The Rest of the FCRSA National, 2012

This is long. It may be that no one but me will ever read the whole thing. I thought I would keep writing during the National, but obviously, I didn't. Once we got home from the National, life continued on its crazy path, and I couldn't settle down to do this write up until now.

When I last wrote, it was after the first day of the FCRSA National, when Little 'jammed' in the Unsteady Singles, and Gryff was one of 4 dogs invited back for a runoff Saturday evening for the Steady Singles Championship.

I scratched Gryff from Saturday's Master test, wanting to save him for the runoff. He looked just a bit off before running the 4th series on Friday, and I didn't want to use him up before the runoff.

I ran Little in the Junior test on Saturday and she did a fine job, earning her 4th pass and her JH title. We were done with that by 1 PM or so, so we went back to the Expo center and T3 for the afternoon. I have to say, I will long remember that afternoon, savoring the anticipation of participating in the runoff that evening. Here's how Gryff prepared (having a nap in the crate in the trailer):

One of the wonderful things about the Steady Singles competition is there is so little pressure on the handler. Other than doing all you can to get the dog aimed in the right direction so they have the maximum chance to see the birds fall, once you release the dog, there is nothing else you can do. When compared to a Master test, where you have to be ready at any moment to blow your whistle if your dog gets in trouble, this was so relaxing. Yes, of course I was a bit nervous, but I would say overall, it was one of the most enjoyable field tests I have ever run in.

From my division, Joe Skorupa and his wonderful brown boy Zip! was the other dog chosen besides Gryff. From the other division, Karen Peterson and her very experienced girl, Polaire, and Bunny Milliken and her very inexperienced girl, Teal, were chosen for the runoff. Karen decided to scratch Polaire, because she was coming off several months of rehab for an injury.

The runoff consisted of two water marks across the Bunny Pond. The running order was Gryffin, Zip!, and Teal. 

We ran the right mark first. It required one re-entry. As Gryffin approached the point of re-entry, he responded in a too-familiar fashion, and ran around the ear of the bunny, snatched up the duck - he knew exactly where it was - and then, remembering lessons past, swam through the ear on his return. Naughty boy! As he did that big run around cheat, it made me mile and shake my head. He has always been a terrible cheater, so it wasn't surprising. On the 2nd mark (the longer one), he did the 1st re-entry, and then, by gum, ran around the other ear of the bunny at the last possible instant. And then he swam coming back. I figured at that point, we were out, but I frankly didn't really care. I was just so pleased to even be in the runoff.

Joe and Zip! stepped up, and much to my surprise, Zip! cheated nearly as badly as Gryffin on both marks. I thought his line through the 1st pond was better than Gryff's, but there was not a dramatic difference in their performances. 

Next, Bunny and Teal ran the marks, and Teal followed in the older dogs' bad foot steps, and followed that naughty path around the bunny ears. Teal also had more of a hunt on each mark.

The judges decided they needed to see more work, but having seen all 3 dogs cheat so badly, opted for a land mark. We moved to a different field, and as the daylight faded, we stepped up to run the last mark. It was about 180 yds out, 2 gunners throwing left to right. There wasn't much between the mound we ran from and the final cover patch into which the duck was thrown. Gryff took an excellent line almost all the way there, faded left, hunted in and around the gunners, and came up with the bird. Zip! hunted more to the right of the bird, and came up with it faster than Gryff did. Teal flew out and overran the fall and hunted in the next field for a bit. So the judges were presented with 3 very different performances on the final bird.

The comraderie was simply wonderful. Everyone was supportive and personally, I had a great time, as did Gryff. 

Left photo by Xan Latta (that's Bunny Milliken in the foreground) Right photo by Candy Ferner

The results were announced later that evening at the field banquet. As I suspected, Joe and Zip! were crowned Steady Singles Champion, and Gryffin and I were 1st runner up, and Bunny and Teal were 2nd runner up. Here's Gryff with his huge ribbon.

With this result, anything else we managed at the National would be icing on the cake. It was the thrill of a lifetime to get to run Gryff on those runoff marks, and results were a complete joy.

On Sunday, I helped marshall at the WC (working certificate) land and ran Little for her WC title. The test was very straightforward, and almost all of the dogs passed the land. Sonic did not get to run any of the field events because she had come in season 2+ weeks before, much to my huge disappointment.

The next evening, I showed Gryffin and Ty in the Veterans Sweepstake. Both made it to the final cut - Gryff was one of 7 at the end of the 9-11 year old Dogs and Ty was one of 6 at the end of 7-9 year old Bitches (out of over 30 girls). As I was gaiting Gryff around the ring, it just simply made me smile. They both really enjoyed their time in the ring, as I did. While neither got a placement ribbon, it was still a thrill to be in the ring at the end.

