Thursday Water Work

We headed over to the Pardee's pond in Concord yesterday for some water work. It was starting to sprinkle when we got there and we had a steady downpour towards the end of our session.

We started out with 3 blinds. The first was across two points with another between to go past, with the bumpers on another bump out from the right side of the pond. The points were high enough that we lost the dogs behind, and both dogs who ran it sucked to the right shore while out of sight. The second blind was across the right corner of the swim-by area of the bond and a nice run up the hill to a round hay bale. I was picky about the line across the corner of the pond and handled a couple of times to good results. Couple more whistles to the hay bale. The final one was a blind placed in a spot we'd run to the previous visit, but from the north side of the pond instead of the east side. The line to the blind was alongside one of the points (point on dog's left) and past an island. Gryff got in but veered right away from the land, I think getting sucked in by the 1st blind's location. The point was not the distraction I thought it would be.

I did some swim-by work with Ty, and she was timid about it. It occurs to me that working her in chilly water may not be enhancing our work :-/. She did gain some confidence, but it was nowhere near as good as the last session at Jane's pond.

Next we did a few marks. I did one across an island with both dogs. Ty had a no go :-(.

I ran a land blind with both dogs that we'd run the previous visit, now much easier to get to since the hay had been cut on much of the field around the pond.

My friends left at that point. I set up a couple of white cans to do some sight blinds with Ty. One was angling up hill, the other was a somewhat rolling one. She is showing signs of understanding the idea of going to a different place than she just went.

I finished up with an Split Y drill with Gryffin - center pile in front of a tree with two white cans beyond, one on each side of the tree. Lots of fun casting variations to play around with, especially angle backs. Gryff really seems to love doing pile drills - he drives harder and harder as we go along.

My new rainsuit mostly worked... considering how hard it was raining, I came through reasonably dry.