drives the dog BACK so they feel insecure and get less of a good response from the dog the farther away they get from them. Even 6-10 feet is a huge leap. I am at this stage with Bally and even though I rarely have to use the leash to stop him I still have him on a 30 foot line, mainly because I MAKE myself back up to the end of the leash to cast him (unless he's having trouble and I need to move up). I find he gets farther from the pile and I get closer to him if I don't have that leash to remind me. 

I would like to run Bally in the Derby at this year's GRCA national but who knows where he'll be at in his training by then. If you want to be successful in derby you've got to have a decheated dog and that means a dog who handles. Hard to fit all of that into a under-2-year-old dog. Not only the training time but the dog needs to be quite precocious and very high desire to take that amount of training. I had the same goal with Slater but NO WAY was he even close to ready. He got his SH at 2 1/2.


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## Alaska7133 (May 26, 2011)

Yes she said I was way too close to Lucy. I needed to get a lot farther back from her. I use a platform. So I just need to stand farther back from it. It also helps with teaching her whistle sit, or actually teaching me when I'm supposed to hit the whistle. Lucy has not been decheated. She has not done swim by. Open water is a long time in the future. I'll have maybe 2 - 3 weeks if I'm lucky between water thawing and the first derby in June. Can you decheat a dog that quickly?


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## K9-Design (Jan 18, 2009)

In a word, no. To me decheating is the drill that teaches the concept followed by progressive drills and scenarios that generalize the concept. This can take weeks or months. I wouldn't discourage you from giving it a whirl, hey if she picks up one bird you'll get a real kick out of it, but most derby dogs don't luck into winning


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## Alaska7133 (May 26, 2011)

Yes Lucy has had some decheating drills. We did land difficulties and she was very easy about staying on track. Initially she would detour around rough brush or deep cover. She now goes through anything. I haven't tried her on piles of logs though. She has had a little decheating on water. We have a pond nearby that has some big peninsulas that we used to throw beyond that she had to cross over. But I would not say she is anywhere close to finished on decheating. I regret not working harder on it last summer when we had open water. I hang my head that I didn't work harder last summer when I had access to open water. First dog...


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## hollyk (Feb 21, 2009)

Yesterday's blind. 
Marks were thrown in the tall dead grass to the left prior to running the blind.
It's about 70 yards before the dogs get to the waters edge of the splashing water small pond. The marks pull some dogs left. They had to be pretty much dead on or they would skirt the pond. Less experience dogs ping ponged the entrance to the water. 
When I set Winter up I took an small angled step right trying to show her the line was not the marks to the left, she still locked left to the edge of the tall grass, I told her "no" and shuffled my right foot slightly toward her she looked to far right in a line that would take her right of the pond, "here" with a slight pat to my leg had her lock right down the middle of the pond "good, right there" and I sent her. She took a nice line but at about 50-60 yards out she was _slightly_ right. The slot to the blind was tight, if you were not dead on dogs did not take a lot of water, so I whistled. Winter always circles left to whistle sit and her sit put the dead on to the blind. I gave her a straight back cast with a verbal to make sure she drove straight back. She lunged straight back across the pond and picked up the blind. 
I freaken love running blinds!


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## hotel4dogs (Sep 29, 2008)

Holly! Where's the 2 feet of white stuff????


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## hollyk (Feb 21, 2009)

hotel4dogs said:


> Holly! Where's the 2 feet of white stuff????


Little over an hour east in the mountains where it belongs.


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## 2golddogs (Oct 19, 2009)

It was a beautiful day for field training in Virginia yesterday. It felt good to get back out after a month of lousy weather. I was really pleased with how the boys did. They did their first walk up doubles and nailed it. Jackson did exceptionally well blasting through thick cover and not attempting to avoid it. Since Jackson was running so well I was encouraged to try the senior blind. I was reluctant since we have not been doing blinds but agreed to try. Lined him up and he took a really nice line to the blind then started veering to the right. Did a beautiful, straight sit on whistle and took my left back cast right to the blind! His first cold blind!! You would have thought I just won a million dollars. Headed home with two happy and very muddy dogs.


