Field Training Test Series: Alligator Drill

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Alligator Drill

Summary

Series A. Alligator drill at Black Hill Regional Park

Big Air versus Alligators. Based on correspondence about Laddie's difficulty with land-water-land retrieves, Alice has finally gotten enough information to figure out what's going on with Laddie and to explain it to me.

Ever since Laddie was a small puppy, he has always taken big air entries into water, leaping high as he leaves shore and landing well into the swim-depth water. I've always loved those entries and have thought of them simply as another manifestation of his prey drive, which seems to shape so much of his personality.

While drive may be the reason for those entries, the result is that Laddie has almost no experience with alligatoring into swim-depth water, that is, wading in until his feet can no longer touch the floor and then pushing off.

That has not been a problem as long as Laddie was doing open water retrieves. He can leap into the water, swim to the article, and carry it back out of the water.

But it became a significant obstacle when he attempted a land-water-land retrieve, because it meant that he had to carry an article with him while he was re-entering the water on the return. He was not comfortable leaping with the article in his mouth, and he was also uncomfortable with the feeling of losing the floor under his feet. He simply did not know how to get into swimming-depth water carrying an article.

As Alice pointed out, this explains why Laddie was not making progress on the Re-entry Drill. I was inadvertently expecting Laddie to learn two different skills simultaneously: how to enter swim-depth water without leaping, and how to do so carrying a dummy. The two skills needed to be separated so that he could learn them incrementally.

Series A. Once we understood the problem, it became possible to devise games to enable Laddie to become comfortable with alligator entries, and to see a path to extending that skill all the way to land-water-land retrieves.

Today's work was the first session of what I'll call the alligator drill. I started with Lumi to test the drill's practicality. Since Lumi can is already comfortable with land-water-land retrieves, I wanted to make sure that the drill I had in mind would be easy for her. If it was hard for her, as the re-entry drill had been, I felt it wouldn't be appropriate for Laddie at his level.

The alligator drill involves several points in a line perpendicular to the shore line:

The dog's start line, 10 yards from the shoreline.
The shoreline, where the shore meets the water.
The swimline, where the depth of the water requires the dog to stop walking on the floor of the lake and begin to swim. The swimline is about 7 yards from the shoreline in the area where we were training.
Daddy's position, 15 yards from the shoreline, in chest high water.

To run the drill, I position Dog in a sit and then carry the dummy with me out to my position, or in later steps, drop it on land or in the water as I go out to my position.

On every retrieve, when Dog gets to me with the dummy, we play a rowdy game of water tug. Then I cue Out and toss the dummy a little further out into the water, and Dog breaks away to swim to the dummy. As Dog completes the retrieve, I wade to shore, sometimes turning toward Dog and splashing like a bird taking a bath on the way out, then running out just ahead of Dog. On shore, I play more tug with Dog, throw the dummy, cue Shake, add more throws and tug, and finally put Dog in "sit" for next retrieve.

With both dogs, the first day's sequence was as follows:

Daddy throws dummy 3' in front of him and calls "here". Dog is able to cross swimline and begin swimming without carrying anything, then picks up dummy and brings it to Daddy. For Laddie, that meant leaping over the swimline.
Daddy throws dummy 6' in front of him. Dog is still able to cross swimline without carrying anything, and another big air entry for Laddie.
Daddy throws dummy 9' in front of him. Dummy is still past swimline.
Daddy throws dummy 12' in front of him. Dummy is still past swimline, but Laddie cannot make a leaping entry or he'll land on the dummy and bury it. Alligator entry required.
After that, various positions of the dummy may be repeated to build confidence, but the dummy is positioned closer and closer to Dog, by means of a throw or by dropping the dummy in the desired spot as Daddy wades out to his position. Eventually, the dummy is placed on shore, midway between Dog and the shoreline.

Today, we had one session for Lumi, then one for Laddie.

LUMI

Lumi had no difficulty until the dummy was thrown to the swimline. On that retrieve, she was a little hesitant, but when we reran it, no hesitation.

The next two retrieves, I dropped the dummy in shallow water as I waded out. Perhaps because she has never used a big air entry, this seemed to be no more difficult for her than when she crossed the swimline without the dummy.

