Reflections on our 2nd Master Hunter test

Gryff and I are in our 2nd Master Hunter test this weekend, put on a local club to which I belong, the Marshbanks Golden Retriever CLub. He did a fine job on the first series, which was a land triple with a blind under the arc of the left mark. His marks were superb - hardly any hunt on any of them, and compared to many teams, our blind was good.

The 2nd series was a water double, with the memory bird across the pond (ideally through some brush in the water), through cover on the far side, up a hill, across a road, and through another cover strip. Only a few dogs swam across and drove straight up the hill. Most swam across and hunted back and forth, gradually working their way up the hill, over the road and throw the last cover strip. Gryff took a somewhat unique approach by swimming more to the left than he should have, which meant going through MUCH more brush/bushes in the water and on the far side. I'm reasonably sure he drove up the hill. He had a very long hunt on the other side, but did come up with it. All 24 dogs who made it to the 2nd series will run tomorrow. Since I helped to set up for all 3 series, I knew ahead of time what Sunday would bring... and it wasn't easy! I'm very happy that we got to try.

Last summer, I learned a couple of phrases, "Zero to hero" and "Hero to zero". Unfortunately, we earned the "hero to zero" title today. We once again did not pass the 3rd series of the test. The series started with a land blind. The one the had planned on wouldn't work today because of the way the wind was blowing, so instead of going northwest, it went southwest, and was much more of a Senior level blind than a Master one (Senior blinds don't tend to have too many "factors", or things that would draw the dog off the line to the blind or cause the dog to want to avoid the line to the blind. Master blinds tend to have factors along the way, such as clumps or strips of taller cover, be closer to gun stations, have more variance in terrain, etc.). I think it was only about 40-50 yds, and there really wasn't much between the line and the bird. The bird was placed in front of what looked like a bush, but was really a very large thistle plant. I lined Gryff up for it, sent him off, and he made a bee-line for it and picked up the duck. That is called "lining the blind" and we've never done it in a test, and I'm pretty sure no other dog had done it before him (and he ran after at least 15 other dogs). So that was the hero part.

The next part of the test was a delayed triple in water. The center mark was thrown, than the left-hand one. I sent him to retrieve that one, which he did smartly with very little searching. On his return, we lined up for the right-hand bird, which was thrown. He retrieved that one smartly, too. Then it was time for the memory bird. The line to that one was across a 6-8 foot peninsula (which got weed-whacked yesterday so that we could see the dog from the line), with a large island to the right that has tall cover (3-4 ft high, I'd say). I did a poor job of being patient while lining him up for the memory bird (I did MUCH better being patient on the land triple yesterday that he did so well), and when I sent him, he was looking to the right. Sure enough, he went where he was looking. He crossed the peninsula and headed for the island. I decided to handle him at that point (something that is sometimes necessary, but not desirable on a mark). It didn't go well. I think he eventually winded the bird, because he suddenly jumped back in the water and swam right to it. We had to finish up with a water blind. The line to the blind was between where the middle mark had landed and the island. Danged if he didn't essentially repeat what he'd done on the mark - cross the peninsula too far to the right and go to the island. This in spite of quicker attempts to handle him back onto the line.

Given that the last weather report I looked at for the weekend was for 74 and partly cloudy, the misty rain that fell all morning was a huge annoyance. It was at least vastly better than the 90 or so degrees we had last weekend!

I was the Master test coordinator, which meant that I was there on Friday with the judges so that I would know what equipment they would need in order to put on the tests they wanted to run. It also meant I was in charge of training workers and keeping the test and equipment use moving along. I am so pleased to be able to say we didn't have a single goof up today from our group of workers - no equipment goofs, no missed cues. That is pretty unusual, and something to be proud of.

While I am of course somewhat disappointed, there was still a lot of parts that were very, very good. We now return to the training grounds for another 3-4 weeks before our next attempt.