The next day was obedience day. Frustratingly, after lovely heeling, Ty failed to respond to my sit signal for the umpteenth time in Utility, the only serious mistake she made. It meant my hope to finish her UDX were dashed. However, she did manage a Q in Open B, something I hadn't managed since showing Treasure years and years before - Gryff never Qed in Open B at a National, and Ty hadn't before this year. We lost a runoff for 2nd place, but we accomplished one of our goals for the year - to qualify in a regular class at the National.

Sonic was in puppy sweeps that afternoon and we got a 3rd place in her class. She was a lot of fun to show, and not too wiggly for the exam.

Wednesday was Versatility for Ty and Veterans Novice for Gryff. Ty was simply dreadful, making me very glad she was going to be on obedience vacation for several months. I hadn't done all that much obedience work with Gryffin, but he had a delightful performance and earned 1st place with a very fine 198.5. Here's the video of that, our final ring performance together:

On Thursday, Sonic was my only dog entered, in the regular 9-12 bitches puppy class. The judge checked Sonic's bite multiple times, made a negative comment about it (it has been level for the past several months, but looked to be a tiny bit undershot that day), but then made a nice comment about her lovely head. But we were excused with the 1st cut. 

This concluded our 2012 National experience, one to never be forgotten:

Gryff: 1st runner up in the Steady Singles; made final cut in Veterans 9-12 dog; 1st place in Veterans Novice.

Ty: made final cut in Veterans 7-9 bitches; 3rd place in Open B.

Little: JAM in the Unsteady Singles; finished JH title; earned her WC title. She also got 3rd place in American Bred, but that had nothing to do with me :-).

Sonic: 3rd place in her puppy sweeps class.

A New UD

I showed Ty and Joker in Utility B today at the Fulton Co KC trial held at the Toledo KC's building. Ty earned her 2nd leg there in February. Today, the duct tape holding the sheet covering the mirror in the right back corner of the ring attracted her attention, causing some big point losses, but she got herself back on track enough to earn her 3rd leg and her UD. We started with articles, and she dashed out past the pile to go check out the duct tape (I thought she was trying to do a go out), so went out probably 10-15 feet from the end, off to the right, then dashed back to the pile and got to work. She came out of the pile well to my left, and made zero effort to straighten herself. On the bright side, she DID hold the article very nicely until I took it, something that has been a large challenge for her. The out-of-the-way approach cost us 3 points. Ouch! She went somewhat past again on the 2nd approach, losing another 1/2 point. Funny how those things about which you say "but she's never done that before!"** often happen right away again.
   We had glove #1 (same as last month), which she did a fine job on.
   Earlier this week, I decided to try heeling with my left hand hanging down (and, I HOPE, swinging reasonably evenly with my right one) instead of up at my waist. I do think she forged less than usual, so I will definitely continue to experiment with this hand position. In the past few weeks, her signals have gotten tenuous again. They had come together nicely back in February before and during TKC, when I made a change to my sit signal. It was almost like she finally figured the signals out. But then I was away for 10 days, and she was back to insecurity, especially on her sit signal. Fortunately for me, when I was training at TKC on Wednesday, someone pointed out that I wasn't moving my shoulder at all when giving the sit signal. By making sure I open my shoulder up with the hand signal, she has been responding consistently. It's a subtle difference, and it may not last, but she did it today.
   Her Moving Stand was perfect, yeah Ty!
   On her 1st go out, she veered some to the right, again eyeballing the duct tape. Fortunately, the bar on the right was the first jump. Okay, I admit it, I haven't done all that much proofing of her jumping from the opposite side of the ring. Guess what we'll be working on this week? I made much more of an effort to get her marking the center, and her 2nd go out was right on the money. So she finished out the class with a 190 and a new UD.
   Back in 2002, on the day Java finished his UD, Mike MacDonald was there, and he said "I don't care how many UDs you earn, they are each special." That is very true.
   Joker inexplicably failed both articles, but the rest of his class was really solid. I was especially thrilled with his go-outs after retrieving glove #1. In training on Wednesday, I had him retrieve each corner gloves, then did go-outs. He kept wanting to veer to the left corner. I worked on it at home on Thursday, where he was fine, but I figured we'd be lucky to get anything approaching a straight go-out. He only lost 1 point on the exercise, what a good boy! He also needs to work jumping from the opposite corners.
   Ty and I go back tomorrow to show in both Open B and Utility B. Joker gets to stay home watching basketball with my husband.

**This is a quote from the back of my book, The Art of Proofing. Yup, happens to me, too.

March Training Update

 I showed Ty in Utility once in February. I'm very happy to report that she earned her 2nd leg with a solid 194.5 performance, and even won a runoff for 4th place in Utility B. The only thing that gave me any anxiety was that just as she arrived at her glove #1, she whipped around and looked at me. I had a very brief "Oh, no, don't go to glove #2!" thought dash through my head, but she recovered and turned back around and grabbed the correct one.

