# Hunt and Field Training Plans for the Week of August 12-18



## AmberSunrise (Apr 1, 2009)

Ooooo, Ooooo - me first! I'll be first in line LOL like that will ever happen, but Tito in CT hmmmmm


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## hotel4dogs (Sep 29, 2008)

LOL, Tito would LOVE to come live with you! He thinks your dogs are very, very lucky. Heck, if there's such a thing as reincarnation I want to come back as one of your dogs!
So now I am trying to decide whether to set something up again later this morning, or just let it go for today.


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## hotel4dogs (Sep 29, 2008)

After much thought, I have to describe Tito's behavior this morning as "silly". So I decided to give it another try rather than feel frustrated all day. 
I set up another double, and gave much more thought to the wind, sun, and how the marks would go down. Although initially I thought the other marks were pretty easy, the winger bird did go almost straight behind the winger, making it very hard to see the bird since there was no arc. When my husband threw the other mark, it went very flat and got lost in the treeline, which was pretty far behind him. We were in the alfalfa field, so there was nothing to mark off of. So I was more careful this time. But the thing is, I was frustrated and upset not because he missed the memory bird, that's no big deal, but because he got silly when he missed it. He didn't put up a diligent hunt. The first time he headed over to my husband and the previous mark, tail wagging and having himself a grand old time, so I called him back in and re-sent him. That time he ran past it, pretty well into Texas, and then made a big loop around the field and came back to me. I let him come all the way back, then grabbed his collar (and a bit of his ear might have been in there, too  ) and took him all the way to the bird that way. I wanted him to know that the end result of returning without the bird was going to be a lot more unpleasant than staying out there and hunting. Hope that was the right thing to do, intuitively (knowing Tito) it was.
Ok, so this time I set up good marks, about the same distance and still in a featureless field, (in a different area of the field, and facing in a different direction) but easier to see and with a slight crosswind.
This time he stepped on both marks. I had my husband throw one single to finish off, and we called it a day.
And now I feel better. Tomorrow I may set up some very, very hard singles to encourage him to hunt.


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## hollyk (Feb 21, 2009)

*Yes!!!*

Senior Pass!


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## hotel4dogs (Sep 29, 2008)

YAY Holly and Winter!!!! Great job girls!!!!
While senior *looks* easy from the line, I think until you have actually run it you don't realize how huge the jump is from junior to senior. It's massive...and I'm proud of you guys!


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## hotel4dogs (Sep 29, 2008)

This morning I had my husband throw just 3 long, tough singles (all we had time for) to try to encourage Tito to have to hunt up difficult marks. He stepped on all 3. Sometimes he does not make this training stuff easy!


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## sterregold (Dec 9, 2009)

After doing the draw for the Canadian National Master on Friday (after hunt test setup!), I showed five dogs in the all-day rain yesterday at our regional Golden Specialty, and this morning the grils and I were off to a hunt test where I was judging Master today. National Master qualifications are now closed so we had a smaller entry than Master has seen most of the season (were were getting 30+ dogs, which is big for us as we do one-day Masters--usually one Sat and one Sun). We had 17 dogs today and in the end, 11 got through. One of my buddies got his Grand Master Hunter on his lab, so it was cool to be the judge for that!

Pictures of our test below. On land, the yellow lines are the marks, and white the throws. Purple is the second series quarter to flush. We threw the short centre bird first as a walkup with the honour dog just to the left of the working dog. Then the longer left bird, and the right bird down last. After the marks were all done, the dogs worked the decoys for their quarterinbg as if we were looking for additional birds knocked down in the hunt, and at the end of the quarter the flush bird came out. We lost one dog on the marks, one on the honour, and one on the flush.

For the water series, yelow are again marks, white throws, and orange are the blinds. Marks were thrown from left to right. Dogs who did well enough were invited to run the water blind, and then the land blind. We lost three dogs on the water series--all three who got into trouble on one of the marks on the far shore and just were not able to recover.


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## K9-Design (Jan 18, 2009)

MH pass #3 
Hard test Slater rocked it!!!


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## AmberSunrise (Apr 1, 2009)

Woohoo  Congratulations!!



hollyk said:


> Senior Pass!


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## hotel4dogs (Sep 29, 2008)

Yay Slater and Anney!!! Great job!!!!


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## hollyk (Feb 21, 2009)

hotel4dogs said:


> YAY Holly and Winter!!!! Great job girls!!!!
> While senior *looks* easy from the line, I think until you have actually run it you don't realize how huge the jump is from junior to senior. It's massive...and I'm proud of you guys!





Sunrise said:


> Woohoo  Congratulations!!


