Lottie's Diary - training diary of a Chesapeake Bay Retriever

With the shooting season well under way and keeping me and my older dogs busy, Lottie’s field training will be somewhat reduced for the next few months. However, I am hoping to squeeze her Grade One test in before Christmas or early in January.

We have spent the last few weeks practicing steadiness and I can now throw dummies all around Lottie without her moving. We resumed retrieving using mainly ‘go-back’ retrieves to maintain steadiness. I also introduced her to dummies thrown by an assistant and this went well though on longer retrieves she will still occasionally change her mind on the way back and ‘abscond’ briefly with the dummy. A sharp ‘no’ followed by the recall whistle brings her in to me, but she will still then sometimes dip or duck her head on delivery, and I really want to sort this out now and to avoid prolonging the problem any further.

Retrieving

In order to tidy up Lottie's delivery, I have stopped all retrieving in the field and am now concentrating on working on her delivery in the yard, clicker training a ‘hold’ so that she will be able to present the dummy nicely to me on delivery once we begin retrieving in the field again. This is a ‘work in progress’ at the moment, but is a good way to make use of our necessarily short yard sessions. Once the delivery is 100% we will resume retrieving in the field and enter the Grade One test.

Heelwork

Lottie’s heelwork is way ahead of some of the other aspects of her training. She seems to find it very easy and natural to align herself neatly with me. As a result I have been able to teach her neat left and right pivots, about turns, and backwards heeling (which will be useful when we come to lining her up for a retrieve in the field). During the last few days I have begun to heel her briefly without the lead and this too is going well.

Now much bigger and heavier than my lab, Lottie still has a bit more growing to do. She is fairly calm and for the most part quiet in the kennel now, though she will still sometimes make a brief 'yowling' noise when I go down first thing in the morning. She is also quiet and well-behaved in the car, sleeping whilst the other dogs are trained or worked and patiently waiting her turn. The more time I spend with this rather serious, thoughtful, and affectionate dog, the more I like her.

Lottie's progress for the next three months will be fairly slow and this is not a reflection of her ability, but simply a result of my winter commitments to working my other dogs. Some retrievers at this age will be doing more, others will have not even begun their training. At the end of the shooting season, Lottie will be ten months old and just the right age to begin 'grown up' training in earnest. In the meantime we will continue with as many sessions as possible to maintain and progress those skills that Lottie is already learning. We have laid some good foundations on which to build.

All the equipment used for training Lottie

can be purchased

here

Lottie has been out twice more on shoot days, just at break times, and is now fairly relaxed in amongst all the guns, dogs and beaters. She does not seek attention from other dogs, but remains aloof. This actually makes her a lot easier to manage than a typical lab this age, which often wants to greet and play with every dog it meets.

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