Private Training

Today, per Alice Woodyard's recommendation from last week, we worked on wagon wheels. Over the day, each dog ran five series, two in the morning and three in the afternoon. Each series was in a different location.

Although performance varied from series to series, one constant was that both dogs were 100% responsive on every whistle sit and every whistle recall.

Lumi was also responsive and reasonably accurate on every cast, whereas Laddie's casts were not accurate enough. He leapt out of his sit on every cast, but did not always go in the direction I cued. Since I did not intend this as a casting drill, I minimized casting for both dogs, and since it wasn't working well with Laddie, I only tried it with him a handful of times.

Series A. Four prepositioned orange dummies at 20 yards, one invisible from the start line, four thrown white dummies at 20 yards. I had the dogs pick up the three visible orange ones, then the invisible orange one, and finally the four white ones. I reinforced the retrieves of the orange dummies with food.

Lumi had some trouble on both the visible and invisible orange dummies, and to improve her success rate, I walked her closer after a couple of unsuccessful, veering send-outs on any dummy she had a problem with.

Astonishingly, Laddie did not need a single resend on any of the eight retrieves.

Series B. Four prepositioned orange dummies at 25 yards, three invisible from start line, four thrown white dummies at 15 yards. I had the dogs pick up the visible orange dummy, then the three invisible orange dummies, and finally the four white ones. I reinforced the retrieves of the orange dummies with food.

Lumi needed some resends on the orange dummies, but I never needed to walk her closer.

Laddie's performance was similar to Lumi's.

Series C. Four prepositioned orange dummies at 25 yards, all invisible from the start line, four thrown white dummies at 15 yards. I had the dogs pick up only the orange dummies. I reinforced all retrieves with food.

Neither dog lined on faith. Laddie needed to be walked closer, Lumi responded well to handling. I was concerned that one or both dogs may have been hunting on scent rather than actually lining.

After Series C, I decided that it's premature to train lining and faith, and that we should get lining to visible targets fluent first.

Series D. Four prepositioned dummies at 20 yards, all visible from the start line, four thrown white dummies at 15 yards. I had the dogs pick up only the orange dummies. I reinforced all retrieves with food.

Series D was too easy for both dogs, so I decided to try finer lining.

Series E. Four prepositioned white dummies at 5 yards, four prepositioned orange dummies at 7 yards, and eight prepositioned additional dummies at 10 yards. The additional dummies were four 2" white dummies alternating with four B&W canvas dummies. I had the dogs pick up only the outer ring of eight dummies. I reinforced all retrieves with food.

Because the lesson was simplified, this was the day's most satisfying drill. Both dogs were 70-80% accurate. When they'd go to the wrong dummy, I'd whistle a sit and then a recall, to which they were always responsive. The goal was for each dog to learn to go in the direction he was looking when sent, and over the eight retrieves, the dogs seemed to be grasping that concept.

Planning. In the future, I plan to make some or all of the targets invisible from the start line again, and also to increase the suction of the diversion articles by using dead, and later live, ducks. For now, I think it's more valuable to strengthen the dogs' performance in drills like Series E. Not only does this practice accurate lining, but it also practices and reinforces unhesitating pick-ups, direct returns, and whistle sits and recalls to remedy incorrect responses, the foundation skills needed for productive participation in group training.