Thanks. 
Winter did well. She switched on the land double. The memory bird was very short and she took it first, then the flier. She lined the land blind!
On water, straight forward double with flier as go bird. She had to chase down her flier, the hunters in the gallery said they would take her duck hunting anytime. :yes: The water blind had a bit of land to start, she 3 whistled it. The marshal went out of her way to tell me we had the best line to the water blind of the day including the Pro's . 
37 dogs entered 19 passed.
I was handed the ribbon (and duck band Barb) with "you have a very nice dog".
It was a good, good day.


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## hotel4dogs (Sep 29, 2008)

Holly...I have a question...I thought switching was an automatic fail? Do you just mean she took the birds in a different order than was expected?


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## K9-Design (Jan 18, 2009)

hollyk said:


> Senior Pass!


Yay! Congrats!


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## hollyk (Feb 21, 2009)

hotel4dogs said:


> Holly...I have a question...I thought switching was an automatic fail? Do you just mean she took the birds in a different order than was expected?


Sorry. She took the really short memory bird first, then the flier, that was supposed to be the Go bird. Not a switch, an out of order pick-up, so we were OK. I could tell when I sent her she was going to do it. The judge commented "yep I though she was going to take that one". 

It was funny the short memory bird, that looked so easy, took out quite a few dogs. They would over run it and get behind it close to the bushes (maybe too many good smells) or backside the winger and get lost. This was a 35 yard bird! 
The land blind had a 15" talll dead tree about 20 yards to the left that got a lot of whistles. (did I tell you that Winter lined it)


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## hollyk (Feb 21, 2009)

K9-Design said:


> MH pass #3
> Hard test Slater rocked it!!!





K9-Design said:


> Yay! Congrats!


Right back at ya and Slater the Rockstar.


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## luvgld7 (Jan 23, 2008)

Big congrats to Holly and Winter on the SH pass and to Anney and Slater on the MH pass!


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## hotel4dogs (Sep 29, 2008)

We were out at Dan's today.
Last week, this week, and next week we are doing something different. Rather than having our 1 hour private lesson per week (which we have missed all summer except for 3 times total since early May due to health and heat issues) we are going out twice a week and Dan is running Tito in with the dogs that live there for training. It takes a LONG time because it's rather like a hunt test, you wait around until it's your turn to run. I get a lot of great learning watching Dan run the other dogs, too.
Tito is only running Seasoned level stuff, because of the upcoming tests. Today's concepts were running up a hill, running sideways angled up a hill, and long distances angled sideways up a hill. Oh also a very long go-bird with a very short memory bird. Just one fairly easy blind, it involved crossing a (farm) road and a couple of cover changes but wasn't too bad. We only had time for land today, I expect we'll do water tomorrow.


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## K9-Design (Jan 18, 2009)

We trained at Hambden twice, yesterday and today. 
The ONLY thing Slater had trouble with at the MH test this past weekend, of course it was the LAST element of the 3rd series, and really, not too hard, but he about gave me a heart attack. Under the arc water blind but with an odd, angle entry and they had us send from practically in the water. I mainly send from at least 10-15 feet back from the shore and have told myself many a time, I will have trouble with Slater if we have to send from right on the shore's edge. Sure enough I said back, he jumped in then started to spin back around and whined! I instantly said back, it took me a few handles to get him lined up then he lined the rest of the blind! (the first 10 yards were terrible, the last 50 were perfect)
So yesterday Robin and I went out, first we did Fetcher's back pile in the water then I did the back pile with Slater sending from all different distances from the shore, and a little force thrown in for good measure. Then I set up 4 blinds on the pond, running all from immediately next to the shore. The first two were easy and he did fine. The 3rd was HARD - long and the water was full of lily pads, floating logs and dead trees, he was a real trooper and gutted it out, did a super nice job. The last one, ended up being way too hard, but after all that he had to pass two different places on the shore where he had either been sent from or picked up bumpers, and it was overwhelming. I ended up sending three times and still couldn't get it, I threw him a bumper and completely changed my line. On the new line it was still a long, difficult blind but he really did a super job, talk about digging deep and refusing to quit. I was really proud of him. Later on we went to a different pond, I repeated the messed up blind from Sunday's test (which he did fine on, BTW) and then two very straight forward blinds just straight across the pond, one sending from about 10 feet back and the other from about 50 feet back, to balance it all out. The last one not only had the long entry but had very thick cover and lily pads the first 20 feet of the pond and he made it through all of that crap without a handle. Really proud of Slater's fortitude yesterday.
Today we went to a different pond and set up a double with a blind, with a tough memory bird sunk in a ton of cover behind a bunch of arrowheads, cool mark. The blind was past an island, past the AOF of the go bird, and past another point beyond that, both my guys did real well on it. They did super on the double too. 
The bad news is I think my whistle is going south, it is making this weird tonal noise, think I will have to get a new one.
And oh yeah -- I BOUGHT A NEW CAR TODAY! WHOOOPEEEE!!!!


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## hotel4dogs (Sep 29, 2008)

I want to train with you guys, Anney!!
What kind of car????


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