   Joker was entered, but on Tuesday when we were practicing gloves, he just didn't seem right. Once several years ago, he had similar symptoms - not wanting to jump up - and he had a sore back. Sure enough, a trip to our wonderful local rehab vet showed quite a bit of back soreness. He had an acupuncture treatment, but the next day, I decided to pull him since we wouldn't have the training time needed to make it worthwhile.

   I've got a nice rehab & strength training routine worked out with Gryffin that he seems to enjoy. We've been doing the workout 2-3 times a week. I mentioned last month that I'd just gotten the "Building the Canine Athlete" DVD. I've incorporated several exercises from the DVD into our routine. A friend did Gryff's workout with him 4 times while I was out of town, and I could see some nice improvements on several of the exercises as I got back to doing them with him myself. I've been enjoying this so much, and see so much benefit for Gryff that I'm offering a couple of 3 week classes called 'Tricks for Strength', one in March and one in April.

Obedience Match @ OTCGL

I took the dogs to an obedience match today, which is the first one away from home in ages. I did Utility with both Ty and Joker, and Open with Ty. I did use a fair # of treats with both dogs, so not exactly ring ready, but some nice success. I went all but the last 5 ft with both on Signals. Treated Ty after drop, then did all from stand. Joker did all with just a CR after the down. Both did articles right. Ty did glove 3 fine. Just had glove 3 out for J, but he did it very nicely. MS good with both. Had white target out for DJ. Ty looked out and leaned forward. BUT she found the judge being 3 feet to our left saying READY? very distracting - looked at her instead of staying locked on her go spot. After praising for her first go-out and saying sit, she got distracted and didn't - but it was quite loud at that point. Her sits were excellent after that. But she was staring at the judge instead of me after the 2nd go-out, so would have missed the bj (I walked it out and talked extra to her). It was weird. Joker left me on the go out with some veering toward glove 3, but then spotted the strategically placed target and got there fine. I have to say, I love love love his go-out sits. Zippy quick and right in place. He failed to go to the bar, too, but this didn't surprise me with him, as he's not been right yet this week. Ty did good Open stays, tho flipped hips. Her run through in Open was fine in the small ring. Glad I made the trip. It gives me some concrete objectives to be training on this week.

Some of my training friends and I have started checking in with each other regularly about what we are training. It is really helping to keep me motivated. I've also made a list of all of the exercises I want to train each week, plus how many times. When I train, I jot down the day of the week in the chart. I only missed on a couple of exercises last week (Fig 8 & BJ). Granted, it's only been 1 week of keeping track. For now, I'm motivated to do it. Check in with me in a couple of months. I wish I had time to learn how to write an app for either my iPod touch or my Palm Pre Plus that is more customized than the rather clumsy spreadsheet app I'm using.

A Utility Training Update

I've lost track if I mentioned it here, but Gryffin sliced his left hock a couple of weekends ago. Not, thank god, a career ending slice, but it had him on 3 legs for a couple of days, thus ending our wonderful season of hunt tests. The silver lining is that I've leapt back into obedience training, particularly with Joker and Ty in Utility. Neither of them has shown in Utility yet, nor even done that many matches with any sort of thought of being even vaguely close to ready to trial. Joker hasn't really been trained regularly since sometime in the spring - maybe March? April? Ty Q'ed in Graduate Open at the National back in June, but since then, we focused on field work, with next to no obedience work.

I had matches here at home today and a week ago. I ran them both through last week. Ty had pretty disastrous signals and various other issues. Joker stood there on the down signal, but did the rest of his signals nicely. I don't think he actually did too much else right.

We have trained a whole bunch since then - almost daily, in fact - mostly at home, but we did take one road trip Wednesday to the Toledo KC, where we'll probably trial in late November. Gryffin just LOVES to show there.

Ty passed everything except for anticipating the MS return. In her defense, because she kept turning her head during the exam, the 'judge' kept pushing her head back. She probably pushed Ty's head about 5 times. When she finished the exam and stepped back, Ty started in. I think the alarm had gone off in her head... "Times up!" Other than that, she did a lot of excellent work. I'm not overly concerned about fronts and finishes right now, but even they were pretty good. Certainly, she did all of them without more than a 1/2 point off. I waited a little extra long to cue the 2nd jump. She was twitching towards the high jump, which she'd already done, but she waited and stayed attentive. She also started slightly in the wrong direction on a couple of finishes, but then went the right way. One was to my right, one to my left. I am VERY pleased with her progress in just a week.

