Private Training: Diversion Drill

Today we continued with Alice's diversion drill, with a pile of dummies at 80 yards. In today's session, Nate threw birds toward the center line from the left, from distances of 30, 45, and 60 yards from the start line, firing the pistol before each throw.

We began with Laddie retrieving a single dummy from the pile. After that, at each distance, the sequence was:

1. Lumi would get a thrown mark.
2. Laddie would retrieve a dummy.
3. Laddie would get a thrown mark.
4. Laddie would retrieve another dummy.
   

After the diversion drill, we did two series of pile work at 32 yards. Both dogs ran all the articles in each series, Lumi first, then Laddie. The first series was run with the dog on a long line, the second with no line. The first series was two pigeons, two ducks, two canvas dummies, two 3" white dummies, and two 2" white dummies. The second series was one pigeon, one duck, one 3" white dummy, and one 2" white dummy.

After Lumi ran the second pile work series, I threw her a single poorman mark of a bird at 130 yards. I did the same for Laddie after he ran the second pile work series.

Notes on Performance. Today's performance on the diversion drill was almost routine. With a single exception, Laddie lined every send-out to the dummies, and never snaked or otherwise diverted on his returns.

Both dogs retrieved birds well during diversion drill until the longest distance, at which time Lumi had a breakdown and attempted to chew a bird, her third retrieve of the day. I walked her back to the start line and had Nate throw the same mark for her again, and again she tried to chew the bird, so I put her in the van for awhile.

When I brought Lumi out of the van to run the first pile work series on a long line, she was not prompt in picking up the first bird and I used the line to pull her away from the pile, then called "here" to bring her to heel. For every other retrieve in both pile work series as well as the long mark, she was like a new dog, picking up articles on the fly and galloping straight back with them.

Laddie had no trouble with any of the birds all day, other than his usual head-throwing and looping finishes, both of which are gradually diminishing from day to day. In the first pile work series, he attempted to shop twice in a row on the dummies, and in both cases, I used the long line to pull him away, then called "here" to bring him to heel without a dummy. After that, he didn't attempt to shop again and did great on all his retrieves on the long line. Except for the breakdown mentioned below, Laddie did well on all his retrieves off line as well, both the second pile work series and the 130 yard poorman mark.

Based on Alice's discussion of lining ceremonies in recent correspondence, I began using "dead bird" to cue each retrieve to a pile for both dogs in all today's work. Near the end of the day, despite no training of the cue other than my using the phrase in context, I experimented with cueing "dead bird" when the dog was not looking at the pile we were working on. Both dogs consistently responded by instantly turning their focus to the pile and going into a state of alert, waiting anxiously to be sent.

The Bad News. Laddie's response on whistle sits today was entirely unsatisfactory. I only needed them three times, and two of the three cases, Laddie ignored them:

1. On one of his send-outs to the dummies, he veered left. I sat him, then cast him to the dummies, and he did fine.
2. On one of his send-outs to the dummies, he ran right past them and kept running. I whistled sit and recall, then called him by voice, and he ignored all of it. After about 50 yards, he looped around, ran past the dummies coming the other way, grabbed a dummy on the run, and ran back to me.
3. During the second pile work series, after Laddie had retrieved the birds but had not yet retrieved any of the dummies, he again ran past the pile of dummies and continued another 100 yards, seemingly hunting the fall where I had thrown Lumi's long mark.

For both failures #2 and #3, I simply sent Laddie to the pile again and he did fine.

In both cases, I could speculate that Laddie's zoomies were a way to avoid retrieving another dummy, or at least to take a break from retrieving dummies. Laddie did the lion's share of the retrieving in the diversion drill, and the first pile work series was another ten articles. In addition, he had been pulled away from the pile twice in the first pile work series, which may have also engendered an avoidance response.

Laddie had ten retrieves of 30-80 yards on the diversion drill, ten of 32 yards on the first pile work series, four more of 32 yards on the second pile work series, and a single of 130 yards, a total of 25 retrieves over the period of 1-1/2 hours. Perhaps with a lighter load, he wouldn't have had those breakdowns.

Despite some signs of progress in all of today's work for both dogs, our primary goal at this time to is to train Laddie in a rock solid whistle sit. The fact that we only needed three whistle sits all day made today's work less than ideal for that goal. Laddie's poor responses on two of the three showed that with respect to that goal, we have our work cut out for us.