Then on the last two retrieves, I threw the dummy over Lumi's head. This was essentially the same as the Re-entry Drill from previous days training, with the difference that today we had built up to it with the Alligator Drill. Today, she ran back onto the grass both times, picked up the dummy, and brought it to me without hesitation. Although Lumi made it look easy, I was later to learn, and continue to see over several days, that even with the preparatory work, picking up the dummy behind him and then turning to bring it into the water was a much more difficult behavior for Laddie than when the dummy was in front of him, and that more intermediate steps were needed before Laddie could be successful at it.

LADDIE

As Laddie and I began the Alligator Drill, I raised criteria (that is, positioned the dummy closer to him) more gradually with Laddie than I had with Lumi, taking more reps to progress. Laddie's sixth rep was on the swimline. He hesitated, but he completed it. Next time at the same location, no hesitation.

For the next two retrieves, I dropped the dummy in shallow water as I walked out. The next two, I positioned the dummy midway between Laddie and the shoreline and cued Here. Laddie ran to the dummy, picked it up, and brought it to me, using a gorgeous alligator entry to push off at the swimline. Although that would have looked like routine behavior in another dog, and I would not have recognized its significance prior to Alice's explanation of the difficulty Laddie was having, these retrieves to me took on the significance of a pivotal training moment in Laddie's field career. I was elated. I then ended the session with an easy throw to the swimline.

In my view, today represented a major breakthrough. Prior to today, Laddie had never made a non-coerced entry into swim-depth water carrying an article. He had done so only when I had driven away from the training area, or a couple of times when pulled by a long line, or when repeatedly beckoned. By contrast, today I only needed to cue Here once. The only pressure on Laddie was that if he wanted to bring the dummy to me, he'd have to enter the swim-depth water with the dummy in his mouth. Because of the preparatory steps in the Alligator Drill, he was able to do so comfortably.

I feel as though an enormous weight has been lifted from my shoulders. Before today, I had to consider the possibility that Laddie would never be able to perform a willing land-water-land retrieve, that he would always maroon on the far shore unless pressured in some way. I now feel that it is only a matter of incremental training steps from what he accomplished today, to a complete land-water-land retrieve.

No comments:

Abbreviations

2Q — two-quadrant, meaning that of the four operant conditioning quadrants, only positive reinforcement (+R) and negative punishment (-P) are used for training
4Q — four-quadrant, meaning that all four operant conditioning quadrants are used for training; in contrast to 2Q training, 4Q training also uses negative reinforcement (-R) and positive punishment (+P)
AD — Adventure Drill (click here for first of many posts on the topic, plus here and here for discussions of why it works)

BB — Bumper Boy, a remote launcher; I purchased two used BBs, the Derby Double model, in 2010 and found them an invaluable resource
BL — back line (the line you send the dog out on when you cue "back"); in the double-T drill, runs from SL, thru Q and P, to P2; Q1 and P1 are to the right, Q3 and P3 are to the left
CCD — camo canvas dummy with sewn-on orange throwing rope
CD — canvas dummy; our original canvas dummies were black and white with throwing ropes and streamers
CIW — come-in whistle; alternate abbreviation for WCI
DM — delayed mark; at one time, I invented this term to mean a poison bird (PB) that is later retrieved, but it turns out that "delayed mark" has another meaning in field sports, so I stopped using the term and switched to PB TFRL
FT — Field Trial, one of two kinds of AKC field competition
HT — Hunt Test, one of two kinds of AKC field competition
LP — lining pole
LWL, LWLW, LWLWL, etc. — land-water-land, land-water-land-water, land-water-land-water-land retrieves