Joker also did a lot more correctly today. Most of the problems he had were familiar. We started with Directed Jumping, and doing go-outs cold? No goes on both of them. But I've gotten that when I've done some glove/go-out proofing and he's made mistakes, so I wasn't that surprising. I still need to work out the best position for him when I send him, what the best signal is for me to use, etc. He also wanted to repeat the HJ on the right. He doesn't quite seem to get that after doing THIS jump, we do THAT jump. His moving stand was good, though I asked the judge to do a simpler exam. He went to glove 2 instead of 1. I already knew I had a problem with glove 3, so that's why I picked 1. It is probably his weakest exercise. Guess what we'll be doing frequently this week? He missed his first article, which was in the center. He had circled and sniffed all of the outer articles twice, and I think simply timed out. This is unusual, so I'm not particularly worried. He's actually been showing me a very nice and deliberate work on them. He got back on track, and his 2nd one was fine. AND... drum roll, not only did he do his signals fine, he actually heeled NICELY with me. And notice, I didn't say "Joker heeled nicely, for him." No, it wasn't perfect. But he was with me. We've been starting each of our training sessions with a dozen or so set ups. His understanding of heel position is so poor, that it makes training the Utility exercises cumbersome, because it takes so many tries to get him in decent enough position to get started. This set-up work is paying off - our last two training days have resulted in much less effort from me to get him there. Again, he isn't perfect, but he's improved.

Gryffin did Open after not doing much work on it at all. He was brilliant :-). I caught him in some attention lapses in Utility which caused him to bark at me when I corrected him. Mr. Sassypants. Overall, some really fine work from him. He is my 'comfortable slippers' dog now. Who would have thunk it about my goofball?

It's amazing what a week of consistent training can produce. I guess it is time to get off my duff and fill out those Marshbanks entries...

FCRSA 2010 - Obedience Day 2

For Day 2 of obedience at this year's FCRSA National, I had Gryff entered in Versatility, Ty entered in Grad Open (1st try) and the pair entered in Brace. Gryff earned his one VER leg at last year's National, and this would be our 1st time doing it since then.

Versatility has 2 exercises from Novice, 2 from Open, and 2 from Utility. When it was a non-regular class, it was up to the judge to pick the exercises. Now, there are 12 different combinations from which the judge picks. We had V4- Novice Heel Free, Recall, Retrieve on Flat, Retrieve Over High Jump, Moving Stand and Exam, Directed Jumping. What was interesting and a bit worrisome was the judge had us heel to the outside of the high jump that was on the left. We did a fast with the dog between handler and jump and I wondered if some rally or agility dogs would take it on the fast. We also did the Novice recall there. I did see one dog take the jump on the recall.

While Gryff had been decently "up" on Tuesday, he was at his jolliest in Versatility. He warmed up a bit more crisply and he worked the same way in the ring. It tends to make a nice spiral upwards, in that when he's like that, when I release him between exercises, I'm happier, which in turn makes him happier. It is something I need to keep in mind when I get back to obedience with him in the future! It all added up to a 197.5 and 1st place in the class.

Back last fall, after Ty finished her CDX, I have been aiming to show her in Utility for the 1st time at this National. But about three months ago, her signals were a mess, and her articles were still tied together, and, and, and... About two months ago, I made what turned out to be a superb decision, which was to aim her for Grad Open instead of Utility. What it meant was that I continued to train her in Utility, but without the pressure I might have felt (okay, would have felt) had we been going into Utility. Because of the field work we've been focused on, there wasn't that much time for obedience training, but it was enough to feel ready. When we entered the ring Wednesday, I felt ready for the simplified exercises required in Grad Open. She did have a no-sit on heeling, and walked back with the correct article (I haven't had a walk back since Tramp did several 20 or so years ago when showing outdoors in 90+ degree weather, so it was a bit of a shock!), but her signals were great. I used a verbal on the stand stay and on the down, but more as insurance than necessarily needing them. Her sit and come were great. Her glove was zippy, especially when compared to the slow article return. Her moving stand? Zero off! This from a girl who hasn't been quite sure about the call to heel. Her go-out wasn't quite where I wanted it to be, but we haven't proofed for go-outs towards an in-use rally ring. She ended up with a 192.5 and 1st place in the class.

The morning of the day we left on the trip, I trained some obedience, particularly some brace work. For the brace class, you do a Novice routine, but with two dogs. You are allowed to 'couple' them together with a coupler, i.e., 2 clips connected to a ring for your leash. The clips attach to each dogs' collar. I didn't use one last year because Ty kept ending up in the wrong place, and I couldn't sort her out without either physically moving her or uncoupling them. I decided that Friday morning to try Gryff on the inside, since when he is on the outside (which is how I did it last year), they were both heeling badly - Gryff forging and side-winding, and Ty lagging because Gryff was crowding her a lot. I found with him on the inside, at least he would heel well. Warming up at the trial, I tried holding my left arm straight down during the on-leash heeling, and I think it worked pretty well. All in all, the routine went MUCH better than last year, with one no sit from Ty. The only funny part was the recall - Gryff was looking over his shoulder when I called (I DID wait for him to look back, but then gave up). Ty came promptly, Gryff shortly after her. When she was almost to me, she turned around to see why Gryff was chasing her, and he ended up in a nice front with her more or less already finished.