Ty's 1st Cold Blinds

We finished up field training early at Omega Farms today because of bad weather rolling in, so I stopped at the Firestation (there are some fabulous fields behind it) to check on how high the cover has gotten (high!) and to run a couple of blinds. Ty has run marks on this hillside several times, and has done several taught blinds, which is what I figured I would do. I hiked out and planted the blinds, then got her out. We got to the top of the hill, and I thought "What the heck, let's see what happens if I cue her up." Lo and behold, off she went (it didn't hurt that I broke the initial path down to the bottom of the hill between the bushes, but I was a good blind planter and wandered my way up the hill after that). She got hung up on the big wide bush halfway up the hill on the left, so after several bouncings around the bush, I hiked down the hill to get closer, but got her the rest of the way from there. She did the 2nd one with me staying at the top of the hill. Considering how high the cover is out there now, I'm even more happy.



If you look carefully (and imagine the path at the bottom of the left picture continuing up the hill), you can see an orange stake in both pictures near the center and top.

Yeah, Ty! All the homework is really paying off.

Adele

** A "cold blind" means that the dog doesn't see what they have to retrieve thrown, so you have to handle them to it.

Saturday Field Drills

I went to the fields near the local airport to do drills with my Flat-Coats this morning. Lining drills became the theme. I started out with one pile for Ty, to work on a stable response to a sit correction. Even a 1 medium creates a bit of a hot spot, but I can see improvement and much less panic in her response. She's also confident enough on her handling on land now that I can stop her quite a bit to handle her through those hot spots.

Next I did wagon wheel with both of them, building distance for Gryff and seeing a lot of improvement over last weekend when I did it; closer in for Ty, who hasn't done too much WW. Interestingly enough, both seem to have more trouble going to the closer-to-us white bumpers than to the farther away orange ones.

Then I put out two back piles, and three stick men on a diagonal, with 25 yds between them (so a lopsided M). As an extension of both the Split Casting drill we have been working on the past several weeks, and the wagon wheel drill, I worked on sending and casting to the back piles from various locations, with the stick men in between me and the back piles to create suction.

We packed up and went to a pond, and I set up something similar there for Gryff to work on, with 3 stick men along the shore and orange stakes farther up the shore (maybe 10-15 yds) with a pile of bumpers at each. I worked on lining and angle back casts as we had on land. Another benefit was the tall cover along the shores, with a few obvious and tempting gaps. It gave me a chance to work Gryff on driving straight through the cover coming out of the water. Since Ty's water work is on hold until her e-collar response is stabilized, I just did fun marks with her, but required her to go in and come out through the cover along the shore.

It was a fun and productive morning.

Friday Drill Work

I went back to the Ann Arbor airport today for drill work. I ran the middle and left pattern blinds with Ty, which went quite nicely. Then we tried the right one. She was convinced that she needed to go to the middle one again. I eventually got her to the right one, but it was really ugly. I sent her back to the left one, then tried the right one again. Ugly again. Somewhere during one of those ugly blinds, I used a small e-collar correction, which seemed to get her going again.

I put her away and set up my two launchers, aiming for in-line marks, with the launchers to either side of the line to the right blind. Since I still don't estimate the length of launch (ridiculously long for a bumper) very well, the farther away one ended up under the arc of the closer one. I decided to start with poison bird blinds with Gryffin. I launched the closer mark, called him off that and sent him to the left blind. He needed just one whistle to get the blind correctly (it helps a lot that he's run these blinds several times in the past week - a LOT). He picked up the mark eagerly. Then I launched the farther away launcher, called him off and ran him to the middle blind (behind the closer launcher). He did veer to the right after passing the launcher, but handled reasonably quickly to the blind, then picked up the mark. He finished up running the right blind.

I got Ty back out and ran the two marks and then reran all 3 blinds. I moved up quite a bit for the right one, given her problems earlier, and it went much better. I had Gryff run the marks as a double and do the right blind.

