Private Training: Reverse Diversion Drill

After taking yesterday off because the ground was covered in a layer of ice, this morning the dogs and I, with Nate as helper, trained at Needwood Park for a change of scenery.

As in previous diversion drill sessions, we had a pile of articles at a pole 80 yards from the start line, simulating a blind, and we had Nate throwing marks. Today, Nate was throwing the marks toward the center line from right to left. Nate was placed to the right of the center line at various angles and distances from the start line, with the earlier marks thrown at wider angles and closer to the start line, the later marks at narrower angles and closer to the pile.

In other ways, today's work was considerably different from our previous sessions of the diversion drill:

• In previous sessions, Lumi played a secondary role. In today's session, she was given the same challenges as Laddie, though not quite as many reps.
  
• In previous sessions, Nate threw birds as marks, and the pile contained dummies. That is the normal picture a dog would face in group training. In today's session, on Alice's advice, the articles were reversed: The marks were dummies and the "blind" was a pile of birds. Alice felt that this would improve Lumi's motivation now that she was going to be running the drill, and Alice was also curious to learn how Laddie would handle the change, as was I.
• To prep Lumi for the work, we began with a send to the pile with Nate off the field, a send to the pile with Nate standing near the center line, and a send to the pile after Nate fired a gunshot but without throwing anything. Laddie's only prep was a single run to the pile. Thereafter, every sequence was run as follows:
• Nate stands, I cue "mark" to the dog.
• Nate fires gun, throws dummy toward center line, and sits down.
• I send dog to the mark that Nate has just thrown.
• When dog delivers dummy, I line dog up toward the pile and cue "dead bird".
• I send dog to the pile.
  
• In previous sessions, Laddie was able to honor while Lumi ran her few short retrieves, which were always in the proximity of a thrower. In today's session, Laddie broke both times I sent Lumi to the pile with Nate off the field, after which I put Laddie in the van until Lumi's training was done. Then, although Lumi probably could have honored, I put her in the van while running Laddie.

Lumi's Performance. In terms of correctly choosing whether to retrieve the mark or the "blind", Lumi made good progress in today's work. She had no trouble with any of the runs to the pile, and remembered that "dead bird" meant she should move her focus to the pile if she was looking at the thrower, me, or anywhere else when I cued it. She also responded correctly to "mark" every time, following the throw with her eyes and holding her focus until sent.

However, on the first attempt at a mark, Lumi ran past the dummy she had been sent to, barely glancing at it while running straight to the pile. I whistled sit while that was happening, but she picked up a bird, turned to face me, and then sat. Long ago we trained the cue "drop it", which we haven't used in years, and Lumi gets frequent practice with "leave it", but she responded to neither of those cues to drop the bird when I called them from the line. Finally, I walked to her, took the bird from her mouth and threw it back in the pile (really a pile area, since none of the articles in a field training pile touch each other), and walked her back to the start line on lead. The lead was unnecessary and never became taut, but I used it to send a clearer message that what Lumi had done this time was not correct.

In the three marks and three runs to the pile that I subsequently sent Lumi on, she never made another mistake. However, she did glance over her shoulder at the pile of birds while returning to me with each dummy.

I was pleased to see that Lumi showed no hint of physical discomfort and remained highly motivated throughout the drill. She didn't return automatically with any of the birds, but she didn't try to chew any of them and became increasingly resposive to recalls with the birds as the drill progressed. I used hey-hey dummies and tug after some of her returns, and that might have helped.

Laddie's Performance. I would say that in today's session, Laddie's performance was weaker than it has been in previous sessions of the diversion drill in several respects, reflecting the greater difficulty of the "reverse" set up for Laddie as well as Lumi's increased role.

First, he was unable to honor Lumi's send to the pile, twice breaking from his sit and easily outrunning her.

Later, when he had his turn, he had no problem on sends to the pile. However, on his first mark, he ran to the dummy, picked it up, and ran with it to the pile, where he quickly swapped it for a bird. As soon as he took off in the wrong direction from the fall with the dummy in his mouth, I whistled sit and then tried a verbal, but Laddie was unresponsive until he had the bird. Then he turned to face me and sat with the bird in his mouth. As with Lumi, I walked to him, took the bird and threw it in the pile, and walked him back to the start line on lead.

I could see that Nate's position was too difficult for Laddie to succeed, and moved him closer to the start line and further from the center line for the next rep. On subsequent reps, I moved Nate closer and closer to the pile, so that the last fall was less than 30 yards from the pile.

After the first time, Laddie continued to run straight to the dummy after every throw, and never again ran all the way back to the pile with it, but he did take big loops every time he picked up a dummy, usually toward the pile but one time at the end, back and away from the center line. I whistled several times when he headed in the wrong direction, and he did not respond to a single whistle by sitting. He would just loop back toward me and complete his delivery.

On the positive side, Laddie seemed to have an excellent grasp of both "mark" and "dead bird", and showed little resource guarding with the birds, just a bit of head tossing. Despite the looping returns with the dummies, Laddie clearly grew in his understanding of how to perform when a mark was thrown with diversions present.

Conclusion. While some learning may have taken place about how to retrieve marks in the presence of diversions, I would say today was useless in terms of developing either dog's responsiveness to handling.

Since both dogs have shown excellent responsiveness to sit whistles in the wagon wheel drill and others, even with the articles much closer together, today's drill was clearly far more difficult.

One major difference from other drills was the presence of a thrower and gunfire. I would have guessed that those factors would have made performance on the dummy retrieves better, since both dogs have a great deal of experience retrieving thrown dummies. However, the excitement level was also higher than in solo training, so perhaps the dogs' excitement significantly inhibited their responsiveness to the whistle.

The other major difference was the distances: While we have run wagon wheels and other drills to similar distances as the closer marks thrown today, we have never run them nearly as far as today's pile of birds at 80 yards from the start line. Discounting the dogs' excitement level, it seems that both dogs are subject to going out of control when a high-value diversion is available sufficiently distant from the handler. That seems consistent with other recent incidents in which Laddie has gone out of control.

Plans for Future Sessions. It seems that today's drill may provide us with a powerful tool to proof the dogs against going out of control, which is the most serious problem we currently face (though resource guarding birds is a close second)

We need to modify it so that the dogs continue to try to reach the pile went sent to a mark, but at distances where they are once again responsive to handling cues. Over a series of sessions, we can gradually increase the distances.

We may find that distance is not the only variable we need to modify. It may be that the dogs will learn the throw-toward-line pattern so well that they no longer attempt to divert to the pile, giving us no opportunity to practice handling. To avoid that happening, we may be able to trigger the need for control by cycling the drill pattern thru throw-away-from-line, throw-over-line, and throw-onto-line and also switching to the opposite side of the center line.

Ultimately, the diversion drill in all its configurations promises to provide an outstanding education for both dogs in how to retrieve as directed in the presence of diversions. Whether it will also provide significant opportunity for developing responsiveness to handling remains to be seen.