Gryff decided to show me just how briefly he thinks he needs to do a sit stay, and was down before I crossed the ring. This cost us 15 points, and we ended up with a 180 and 2nd place. Interestingly enough, the other 3 braces were all handled by men. I don't think I've ever been in an obedience class with 75% men before :-).

So, Gryff earned 2 1sts and 2 2nds in obedience, and Ty a 1st and a 2nd. Pretty fine results, all in all.

That evening was a banquet along with the annual meeting. Ann G, who is going to be co-chairing obedience at next year's national, picked my brain about what her duties will be. I felt like I was doing a brain dump :-).

The next morning, I packed up to head home to work on final preparation for my son Ryan's graduation party, scheduled for Saturday. Friday afternoon, my husband Fritz and I headed back for the Awards banquet and final goodbyes to my many old and new FCR friends. This was my 7th National in a row, and I'm looking forward to next year's already!

Day 2 of Field at the 2010 FCRSA National

After a too-short night of sleep, I arrived at the field HQ at 7:00 AM to pick up the supplies for marshaling. I had the honor and pleasure to share the marshaling duties with two of our most experienced field trainers, Bunny Milliken and Karen Peterson. The marshall is responsible for getting dogs and handlers to the line to run in a prompt fashion. I decided years ago that I was good at it because I have two important skills for marshaling: I have a loud voice and I'm bossy :-).

There were 27 dogs in our division (C) of the Steady Singles competition. This is an event held at most FCRSA Nationals, and the goal is to pick a winner, vs. the pass/fail judging for hunt tests. The rules more closely resemble the Field Trial rules, but I don't think I've personally read them (shame on me). The first series consisted of two single marks (all the marks are singles). The 1st mark, on the left, was thrown left to right and landed in front of a tree. It was about 80 yds from the line, through one of those crazily mowed fields. The 2nd mark was thrown right to left, down a slight hill, and was at about 125 yds.

After Karen's nearly-12 year old Sardou ran as honorary test dog, the competition got underway. Dog after dog completed the two marks with very little problem. I went to the line with Ty 1st of my two dogs, and I confess I kept thinking, "Please don't let her be the 1st dog incapable of getting both marks!" I shouldn't have worried. While her line to the long mark wasn't super straight (there were lots of cover patches she was veering around, as did several others), she got both birds just fine. Gryff did as well, as did all 27 competitors, so everyone was invited back to run the 2nd series.

The 1st series gun stations were removed, and one station was set up waaaaaaay our on the hillside (not way out by current field trial craziness, but far by hunt test standards), with 3 gunners in their white coats. The throw was an angled-in one, left to right towards the woods, at 245 yds. This mark definitely separated the experienced dogs from the inexperienced. There were the ones who ran a lovely straight line out to it, the ones that took a far less straight line, maybe hunted the old fall at the right gun station, but eventually got to the bird (Gryff was in this category), and the ones that either didn't go at all or who ran off into the weeds to the right of the correct line (Ty was in this category). Eighteen dogs were called back for the 3rd series, Gryff being one of them.

After taking a break for lunch, we moved to the Backwater club's big stick pond (a stick pond means there are dead stumps and logs in the pond, some sticking up out of the water, some submerged). The judges set up a single mark, thrown from the left shore in a big arc. Most of the throws landed just in front of a patch of reeds in the water at 145 yds. From the shore we ran from, it looked like there was a series of pockets in the reeds, but friends who went and looked at it after we were all done said it was just a big patch of reeds with many submerged logs - very hard going for the dogs. There were also a couple of visible logs near the shore where the dogs had to enter the water. The ideal line was right over those logs. Again, some of the dogs didn't go at all or quit soon after, but many were making the long swim. Almost all of the dogs appeared to see an invisible left turn sign about 20-30 yds short of where the ducks were landing, and headed in to shore. Many dogs had long hunts, most coming up with their duck eventually.

Gryff was one of the final dogs to run, and as is his habit, he got in and went 'fat' to the right - he almost always swims in an arc to his right, especially when he has to go a long way. He was doing some connect the dot swimming, checking out some of the logs along the way. I thought he might avoid that invisible left turn sign given his angle of approach, but he took it afterall. He did some hunting on the shore, but disappeared into the reeds and found his duck. He looked like he might be trying to run back to me via the shore, but I guess his conscious got the best of him and he decided he'd better swim at least part way back. His success with this mark meant he joined the large group of dogs who earned a JAM (judges' award of merit) in the Steady Singles.

Once each division was finished, the judges named a winner of that division, and an exciting runoff was held at the HQ grounds. The test dog, Karen Peterson's Po, performed the mark brilliantly. It was a long, downhill mark, with an angled entry across the corner of a pond. The three division winners then each ran the mark. This resulted in another tie between the two younger competitors, so one more mark was planned and executed. It was an exciting finish to a great day of competition.