OB — orange bumper, my newer terminology replacing "OD"
OD — orange dummy; eventually I added throwing ropes, which makes it much easier to carry several of them and lets me make longer happy throws, and play tug with these dummies, after the series is over
OOC — out of control, that is, not responsive to cues
P — in double-T drill, position between SL and P2 (pitcher's mound), typically nearly to P2
P1, P2, P3 — in double-T drill, positions 1 (first base), 2 (second base) and 3 (third base) when running the dog from SL (home plate)
PB — poison bird, that is, a bird that is not to be retrieved and may act as a distraction from the required marks or blinds being run; a true PB is never picked up during the series, but at times I've used the term even though I always let the dog pick the bird up after completing the other retrieves; later I began calling that a "delayed mark" (DM) rather than a PB, and when I found out that was an incorrect use of "delayed mark", I switched to PB TFRL
Q — in double-T drill, position between SL and P, typically nearly to P
Q1, Q3 — in double-T drill, positions to the right, left respectively of Q
RCD — remote casting drill, first described in the post for November 28, 2008
RL — remote launcher, used with a white streamer and a pre-positioned bird to simulate someone throwing a mark; the streamer is weighted with a carriage bolt; from the start line, the dog sees the streamer's arc when it's launched; when the dog is sent to the streamer's fall, the dog finds and retrieves the bird, having been trained to ignore the streamer and to retrieve the bird instead (see the post for November 15, 2008, for the training procedure I used)
RTP — "Ready to play?", our cue for "down" (Lumi) or "sit" (Laddie) in preparation to honor; RTP predicts that I will stand behind the dog's right flank facing toward the dog and angled away from the field, that I'll watch the dog's face until we're released, that I'll then cue Here while breaking into a run toward the van, and that we'll have a game of happy throws, parading, and tug when we get to the van; Alice suggestion I change to something that judges might find more acceptable, so I changed to "Just watch"
SM — stickman (retired gun rack with white coveralls)
SL — start line, where the handler waits after sending the dog from heel
TAL, TOL, TTL — thrown away from the line, thrown over the line, thrown toward the line of a blind in the same set-up
TFRL — thrown first, retrieved last
WCI — whistle come-in (several tweets)

WB — white bumper, my newer terminology for "WD"
WD — white dummy; ours have throwing ropes and streamers
WIL — wrong initial line on a send-out
WO — walk out, when I call "no, sit" to the dog, walk to the dog as the dog waits, then walk the dog back to the start line; also known as "picking the dog up"; because it prevents the dog from reinforcing by completing the retrieve after an incorrect response, the WO is effective in improving the dog's responsiveness to sit whistles
WS — whistle sit (a single tweet)
WSC — whistle sit and cast

TO DO List

Home

– Hold Game (Laddie)
– Focus Game (Lumi)

Solo/Land

— Hair-trigger WOs
– Interrupted series/PBs
— Hilly blinds
— Bird thrown from behind the line
– Pick-up speed drill/test
– Practice 2-seconds, "dog", 2-seconds, hand over head, 2-seconds, dog's name (2/3 of time)

– Triple blind:

>> Quick 2nd whistle for gawking (include in "The 2Q Retriever")
>> Short blinds for Lumi to build confidence
>> Bird scent irrelevancy

>> Casting into cover

– Remote retrieve and return to SL

– Heeling

Solo/Water

– Hairtrigger WOs
— Adventure Drill
— Interrupted series/PBs
— Deep LWLs
— Bird thrown from behind the line
– Set up short handling drills and call dog back to heel for slipped whistles or refused casts
– Diagonals across ditches:

>> Pile work in ditch
>> Baseball drill, where P1/P3 are the banks
>> Lining with straight and angle entries

– Rewatch Lardy video:

>> Cheaters

>> Walk-arounds

>> Chinese singles

>> Cold blinds

– On-and-off point per Woodyard article

Thrower:

— Out-of-order flyers (in a double, the flyer thrown first, then the dead bird)
— Interrupted series/PBs
— Deep LWLs
— Bird thrown from behind the line, including with a winger
– Long, unpredictable waits before sending dog on flyers
– Always practice honoring, on lead if necessary
– Try to have a blind planter during practice, so dog learns to deal with that distraction
– Get someone to act as judge: wait 3 seconds, say "dog" (quietly, like a judge); then I should wait 2-seconds, hand over head, 2-seconds, send dog
– Land and water blinds in every series if possible, with dry shots if possible

– Occasional hip-pocket and other picture drills
– Senior Hunt Test preparation:

>> Practice handling off of diversions
>> Practice walk-ups
>> Practice with line gun
>> Practice multiples with HT line mechanics, but 99% singles
>> Honoring flyers

– Master Hunt Test preparation:

>> Develop ability to handle smoothly and compliantly on a mark, and then go on to pick up the rest of the test as marks.

– L-W-L-W-L:

>> Last land
>> Intermediate point
>> Thrower on different point than fall

Training Locations

Brink — A long, narrow, heavily wooded park, several hundred yards wide and several miles long, bisected by Brink Road. A creek and a network of hiking trails run the length of the park. Except for the hiking trails, cover is usually too thick and high for training, especially during the summer when it grows chest high. The intersection of Brink Road and Wright Road, where we park on the shoulders, is about ten minutes from home.

