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We have managed to fit
in quite a bit of training in the last couple of
weeks despite the torrential rain.
Crossing water -
marked retrieves.
I have been working
some more on sending Lottie across water.
Now that Lottie has mastered clambering up and down
fairly steep banks sloping into shallow streams,
I wanted to get her entering directly into the
deeper water from an overhang. Many of our
stretches of river and ponds have no slope on the
bank and the dogs must be able to go directly from
the overhanging edge into deep water, and to
get themselves out again with a dummy or bird in
their mouth. Until Lottie can do this, I am very
limited in the number of places where we can
practice lining across water.
To keep the number of
factors of difficulty down we looked for a stretch
of river where the dummy could be thrown in clear
view on the far side, and with a shelving bank on
the far side too. This wasn't easy as there is
so much vegetation everywhere at this time of year,
and much of the river banks are thick nettles
- very off-putting to a young dog.
We eventually found a suitable place and after a
couple of missed throws into the river which whisked
the dummy away, Duncan managed to get the dummy onto
the far bank. Fortunately we had brought my cocker
Meg with us to retrieve the rapidly disappearing
dummies!
There was an overhang on
our bank with a short drop into the water. On
the first throw Lottie was unwilling to enter the
water without a shelving edge. I immediately
sat her and sent Meg instead. She
watched Meg intently and on the next throw, after a
second or two's hesitation Lottie slipped into the
water and crossed the river enthusiastically.
We did two more of these which she retrieved
perfectly without hesitation, and on all three
occasions, she got herself out of the water without
any problems to deliver the dummy nicely before
shaking. We left the river bank very pleased
with her.
The next step is to find
a place where we can get the dummy further back on
the far side, and to increase the distance
between the point where she is sent from, and the
water's edge. Once I have combined our
casting exercises with the
stop whistle, I will be able to
take her to our ponds on the shoot and teach her to
line across them, but for the time being we will be
using the river.
Lottie and I have had a
very generous invitation to go 'wildfowling'
on the foreshore when she is ready, so I have
plenty of incentive to work hard on her water work!
Three Handed Casting
Lottie has been
practising left and right backs this week, and
a few days ago I began throwing a dummy out behind me as a
minor distraction before casting her back. Over the
last few days I have been putting the 'distraction'
dummy further out to the side. She still
occasionally tries to go for the side dummy rather
than back, stopping as soon as I say 'No!'
I will work on this a bit more before mixing casts
to the side, with casts back.
Lottie has mastered the
difference between left and right back successfully
now.
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