Private Training: Diversion Drill

This afternoon, in light snowfall and with temps in the high 20s, the dogs and I went out with Nate, again, as our helper.

In this session we picked up where we left off yesterday afternoon on Alice's diversion drill, this time finishing the next two stages:

1. Throwing dummies away from the center line instead of toward it, with Nate at distances of 30, 45, and 60 yards from the start line and 5 yards to the right of the center line.
   
2. Throwing birds over the center line, with Nate at distances of 30 and 60 yards from the start line, again 5 yards to the right of the center line.
   

Today, the distance was 80 yards along the center line from the start line to the lining pole and the pile of white dummies.

The first four retrieves were a ramp-up:

1. With Nate standing in front of chair, I sent Laddie to the dummies.
2. After Nate fired a gunshot but did not throw anything, I sent Laddie to the dummies.
3. After Nate threw a bird without a gunshot, I sent Lumi to the bird.
4. With Nate sitting, I sent Laddie to the dummies.

After that, we followed the identical series at each of the five locations mentioned above:

1. After Nate fired a gunshot and threw a bird, I sent Lumi to the bird.
2. With Nate sitting, I sent Laddie to the dummies.
3. After Nate fired a gunshot and threw a bird, I sent Laddie to the bird.
4. With Nate sitting, I sent Laddie to the dummies.

Notes on Performance. Lumi's performance was better than yesterday's. Like yesterday, she lined every mark, but today, she returned on a canter with every bird. The one area with significant room for improvement was her pick-ups. First, they were not automatic, and second, even with a recall whistle, she spent too much time evaluating how to best pick the bird up. I know she is capable of picking a bird up on the fly, and that is what we want to get to. When we have time, we might do some pile work with a long line to work on that.

Laddie's performance was better than yesterday's as well. He didn't snake on a single return, and he didn't go out of control at any time. He was responsive to most whistle sits, only occasionally requiring a second whistle. Like yesterday, nearly all of his casts took him straight to the dummies.

His one area of significant weakness was on his returns with the birds. He did a lot of head throwing and avoidance of completing the return. He never went completely out of control, but I can imagine that at greater distance, or if more highly excited such as in a competitive situation, he might stall entirely. Even more than Lumi, I think Laddie would benefit from some pile work on a long line.

A Question of Priorities. Today, Laddie also exhibited what might or might not be considered a deterioration in his behavior compared to yesterday. Yesterday, Laddie lined about half of his retrieves of dummies, and required handling on the other half. I couldn't spot any pattern as to when he needed help and when he didn't. Today, Laddie only lined his retrieves of the dummies three times: on the first two steps of the ramp-up, and on one rep where I took Laddie well to the opposite side of the center line from where the last fall was before sending him.

Because our goal with the diversion drill is primarily to practice handling Laddie in the presence of diversions, that "deterioration" was actually helpful to our goal, because Laddie required handling on virtually every send out to the dummies rather than only half of them.

Also, looking at it from the dog's point of view, I could imagine that Laddie had some trouble keeping track of when a bird was down and when not, and may have decided that the safest course was to always run to the last fall and depend on my handling to correct his course if he was wrong.

To me, that does not seem like the ideal performance. The rule I really want for Lumi and Laddie is for them to run in the direction I send them regardless of diversions or other factors such as hills, wind, obstacles, etc.

I believe that I could improve Laddie's performance toward that ideal by using a whistle sit and recall any time Laddie went off line, moving to the side or closer to the pile of dummies as necessary to maintain a high rate of success, then gradually moving our send-outs closer and closer to the original start line.

However, Alice did not include any such procedure in her instructions for this drill, and she may actually prefer that Laddie not line his dummy retrieves so that we can get in more handling practice, perhaps the theory being that we can work on his lining later. I'll look forward to private correspondence from Alice addressing that question.