Brook Knolls — Off MD-108. Intended as a future site for a large church, with residences on the left and the huge Olney Boys & Girls Club outdoor sports complex on the right. About 200 yards wide, several hundred yards long, but with sight lines limited because of rolling terrain. Planted as lawn, but typically overgrown from infrequent mowing. The field adjoins a busy road with no barrier, not even a rise or ditch.

Fair Hill — Off MD-108, a large new-home construction area. The grass varies from low to waist high, the ground is relatively flat but extremely uneven, and a wide variety of distractions, such as dirt mounds with kids on bikes, and large flocks of birds, are close at hand. We've used four different areas at Fair Hill for training.

Glenwood Middle School — Off MD-97 north of Brookeville, with large adjoining fields for various sports behind the school.

Laytonsville Park — A small nearby park buried among residential homes off Brink Road. The park includes a small picnic area with dozens of trees for shade, a softball field with a fence running from 1st to third base behind home plate, and a second larger field intended for soccer. The larger field is at 10 feet lower elevation and a grassy hill separates the two fields. The park's longest dimension, traversing both fields, is 240 yards with woods at either end.

Model Airpark — A 50-acre property about 10 miles from home. Click here for satellite view.

Neighborhood Lacrosse Field — An L-shaped field off East Village Avenue about five minutes from home, with a flat area approximately 100x200 yards with a baseball diamond in one corner, and an adjacent rolling field tacking on an additional 100x100 yards of lawn.

Oaks — My name for a complex of meadows between MD-108 and the Oaks Landfill, about six minutes from home. Three roughly square areas form an L-shape, and I call them Areas 1 (the largest and furthest from parking), Area 2 (the closest to MD-108), and Area 3 (the area between Areas 1 and 2, with too many trees for long retrieves but a challenging location for shorter marks and blinds). Sometimes unusable because of poor ground maintenance. Infested with ticks. A large herd of deer occupies the meadows, usually but not always staying out of sight when we train there. The meadows are also occupied by groundhogs, rodents, and birds. Occasionally, horseback riders or hikers come thru, though usually we have all three areas to ourselves. After periodic mowing, a thick layer of cut grass covers the ground, and prominent tracks from the mowing tractor tend to draw the dogs along in the direction of the tracks. Because of the many scents, irregular terrain, and thick, clumpy cover sometimes up to waist high, and various other factors, Oaks provides our most challenging training venue, making other areas including most competition venues seem easy by comparison. Click here for satellite view. Area 1 is at the north, Areas 2 and 3 are at the south separated by a line of trees and undergrowth. The center section is fenced off.

Riggs Road — A 50-acre field off Riggs Road, about ten minutes from home. The field is roughly 400x600 yards. The terrain is clumpy grass, not as smooth as a lawn but not high. The field is ringed with woods on three sides, and has what appears to be a private tractor graveyard at one end, where a residence is visible beyond the edge of the field. A "For Sale" sign hangs near the road, with an "Under Contract" notice attached. The size of the field lends itself to any number of training set-ups, but it's nearly flat and almost entirely devoid of features, with just an occasional clump of taller grass or a line of tire indentations to break up the monotony. Click here for a satellite view of the Riggs Road field.

Rolling Ridge — Acreage in a new home development off nearby Brink Road, with deeply rolling hills, several groupings of trees, a long narrow trench, and a short wide one. In wet weather, the trenches are filled with standing water and mud. The thick, clumpy grass is cut back once or twice a season, and the footing is uneven. The features provide interesting training opportunities, but the hills reduce sight lines, the footing is risky for humans as well as dogs, and residents of the surrounding homes might object if we train there too often.

Rover's Content (Cheltenham) — A field trial training property in Cheltenham, MD, owned by Milly Welsh, which she refers to as "the farm", about 50 miles and an hour's drive from home. About 100 acres, with a variety of channels, technical ponds, wetlands, ditches, mulch mounds, and large, grassy, rolling fields, surrounded by woods and dotted with trees. Buildings include a residence and a barn. Often leased by local clubs for Hunt Tests and Training Days. Most trainers, including me, usually refer to this property as "Cheltenham". Bob Hux trains here with a Hunt Test group on Tuesdays most of the year, when we usually join them. Charlie Haden runs a Field Trial group various times, including Sunday mornings, when we sometimes join them. Other times, individuals such as myself, or small groups, meet to train here for a small leasing fee. I consider it a priceless opportunity to have access to this property for training my dogs. We often arrive near dawn, train, and leave before anyone else shows up. Click here for a satellite view of the property.

