Saturday, April 5, 2008

Marks, Salience Drill

This afternoon, DW Renee and Gabriel, her Golden, joined Lumi, Laddie, and me at Sundown Park and assisted us with our training. First Renee, with Gabriel accompanying her on lead, threw nine maqrks for Laddie. Then Renee took Laddie to the van so that Lumi could run her first salience drill, a new drill I invented to help Lumi in running blinds. Today's series:
  • Series A. Marks (Laddie)
  • Series B. Salience drill (Lumi)
Series A. Because Renee is not willing to throw birds, we took this opportunity for Laddie to run nine marks using exclusively white dummies. The distances were:
  1. 20 yards
  2. 20 yards
  3. 20 yards
  4. 40 yards
  5. 40 yards
  6. 40 yards
  7. 60 yards
  8. 90 yards
  9. 120 yards
Because Renee was accompanied by Gabriel on lead, she did not fire a pistol when throwing, but instead called out "hey-hey-hey" before each throw. Lumi honored from behind the SL and received occasional treats as she sat or lay watching.

Laddie's performance on all nine marks was excellent in all elements. It was good to reestablish this baseline for us to build upon. In future sessions, we'll add birds, gunfire, stickmen for distractions, and more distance, but we'll add them gradually, being careful not to exceed Laddie's ability to perform under those conditions with the same quality of work as he exhibited today.

This work seems so important that I've decided to suspend all other drills with Laddie until he is able to perform a flawless retrieve with a duck at 150 yards without any warm-up on shorter marks for three sessions in a row. At that time, we will resume work on the diversion drill (DD), beginning with Laddie's second TOL session.

Series B. After Renee took Gabriel and Laddie to the van, and with Lumi lounging at one end of the large field at Sundown Park, I set up a new drill for her that I call the "salience drill".

SALIENCE DRILL

Concept — The salience drill is intended to enable the dog to learn the concept of selecting a distant landmark when sent in a particular direction, and lining to that landmark until the planted blind is encountered or a handling cue is given from the SL.

Instructions —
  • The salience drill is run in a different location each session, either at different fields or from new positions on old fields.
  • At each session, the trainer selects a location to use as a start line (SL), and then selects a number of salient features visible from the SL, such as trees, poles, buildings, or boulders.
  • With the dog not watching, the trainer next sets out an orange dummy or bird on the field as a blind placed in the sightline from the SL to each of the salient features.
  • If the feature is itself on the field, the blind is placed well in front of the feature, since the concept being taught is that the dog is to go in the direction of the feature, not that the blind is to be found at the feature.
  • The article should not be visible to the dog until the dog is reasonably close.
  • If the trainer is able to see where the blind is positioned from the SL without any additional marking, that is ideal. If that is not possible, the trainer should mark the location of the blind as inconspicuously as possible.
  • The trainer should not walk the line from the SL to the blind in either direction, because we do not want the dog to be able to follow a scent trail.
  • Finally, the dog is sent to each blind, hopefully lining all or most of them. If the dog is unable to line all or most of them, easier blinds are set up for the next session.
  • The drill is gradually made more difficult from one session to another by selecting more complex features, such as a distinctive fenceline or shadow pattern, and in addition, increased distance and diversions such as stickmen are gradually introduced.
TODAY'S SALIENCE DRILL

For today's drill, I selected a white sign on a metal pole, a prominent tree, and a white and red pole used for sporting events as the salient features. I used orange dummies for the three blinds, and placed each one in a natural depression in the ground so that they would not be visible to Lumi until she got close to them. I was able to see where each dummy was positioned either because I could see the shadows from the depression, or because the dummy was partially visible to me even though Lumi couldn't see it because of my higher sightline.

The three dummies were 50-80-110 yards from the SL. They were each 30-50 yards from the feature each was in line with.

Lumi took excellent lines on all three blinds, and lined two of them. On the middle one, she caught side of one of the other dummies and started to divert toward it. I quickly blew a WS and cast her on an angle back to the blind she was on, and soon after taking the cast, she spotted the dummy and ran to it.

Lumi's body language suggested that she was surprised to find each dummy as she happened to come across it so far in front of the feature she had targeted, which I count as an indication that she was learning the concept that the salience drill is intended to train.

My intent is to continue running Lumi on salience drills each morning. Then in the afternoon, Lumi can continue to run combination pictures of marks and blinds. Hopefully in time, the lessons of the salience drill will begin to inform Lumi's performance on the blinds in the afternoons.

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