FCRSA 2010 - Let the games begin!

Note: this is the first installment of what I plan to be a thorough write up of my week at the 2010 Flat-Coated Retriever National, held in Auburn and Albion, Indiana, a mere 2 hours from home. It is lengthy and detailed because I want to be able to look back and remember what happened.

This year, I missed day one of the FCRSA (Flat-Coated Retriever Society of America) National because my younger son graduated from high school the night before it started (yeah, Ryan!) and my husband and I both worked the 12:30-3:00 AM shift at the All Seniors All Night party.

Gryff was entered in 9 events over the course of 5 days, and Ty in 5. At least the dogs were in good shape. Me? Time would tell! First up was the hunt test on Saturday, June 5. Gryff was in the Master test (going for leg 3 of 5) and Ty in the Senior test (going for leg 1 of 4).

The 1st series of the Master test was a land-water triple with a blind between the two land marks. We were running from a hillside that was mowed in what is becoming a familiar and crazy fashion - with generous patches of cover left all over the place. The marks were thrown left (left to right, angled back), middle (right to left, angled back) and right (right to left, angled back into the pond). The test started with a walk-up, meaning the dog and handler are in motion when the first duck is launched. Gryff picked up the right and middle marks promptly, but had a bit of a hunt on the left one. He took the path most of the way to it, but then bounced a patch of cover and hunted to the right, as did several other dogs. The hill sloped down left to right, which I think was also an influence. He headed back to the left and his nose led him to the duck. The blind went fairly smoothly, with a nice initial line carrying him quite a ways before I needed to whistle sit him. When he was about 1/2 way to the blind, I realized I was holding my breath, which wasn't going to help when I needed to blow the whistle. After the blind, we moved to the honor box. (For the honor, the dog has to stay while the next dog's marks are thrown and that dog is sent.) Gryff was solid on his honor.

I watched a few more dogs run at Master, then headed to the Senior land test. It was a walk-up double, with the left bird thrown into/near a patch of cover, right to left, and the go bird on the right thrown right to left. Earlier in the week, I had worked walk-up drills with Ty, because she was having a bad time with them, and not seeing the mark fall. She had a very good long look at the walk-up memory bird, and when she returned from picking up the go bird, she refocused intently on the area of the memory bird. She had a bit of a hunt, but came up with it reasonably prompty. Interestingly, the lines to the marks in Senior were through cover patches (which many of the dogs bounced around), whereas the Master marks all had a pretty definitive path. The blind was almost 90 degrees to the left of the left mark, and Ty took a very decent initial line - something we've struggled with in the past. It was great to see her improvement. As I had in Master, I realized I was again holding my breath and had to huff and puff to be ready to blow my whistle. I was very happy as we left the line, and thought I heard one of the judges say that it was one of the better jobs they'd seen that day.

The right mark:

Close-up of the right mark:

The left mark:

The blind stake was somewhere in this picture :-):


I went back to Master to await the completion of the 1st Master series. The 2nd series finally got underway about 1 PM. Of the 32 starters, 27 were called back for the 2nd series. It was on a big pond with lots of tullies/reeds around the perimeter. It was a water double and a double blind, one on land and one across the water. The memory bird was a huge arc from the left side of the pond and the go bird was a huge arcing throw from the same side of the pond we ran from, far to our right. The water blind was under the arc of the go bird, and the land blind was to the right of the right gun station. I was the lucky 1st exhibitor to run. Gryff's go bird was fine. When I sent him for the memory bird, I rushed it a bit, and instead of heading straight for the water, he veered left into the tall cover and proceeded to hunt quite a bit on land. The shoreline tullies were several feet thick, creating a wall the dogs had to drive through. At some point, I started to handle. I honestly don't think he was responding very well to my casts, but suddenly, he got in the water and headed for the bird. I was smart and shut up :-). We did the land blind first and he even jumped over a patch of cover at some point. One of the judges said "That will earn you extra points!" I was pleased with his handling on the land blind. The water blind required us to drive the dog through the very wide and tall wall of tullies on the far shore. While we've been working on improving this skill in the past month, we hadn't worked through any that wide (I think they were at least 10 feet wide, if not more). I was prepared and stopped him before he disappeared into the tullies, but he didn't respond correctly to my next cast. I was trying to get him to drive straight back through, but he went into the tullies and started hunting. Because they were also tall, it was hard to see what he was doing. I wasn't surprised, since we've been battling this issue. I hung in with him. When he finally got to the duck, one of the judges said something about that being what he liked to see ... hanging in there with my dog and getting the job done. I wasn't feeling great about our chances of going on to the 3rd series, but I crossed my fingers and left to run Ty's Senior water.