Sundown Road Park — A large recreational area off Sundown Road, about five minutes from home, with lighted tennis and basketball courts, a covered picnic area, a playground, and two adjacent baseball fields. Beyond the baseball fields is a large, unmaintained meadow, with cover sometimes too high and prickly to train in.

Twin Ponds — In Monrovia, Maryland, the private estate of Rodger and Sue Armstrong, two of the leading Golden Retriever proponents in our region. As the property's name suggests, Twin Ponds includes a pair of technical ponds well suited to training and practice of water retrieves, as well as a large field with some low and some high cover that can be used for blinds.

Zion Road — A 40-acre property at the corner of MD-108 and Zion Road, about 10 minutes from home. The property has many trees, fairly widely and irregularly spaced; highly variable cover; thick clumpy grass almost everywhere; a meandering dirt road; any number of rises and dips; and miscellaneous other points of interest such as wood piles. While the fields do not appear to have any lines of sight more than 250 yards or so, they seem to present countless interesting blind opportunities up to that distance. Here's a satellite view of the property.

Archive of Training Drills

Most of the articles in this blog describe our training, but the following list of links* identifies articles that describe some particular training drills we've used.

— Alternation Drill
— Creeping Drill
— Distraction from Thrower Drill
— Double-T Drill
— Downwind Drill
— Hold Game
— Multiple Target Drill (MTD)
— Offline Drill
— Offline Drill with Keyhole
— Pick-up Speed Drill
— Recall Proofing
— Quickstop Drill
— Shore-handling Toolkit (also see article below)
— Walk-Over
— Wetfoot and Dryfoot Drills (see also Wetfoot Drill, Splash Version, with videos here and here)
— Get Your Bird
— Adventure Drill (see also this post and this post, which discuss the mechanism for this drill)
— Focus Drill
— Fork Drill

* Note: In most cases, articles posted AFTER the one linked to contain important additional information, and in some cases improved versions of the drills.

About Lindsay

Lindsay Ridgeway is a dog trainer living with Renee, the love of his life, and various other family members in Laytonsville, MD.

Lindsay trains Lumi and Laddie, his two Goldens, for field sports. His goal is to develop a protocol that enables field training to be accomplished without the use of e-collars, force fetch, and other techniques based on pressure.

Lindsay is a software developer by profession, having started his career in 1966. His other interests include taiji, endurance running, writing, and music.

About Lumi

Lumiere-du-Soleil SH WCX CGC TDI is a Golden Retriever born October 24, 2003. Her call name is "Lumi".

Prior to the spring of 2007, Lumi trained for agility, musical freestyle, and Schutzhund-style tracking, and also learned many tricks.

In various agility venues, Lumi earned seven qualifying ribbons and a number of First Places, including a double-Q at an AKC trial on July 30, 2006, in which she took First Place in both Novice events.

Since that time, Lumi has participated primarily in field sports. In summer 2007, she won First Place in the Unsteady Stake at the SMHRC Super Singles event. She then earned her GRCA Working Certificate (WC) title in September 2007, and completed her AKC Junior Hunter (JH) title in May 2008. In summer 2008, she took Third Place in her second SMHC Super Singles Unsteady Stake, and in September 2008, she earned her GRCA Working Certificate Excellent (WCX) title. In April 2010, Lumi completed her AKC Senior Hunter (SH) title, one of the first "positive-trained" dogs ever to do so.

Outside of Lumi's field work, she earned her AKC CGC title, and her TDI title, in May 2008.

Lumi has been discussed on many dog training lists, including ClickerSolutions, ClickTrain, CleanRun, and PositiveGunDogs.

In May 2005, Lindsay and Lumi started a new list called DogTrek, "Explorations in dog training". Most Internet discussions by and about Lumi now occur in that list.

Lumi, along with Laddie, were featured in the article "Hunt for Adventure" by Terry Long, in the September 2010 issue of The Whole Dog Journal.

Lumi appears in a number of videos on YouTube. Links to her YouTube playlist as well as her pedigree appear under "Links" below.

About Laddie

Topbrass Lad of the Lakes SH WCX ** is a Golden Retriever born April 22, 2007. His call name is "Laddie".

Laddie, both of whose parents were field champions, has trained for field sports since he was seven weeks old. Laddie's sire was FC AFC Emberain Beau Geste FDHF, Top Open and Amateur Golden for 2006. His dam was AFC Topbrass Pawsability.

