Lumi Group Training

Group Series: Three singles:

1. 80 yards across ditch and into high cover (dead pigeon)
2. 250+ yards thru standing water and several strips of high cover, across ditch, past trees, with fall against backdrop of dense woods (dead duck)
3. 100 yards (pigeon flyer)

Configuration — pyramid:

• #2 thrown 30° to the right of #1
  
• #3 thrown 45° to the right of #2

Marks thrown as in Field Trials

Overcast, wind 3 MPH, 37°F

Location: Rover's Content, Cheltenham, MD

Blind: 230 yard cold blind, orange dummy, 15° left of mark #3, with line thru several strips of high cover. Because the station for #3 included a crate of live pigeons, I felt this blind was too difficult to attempt during the group training, so I returned to the start line with each dog after the group training was over to run this blind.

Private Series: After group training was over, at my request one of the other trainers was kind enough to throw three additional marks for each of my dogs. All three marks were throw to the same area behind a strip of high cover. The dogs and I set up at three start lines, making the marks 40-70-100 yards thru increasing amounts of high cover. Each mark was a dead pigeon, thrown after a gunshot.

Notes: I had planned to have the dogs retrieve dummies at group training until I had more confidence in their ability to train with the group, but the stations didn't have dummies out there and it would have taken too much time to bring dummies out to them, so I took a chance on having both dogs retrieve birds instead. For Lumi, that was a dead pigeon, a dead duck, and a pigeon flyer. For Laddie, the last mark was a dead pigeon instead of a flyer.

First, the good news. Lumi was steady on all marks of both series and pinned every one of them. She also picked up every dead bird and headed back toward me uncued and without hesitation. Best of all, she ran with great enthusiasm on every mark in both series as well as the return from the blind, and also showed good motivation while being handled to the blind. It's possible that retrieving birds instead of dummies increased her motivation.

Lumi's negatives today were as follows: she tried to eat the flyer pigeon on mark #3 until one of the gunners interrupted her; then she stopped about 20 feet from me and again tried to eat the pigeon until I started to walk toward her and called out "stop that"; and finally, she required too many casts on the blind, and got too far off the line, for it to be considered a good run, though she was eventually able to get to the blind.

The problem with eating the pigeon needs to be solved, but for the immediate future, we can address it by not having Lumi retrieve more flyers until she's ready.

Despite the problem with the flyer, Lumi has improved dramatically since we resumed group training two weeks ago.