When I arrived at the location for the Senior water, I walked down to watch some dogs run. Problem was, there was only me and one other handler left to run. Eek! I had heard a few people say it was a breaking test, which usually means the marks are short and exciting. One of the judges described the test, which looked pretty straight forward: a water double on a small pond. The memory bird was thrown from the right shore and the go bird from the dike we were running from. Once that was completed, we'd walk down the shore to the right for the water blind and then honor right there. I arrived at the line with Ty and the first bird was thrown. Drat, it landed in the heavy cover, which isn't where I was expecting it to land. The 2nd gunner started duck-calling, but Ty was intent on where the 1st one had landed and she wasn't turning to see the go bird. Then I heard another splash (I was watching my dog) across the pond... the bird boys, having thrown the 1st one poorly, decided to throw another out into the open water. Oops! Ty jumped in, I recalled her, the judge called a 'No bird'. We left the line and waited for a bit, and returned. This time, since Ty had seen two birds thrown from the right side, I lined her up to face where the go bird would land, which also let me block her some with my legs. The strategy served me well. This time, it all came off smoothly and she retrieved both birds promptly. We moved down the shore for the blind. It was the shortest water blind I've ever seen in a test (30 yds?). She looked out with confidence (no bugging this time either) and went right in when I sent her. She again took an excellent initial line. When she started veering away from the line near the end, I blew my whistle. I think she spotted the bird as she started to turn, so started to swim at the bird. I whistled again, and she stopped, but didn't look back at me but stared at the duck. I waited and waited and waited. She finally looked at me and then took my quick cast. Yeah! The honor was a bit scary - she was ready to go and moved forward just a bit, but a quick SIT command stopped her. I didn't know for sure until later, but I was pretty sure she'd passed and earned our 1st Senior pass (she did and we did).

Ty and Adele with their first Senior Hunter ribbon.



I went back to Master, and the water test dragged on and on. It didn't wrap up until about 6:30 PM. Blessedly, we were called back to run the 3rd series. I figured Gryff had to have top marks to pass. It was a land double with a diversion bird, and he did an excellent job on it. One of the judges said "Congratulations!" as I left the line. Our 3rd Master leg!

The awards were handed out at head quarters, and it was so sweet to drive back to the motel with two orange ribbons. Earning a Master pass with Gryff was my #1 goal for the week, so we were off to a super start to our Specialty.

Joker & Ty Utility Training Update

As field training has been winding down, I've been managing more obedience work, particularly articles with both Ty and Joker.

I start my dogs off with Janice DeMello's 'Around the Clock Scent Discrimination', because I like the enthusiastic attitude it helps to produce. However, I've had a few of my own dogs and several students who were flummoxed the week the cheese goes from a microscopic dot to none. Joker was one of these confused critters. He would go out, pick up an article at random, and then turn and sit facing me. I finally got around to setting up a tie-down mat and I'm happy to report he seems to be grasping the idea. After 2-3 sessions with the articles tied tightly, he seemed to get over his anxiety about the whole thing, and is dashing out to the pile and back to me with a wagging tail. He's made enough progress that I loosened the ties on about half of them. I do 4 retrieves each time we do it, 2 of each type. I'm using a platform for the front to try to subtly work the front without having to work it. He's only occasionally tugging a tied one. I'm lengthening our distance from the pile, and need to have more and different people scenting them, but I'm hoping we're over the worst of his confusion.

He's got a pretty decent idea of directed jumping, the moving stand, and the directed retrieve. He is showing me what a nuisance it is to train a dog for Utility without a solid foundation of heel position - his pivots have been pretty ghastly, which make getting to the correct glove harder. I do see improvement on the pivots, though. I'm not looking for perfection, but I do want him close enough to heel position that he has a decent chance of following my mark signal. He dashes out and back to the glove, and mostly doesn't drop the glove on my foot anymore .

I now think signals are his least understood exercise. He's had the down and sit concept up close for most of his 8 years, but I only taught him the signal stand about a year ago. Somewhat to my surprise, he seems able to stand at a distance. I started counting steps when I leave him, and he doesn't really get signals, at least not the sit, much beyond 8 steps. Given that it was only 5 steps in mid-November, I'm happy with his progress.

I finally had Ty spayed last month, so her progress has been slowed because of that. I have her articles tied together in 2 sets of 4 articles. After using a tennis ball to reward a good delivery, she started working with a great deal of speed, but still mostly accurately. At home gloves have been mostly a no-brainer. Her biggest training lack is her signal stand stay. I put a small barrier out (same kind we used for drop on recall training) and stood her behind it and was dismayed to see how far across it she stepped as I walked away. We've spent a lot of time this past week working on 'stand still'. I put her on a 6-foot leash to reduce her sometimes wild leaping about that she offers. I do know where this lack of clarity comes from - I've used her for a year or so to demo clicker training the first night of my Fundamentals class, and one of the strongly reinforced behaviors is 'lie down and cross your front paws'. In the process, she also offers 'lie down and roll onto a hip'; 'lie down and put chin on the floor'; 'leap backwards out of the down', and probably others I'm forgetting about. So in trying to get her to simply stand still, she would start going through her repetoire. The use of the leash and clicking her for quite short stand stays has helped her make progress. While she does a decent signal down (a bit too much butt shift to my left, but not overwhelming), she also almost always immediately does her pop-up sit on her own. So I have also been clicking and treating her for holding her down longer, especially with her chin on the floor.