In 2007, Laddie participated in two Puppy Stakes and won First Place in both of them. Over a nine day period in Laddie's second summer, he earned four Junior ribbons, completing his AKC Junior Hunter title on August 31, 2008. In April 2010, Laddie earned his GRCA WCX. In July 2010, Laddie earned his fourth AKC Senior Hunt Test ribbon, completing his Senior Hunter title. On April 1, 2011, Laddie, then three years old, competed in his first field trial, earning a Judge's Award of Merit (JAM) in an Owner/Handler Qualifying Stake, perhaps the first time a positive-trained retriever has ever won a ribbon in a field trial. On June 2, 2012, Laddie was awarded a Qual Reserve JAM, another first for a positive-trained retriever, and six days later, received another Qual JAM, earning ribbons in two field trials in a row, which as far as I know was also a first for a positive-trained retriever. In his next two trials, he had another JAM and another Reserve JAM, resulting in a string of four JAMs in a row, the first and last of which were Reserve JAMs. He received another JAM in his last trial of 2012, bringing his total of JAMs at that time to six with two Reserve JAMs. In May of 2013, Lindsay decided to begin running Laddie in Master Hunt Tests, and in his third Master of 2013, Laddie earned his first Master qual, perhaps the first positive-trained dog ever to receive a Master ribbon. He earned a second Master pass later in 2013, and another three in his first five Master tests of 2014, completing his Master Hunter title on May 18, 2014, perhaps the first positive-trained MH ever. Rather than continuing competition, Lindsay worked with Laddie on his lifelong behavior of vocalizing on water casts throughout the last half of 2014, then resumed running Laddie in Qualifiers in the spring of 2015, starting the season with another JAM, followed by another JAM later in the year. On September 25, 2015, Laddie earned his first field trial placement, a Third in the Colonial Qualifier, another milestone for positive-trained retrievers as far as I know.

Most Internet discussions by and about Laddie occur on the DogTrek list and PositiveGunDogs list.

Laddie, along with Lumi, were featured in the article "Hunt for Adventure" by Terry Long, in the September 2010 issue of The Whole Dog Journal.

Laddie appears in a number of videos on YouTube. Links to his YouTube playlist as well as his pedigree appear under "Links" below.

Our Most Difficult Challenges

Gun Shyness Lumi had a great fear of gunfire at first, even from hundreds of yards away. Amy Cook worked with me on the DogTrek list to use desensitization and counter-conditioning to solve the problem over a period of six weeks. It turns out that Lumi is highly birdy, so sometime later, when Lumi began to experience fliers, she became highly attracted to gunfire. I don't know if Laddie would have been gun shy in any case, but I used a simple D&CC procedure with him within the first few weeks I had him and it was never a problem.

Not Wanting to Pick Up a Bird Lumi had this problem when we first began field work, and we addressed it using a shaping procedure. She soon became quite reliable about picking birds up, and had no difficulty with her first exposure to both dead and shot fliers in a variety of species, including ducks, pheasants, pigeons, and even a Canada Goose.

Laddie had little difficulty with picking up birds at first, but later developed a reluctance to pick up some birds. We addressed that with drills that provided high-value +R for challenging retrieves.

Wanting to Eat Birds (Lumi)

Stalling at High Cover (Both dogs)

Fear of Obstructions in Water (Lumi)

Not Returning with the Article After praticing with specific difficulties such as high cover, Lumi gradually got over this problem, but it persisted with Laddie even when he had an easy return path. The problem was so serious that it seemed capable of ending his field career. We addressed it in March 2008 by starting his retrieve training over from scratch, carefully reshaping each component of the skill — the hold, the delivery, the pick-up, and so forth. It continued to be a problem at various times, such as when Laddie would pick up the article and then detour to a pond or creek in hot weather.

In Spring 2009, I invented the Adventure Drill (AD), with the idea that Laddie might be less likely to get distracted on his returns if the retrieve itself was challenging and interesting. Since the problem was only occurring in events by then, we had to wait a couple of weeks to see whether the AD was paying off, but in his last event of the spring, the problem was completely gone.

(Note. I had initially been reluctant to run Lumi on the arduous retrieves I was using for Laddie's AD, but I found that Lumi seemed to enjoy the challenge as much as Laddie, so eventually I began running both dogs on each retrieve.)