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## hollyk (Feb 21, 2009)

2golddogs said:


> You would have thought I just won a million dollars.


So much fun when you see it come together. It sounds like a fun day.


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## Claudia M (Aug 8, 2012)

2golddogs said:


> It was a beautiful day for field training in Virginia yesterday.


I wish I was there! The cold bug got me down on Saturday evening. With all the rain on Saturday I bet it was super super muddy!


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## hollyk (Feb 21, 2009)

Yesterday's blind, about 200 yards.
I learned a whole lot of things on this one.


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## K9-Design (Jan 18, 2009)

Oooooo I am liking these blinds you're cooking up 

We are in a holding pattern since I've been consumed with the big Brooksville show circuit these past two weeks.

I did have a neat experience this week, bumped into a lady at the dog show over the weekend whom I met last year, she has labradors and lives in NC. I knew she did shows and hunt tests but come to find out she's had like half a dozen CH-MH labs and is a hunt test judge for all levels. We decided to get together and train on Tuesday (no show that day), so she came up to Lazy J. She has a 5 yr old MH and a 10 month old, both black labs, so we had dogs of equal experience. Told her I am working on LONG blinds and marks in the water with Slater -- blinds for experience and marks b/c of his no-go issues in the past. She set up this ridiculous long water blind past three points, and of course made me go first  -- and would you know, Slater did SUPER! We then threw a long single all the way across the pond, about 150 yards of swimming. Interesting as Slater went, got about elbow deep in the water, then stopped and popped, didn't want to go. I said nothing. It then became apparent that he knew well enough that if he came back he'd get in trouble so he sorta milled about in the water at the edge. I gave him a HERE-nick (low level) then when he got in heel position, HEEL -nicknicknicknicknick on a high three, and guess who got in and swam his happy butt all the way out there and got the bird? My new training partner thought that was GREAT and kept saying what a nice dog Slater was and complimentary of my training (even though he got a big correction, but hey -- that's training). It was hysterical b/c after that we did a blind + mark on the land and Slater was uber-focused on the gunner -- like, I WILL GET THIS MARK BECAUSE MY LIFE DEPENDS ON IT.
Yesterday I was determined to get back in the water again so I met Kristin for blitz dog training -- she threw Slater two 100+ yard marks across the pond and he had no hesitation on either of them. I was REALLY happy with it. 
Bally did just one water mark about a 80 yard swim across the middle of the pond -- go puppy!
We are supposed to meet again tomorrow to train with the lab lady. Her MH dog got a major yesterday at the show. Think our training was good luck?


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## K9-Design (Jan 18, 2009)

OK we had a GREAT session today. First two marks and two blinds in the water, nothing unusual and Slater did just fine.
Then we set up a HUGE mark all the way across the middle pond -- over 250 yards of open swimming water-- this would be the longest water mark of Slater's life.....VERY interesting results...
The first try I ran from pretty far off the shore (say, 30-40 yards), he watched the bird go down, I sent him, and he took off around the water to the right. Whistle, no, here, brought him back. Re-threw the mark. This time he again went right but was in the water hugging the shore. No, here, three nicks with a low three. Set up, re-throw mark. This time he went LEFT and I'll be ****** if he didn't find a freakin bumper off to the left. DANGIT! OK, lined up again and re-threw ----- and Slater went straight in and swam ALLLLLLLLLLL the way across the pond. The gunner fired a momentum bumper when he got half way there and was veering toward a point, but that made him stay on course. I thought it was very interesting that not once did he try to no-go, he KNEW he had to go, but was avoiding actually going straight and making the long swim, until all of his other options had been extinguished, and guess what -- HE DID IT!!! His attitude was great even though it was obvious he was having a hard time figure out the right way to do things. We worked through it and he was successful.