Both dogs do very nice full-length go-outs to a visible target here at home. I've done some work with Joker moving to targetting on a stanchion. Given the generous size of my training building, they've both done go-outs to several different backgrounds. All of Ty's field training blinds have given her a very strong response to my 'look' command (I want her to focus straight out when I say the command, and maintain that look). She just doesn't always wait for me to say 'go' :-). Joker's response isn't as strong, but he's getting there, too. He was showing a LOT of right arcing on go outs earlier in the week at a park, so I think I need to use center guides for him for a while.

Both need reminding via a side step on the first jumps we do each session, but are jumping full height confidently. I haven't started jumping them from off center (for corner go-out disaster recovery, something I'm a strong proponent of).

Both dogs have a reasonably good stop on the moving stand, though I've not done much having other people exam either one. Both can do a decent call to heel.

It's fun to be teaching/solidifying some new stuff that isn't Open :-).

Friday field update

With the UDX behind us (finally), and only the National obedience trial planned (June 1) between now and October, I'm focusing on field work for the most part with Gryff and Ty. My friend Corinne, who breeds and trains Tollers, has a hay field near her house we use. The owners cut down some scrubby bushes and made an impressively long brush pile earlier this week, with some places narrow enough for the dogs to jump over. We took advantage of it and set out a bumper pile 10-12 feet beyond one of the narrow places. I ended up having to call Ty over it because she seemed convinced that she couldn't possibly jump over it (this from a dog who leaps a baby gate with nary a thought). Once she realized she could, she was fine with it.

We've done pattern blinds in that field quite a bit (Corinne far more than me, naturally, living so close) (pattern blinds are blinds that you teach a dog via back chaining, usually in groups of 3, over several days). Gryff ran them some last year, Ty only a bit, since she was just getting to that stage last summer. When I was there 2 weeks ago, I ran Ty on the middle of the trio of blinds, which she did quite well. The right one presented more problems, because she REALLY wanted to go back to the left one. Yesterday, I started by teaching her how to navigate the brush pile blind, then put her up to rest. We came back out and started with the right pattern blind. On the first attempt to send her, she sat there (too much like a cold blind, which she's not ready for). We moved up a short distance. Then she veered to the left toward the middle blind. So we moved up some more. Finally, at about the 1/2 way point (I think it is about 120 yd blind total), it was like she went, "Oh THAT destination!" and headed in the correct direction. We then did the middle one from the top of the hill, then repeated the right one from near the top of the hill with fine success. Then we moved over to run the brush pile one. I think it's 150 yds from the top of the hill. We moved up some, but, if memory serves, I think she got herself all the way there and hopped the brush pile.

When I taught Gryff the brush pile blind, he wanted to go to the right (where the original pattern blind has been in the past), plus wanted to run around the right side of the pile. I used the e-collar on one sit, which seemed to wake him up. We ran the other two blinds as part of a blind drill (a mark in combination with a known blind), then reran the brush pile blind from the top of the hill. It was a two-whistle blind, and he made some excellent line corrections on both casts. It was really satisfying! There are times he responds to my casts by ping-pong-ing back and forth across the correct line (ugly and frustrating), so this on-the-money responses to my casts was fabulous to see.

I stopped at a pond on the way home for some water work (they were in the water for the first time this year last Sunday). Last year, Gryff had a HUGE amount of problems running a blind at a workshop in Ohio where he had to swim across a channel and then exit the water and run another 50 yds on land parallel to another leg of the pond. I got him across the channel reasonably quickly and out of the water, but could not get him to drive back along the shore - he seemed convinced he need to get back in the water. I found a local pond where I could reproduce this soon after that, and again had a lot of trouble. I'm happy to say he did quite a nice job on that concept yesterday. I put 3 bumpers at the end of the land dike, and after a successful first run, we moved to our left so that the line to the blind was gradually angling from left to right in the water this time. As he passed the right channel, he made a fairly obvious cut in to the shore (he often arcs/drifts right in the water, but this was a clear "oh, let's get to the shore" kind of move). We got a lot of practice on left back casts, but he was listening and responding pretty well. We finished with another move to the left so he had to do the initial part of the blind with a shore to his right.

With Ty, I worked on basic pile work across the narrow channel. After I tossed a bumper to ID the pile (so a mark), the next send was poor, but after that, she was doing a nice job. She didn't quite master treading water last year, but she was showing signs of being better at it yesterday.

I went home feeling really good about my dogs :-).