I moved to another area and set up the Split-Y drill that I did with Gryff on Thursday. This was Ty's first try. I used our white trash cans to mark the piles, and started to teach her about angle back casts. I had to stop her several times the first try at each direction, and call her back in a few times because she was getting too close to the middle pile, but subsequent tries were better. She's running some nice, straight lines. I had Gryff do just a bit of this drill (to finish picking up the bumpers) and called it a day.

Sure was nice to have sunshine today instead of a steady downpour!

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.

Pattern Blinds

Pattern blinds are a set of blinds, usually in sets of 3, that you teach your dog one at a time over the course of several days to help them learn to run long, straight lines.

While I have taught Ty several blinds this spring, and she's done some blind drills last year and this spring, I haven't really done a set of 3 blinds consistently. With the progress I saw during our trip out east, I was eager to get serious about some pattern blinds with her.

I decided going to the Ann Arbor Airport property was a good bet. It's only about 3 miles from home, and there are actually 3 different areas I can potentially use for pattern blinds. I taught her the first one (the left of the 3) on Sunday. It went pretty well. Then I set up a launcher and ran a mark and then all 3 blinds with Gryffin. He had a TERRIBLE time :-\. He was convinced he had to go back to the mark. Now, this is NOT a new concept for him. Clearly, he needs more work on it!

I got Ty back out, let her run the mark and then redid the blind. It was a pretty messy affair, too, but she did eventually get to the blind bumper.

We squeezed in a short session yesterday morning (had to be short because of horsing around getting the flat tire fixed...). Ty did fine on the blind she'd learned Sunday, and then I taught her the loooong right one (I think it's 180-200 yds). We finished up running the left and then the right again. She's still fuzzy about switching between different blinds, but is improving. I ran the blinds with Gryff (no time for the launcher) with somewhat better results than Sunday.

Today I taught Ty the 3rd of 3 pattern blinds. I'm really happy with her progress.I ran the left and right ones with her first, then taught her the center one, then reran the outside ones again. I'm pleased with how well she's stopping on my whistle and mostly taking good casts. She seems to be getting the idea to change direction when I stop her. Then I put out a launcher for Gryff, ran the center blind, did the mark, then ran the outside blinds, then the center one (under the arc). He did much better than on Sunday, though still interested in going back to the mark's location. Then I finished up rerunning the center blind with Ty past the launcher, then did the mark and the two outside blinds. It's cool seeing the many weeks/months of basic work starting to gel for her. I plan to go back on Friday for another session, maybe even with both of my launchers out.

Finding training places

Yesterday morning, before leaving the Super 8 motel for home, I did some drill work with the dogs behind the motel. There was a nice hillside on which I did some T work, to give them some work driving up a hill, as well as doing overs across the face of the hill. Then I did a longish but otherwise uninteresting sight blind (one with a white trash can marking the end of it) with Ty, which went well.

I finished up with a connect-the-dots blind with Gryff. The pictures show the blind. There is a corner of a gravel parking lot (complete with a school bus), followed by a dried up pond bed that was about a foot lower than the surrounding grass, with some weeds in it (the higher cover you can see beyond the gravel), followed by having to go by the large bush on the right. I had the white trash can out for Ty.

With a connect-the-dot blind, you leave the dog at the line and go to a point along the blind where the dog is likely to veer, and call them to that point and then resit them. Then you go to the next likely point of confusion and call the dog to that spot, and continue to do this until you are close enough to the end of the blind to send the dog to retrieve. Then you sit the dog at the end and teach them the return path in a similar way. I left Gryff and called him to the first edge of the pond bed, then left him there and went to the other side and called him there. Then I sent him to the blind from there. When I resent him from the baseline, he went nicely into the pond bed, but started veering right (away from the weeds), so I stopped him and cast him. It was a fun little blind to run with some interesting factors.

I tried something similar with Ty, but it was too much for her - she kept wanting to veer to the right of the weeds in the pond bed and she was having confidence issues when I was trying to cast her, so I moved the white can and bumpers closer, to the far edge of the pond bed. That worked much better for her.

This workout was great to get in with them before starting the long drive home.