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## Alaska7133 (May 26, 2011)

Got to work on water retrieves last weekend with Lucy at the k9 aquatics place. The pool is 20 x 38 feet. About 42" deep. They have a ramp in one area and the rest is straight sides. Lucy hasn't seen open water in months, she was so excited she just shook. Brought a pile bumpers and threw until my arms were sore. She worked on here, heel, and not dropping the bumper and shaking. I kept her on a collar with a 4' nylon rope for corrections. She learned quick. We practiced her flying leap into the pool. Awesome to watch. Then their grooming area was spectacular and I got Lucy ready for the conformation fun match the next day. This weekend coming up is 2 conformation shows for Lucy, so we'll wait until after conformation is over to go throw birds. I'm actively trying to sign up all the show dogs to come to training sessions and getting several to show up.


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## hotel4dogs (Sep 29, 2008)

I think I am going to move to Alaska where it is warm and there are fewer blizzards. This is just ridiculous.


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## Alaska7133 (May 26, 2011)

Sorry Barb. Wish we had it instead. Luckily we had plenty of snow and cold early in the season, so the ground is frozen and we haven't lost a lot of snow. But every warm day we have jeopardizes our winter outdoor events like sled dog and snow machine races. Without colder weather the dogs don't do well with all the warmth. This morning it was raining. It's very rare to hear rain in Jan. here.

I hope the weather improves for you soon. My Mom's on the NW side and is pretty miserable. With a dog business how are you doing? Has it been hard with boarding? Dogs with fur are pretty resilient.


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## hotel4dogs (Sep 29, 2008)

It has been AWFUL here. The boarded dogs are all couch potatoes, and they don't want to go outside when it's cold/snowy. Then their feet freeze after about 60 seconds. So they want to come in. When they're in, their bored and they want to go out. Everyone is restless and bored. 
This is the worst winter we have had in many years. It seems every time we have 1 decent day, it's followed by 6 bad ones.
<<sigh>>


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## Alaska7133 (May 26, 2011)

Sorry to hear that, I hope it gets better soon.


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## hollyk (Feb 21, 2009)

Barb,
I bet you don't want to hear that I trained water yesterday.:


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## Claudia M (Aug 8, 2012)

hollyk said:


> Barb,
> I bet you don't want to hear that I trained water yesterday.:


Rub it in


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## Claudia M (Aug 8, 2012)

hotel4dogs said:


> It has been AWFUL here. The boarded dogs are all couch potatoes, and they don't want to go outside when it's cold/snowy. Then their feet freeze after about 60 seconds. So they want to come in. When they're in, their bored and they want to go out. Everyone is restless and bored.
> This is the worst winter we have had in many years. It seems every time we have 1 decent day, it's followed by 6 bad ones.
> <<sigh>>


Luckily our training with Rose did not get cancelled yesterday but today's class for Darcy was cancelled. I barely made it home from work today due to the snow turning to ice. The classes keep them busy and tired. Same with the snow - tonight and tomorrow it will be ice though. Yuck!


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## MillionsofPeaches (Oct 30, 2012)

we've been doing water work the last week too.Yesterday we worked on some new water stuff in fact. Luckily my trainer is going duck hunting today and we won't be training until Monday. It got cold today and the rest of this week. I do have to say one of the benefits of living in the south in the winter but in the summer I have to get up at 4 in the morning to be the heat..ugh. I don't know what is worse.


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## TrailDogs (Aug 15, 2011)

hotel4dogs said:


> This is the worst winter we have had in many years. It seems every time we have 1 decent day, it's followed by 6 bad ones.
> <<sigh>>


I am in the same boat. If it weren't for the pheasant shoots we would be doing nothing this winter. My obedience classes have been cancelled most weeks due to bad roads. My work is even closed today, which is unusual, as we have over a foot of snow, high winds and they have to get the roads cleared.
Yet on Sunday, we had temps near 50 and I actually had a real training day with big set ups! 
It is definitely not a winter for dog training in the northeast.


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## gdgli (Aug 24, 2011)

hollyk said:


> Barb,
> I bet you don't want to hear that I trained water yesterday.:





MillionsofPeaches said:


> we've been doing water work the last week too.Yesterday we worked on some new water stuff in fact. Luckily my trainer is going duck hunting today and we won't be training until Monday. It got cold today and the rest of this week. I do have to say one of the benefits of living in the south in the winter but in the summer I have to get up at 4 in the morning to be the heat..ugh. I don't know what is worse.


I think that the two of you are just trolling!

I have single digit to teens temps and road salt that the city spreads that reaches my front door. And Buffy is in heat and Aster has a growth on the bottom of his foot. :banghead:


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## Alaska7133 (May 26, 2011)

Tomorrow I'm headed to the indoor aquatics place to work on de cheating Lucy. Then a long grooming session to get her ready for her conformation shows this winter. DH has been running her hard with the snow bike this winter. He took her for 30 miles on Sunday. She's so lean we're feeding her 5 cups a day plus tons of snacks and can't keep the weight on her. She'll be a funny looking show dog this weekend. Hope I get point for "hard working condition" like it says in the breed standard. Friday I'm taking her to the indoor aquatics place to burn off some energy since she'll have to stay in the crate for a couple of days at the show. Then Sunday afternoon I've invited all the show goldens out to throw some birds. Most of them have never held a bird before. Should be fun!


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## hollyk (Feb 21, 2009)

Winter- Now in HD (Hunt'in Dawg)
A training partner took Winter and I on our first duck hunt last week. She did a great job, quiet in the hunting blind and since we were hidden in the hunting blind she was handled to all birds with easy. In the truck at the end of the day we had 3 ducks, one happy tired dog and two proud humans. (my training partner had a big grin too).


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## Alaska7133 (May 26, 2011)

She looks sooo happy!!!


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## K9-Design (Jan 18, 2009)

Weather sucked today but we trained. 39º and lightly raining and overcast. Yuck. 1st set up 3 singles with stickmen on land. 1st one 160 yards, 2nd 220, 3rd 400!!!!
Slater did not see the middle mark, he backsided the gun and went to where it "would have" landed if he threw it the other direction. The other two marks he did super on, even the looooooooong one!!! 
We then set up a blind on the back side of the long mark, about 150 yards running, then small swim (10 yards), off the point, swim down a small channel ~30 yards, out and run another 200 yards. I built it with Slater, I could get the return perfect but couldn't get him to line it from the origin. He had probably 6-7 handles on the first part to get him into the water at the right spot but once he was in he lined it. Initial avoidance. This was a huge blind for him and I thought he handled it pretty well!
Bally did the marks


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## hotel4dogs (Sep 29, 2008)

I will take your sucky weather any day!!!!


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## Claudia M (Aug 8, 2012)

We are making slow progress - slow mostly because of the yucky cold weather. The girls love it; me not so much. After the flu starting to visit me at the beginning of the month I decided to take it in smaller steps. 
I think we are getting to the point with Rose where she picks up everything she is sent for. The ducks are becoming more attractive to her; completely less attractive to me as the stench is quite unbearable. Need new ducks - hopefully we can get some this weekend. It may have been the cold weather but her enthusiasm and attention has increased.


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## hollyk (Feb 21, 2009)

Just a quick session yesterday. We been running at lot of multiples so we did big technical singles. It was a rainy gray day and we ran duck with no noise at the wingers. The dogs had to really watch to pick them out. Winter stepped on them, even her nemesis the in throw. We ran a big hairy blind with the goal of staying very tight to the line. She 3 whistled it and I kept her in the slot.


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## TrailDogs (Aug 15, 2011)

We had a pheasant shoot today. End result, lots of birds and one tired dog.


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