Thinking Laddie's return problem was solved after the last test of Spring 2009, I stopped working on the AD during the summer, and in Laddie's first event for Fall 2009, his returns on water retrieves were once again unsatisfactory. After a few days of training, I remembered the AD and we had one session before a pair of tests the following weekend. Though Laddie's returns were not yet as good as they had gotten in the spring, they were good enough for him to pass both tests.

Immediately thereafter, I had to begin working in New York during the work week, limited our training and in particular our AD sessions, but I continued to run AD sessions on weekends.

Land-water-land Retrieves Re-entering the water on the return with an article was a problem for Lumi for a short period, but she overcame it within a few days. By contrast, it became a major problem for Laddie at the age of one year, and we spent many sessions over the next several months addressing it. Although we put a great deal of work into it (documented in this blog), some of the major components of our efforts were:

— Teaching Laddie to alligator into the water
— Using doubles, with an LWL as the go-bird, to give Laddie something exciting to look forward to
— Firing a starter pistol as Laddie re-entered the water with the article

Recall Some of our training companions believe an unreliable recall is at the root of many of our other training issues. I don't agree on all of them — for example I don't think recall was at the heart of Laddie's LWL problems — but training a reliable recall has been one of our most demanding requirements. It's something that we work on constantly.

Slipping Whistles Both dogs have gradually developed reasonably reliable whistle sits, but the reliability requires continuous work to maintain. This blog documents the lion's share of how both dogs were trained to handle, and I feel that most if not all of the training steps we followed were indispensable. But the most striking tool, once the dogs reached a reasonably advanced level in their handling skills, has been the Walk Out.

Dropping Birds at the Start Line This has never been a problem with Lumi, but it's been an ongoing issue with Laddie. It seems to occur primarily because Laddie doesn't especially like carrying birds, compared to Lumi who does. As Laddie approaches the moment of delivery, he pushes the bird to the front of his mouth, and gives it up as quickly as possible, sometimes dropping it if I'm not ready to take it. For some time, our primary tool for dealing with it was the Walk-Away, in which I repeatedly have Laddie sit, then walk away without taking the bird and again call him to me. Another procedure that helped was reaching out with my hand and then petting Laddie's chest instead of taking the bird. Perhaps the most valuable work came later, when I began playing the Hold Game with Laddie several times a day. Click here to read a description of the Hold Game.

Breaking on Fliers Of course, steadiness was a training issue for both dogs, but access to dummies and dead birds enabled us to work on the issue and solve it for those articles fairly easily. The problem with fliers was finding opportunities to train enough with them. In the winter of early 2009, we arranged for a series of sessions when we trained extensively with various kinds of birds — pheasants, ducks, chukars — enabling us to solve the problem with live birds as well. I experimented with having the thrower interrupt the retrieve if the dog broke, but I found that the most effective solution was to have the dogs wear collars with tabs — very short leads — whenever training (so that the dogs did not develop an association between steadiness and wearing a tab), and holding the tab whenever there was any possibility of a break. I felt it was important to hold the tab in such a way that the dog could not detect whether I was holding it unless she tried to break.

In combination with that, I also trained both dogs to clearly distinguish between running a mark and honoring. When running a mark, I stand beside the dog and cue "sit, mark" before calling for the bird. When honoring, I stand at the dog's right flank so that the dog has a clear view of the field, but I face away from the field, and I cue "just watch". When released from honoring, even if my dog tried to break and I had to stop her with the tab, I then raced with her back to the van to play whatever games seemed most appealing to the particular dog, giving the dog something of high value to look forward to after being released from the honor.

Dawdling on Pick-ups Although Lumi lost her discomfort with picking birds up, and eventually came to love carrying them, she tended to revert to a behavior of turning the bird over and over, seemingly trying to select the ideal gripping position. As with slipped whistles, this behavior was most effectively addressed with Walk Outs. It was further helped by having the thrower interrupt the dog's retrieve if she dawdled, either by picking up the bird or by standing between the dog and the bird until the handler called the dog back to the SL. The advantage of having a number of throwers do this is that the dog learns that anyone nearby may interrupt the retrieve if she dawdles. I found that it needed to be done separately for fliers, since after Lumi stopped dawdling on picking up dead birds, she continued to dawdle on fliers.

Rolling during LWL Blinds. Lumi's dawdling problem deteriorated into rolling on the grass after arriving at the blind, possibly inadvertently caused or aggravated by my using WOs to discourage shaking off on the far shore. I attempted at first to use WOs to address the rolling. Some of this training is shown in videos such as this one. For a discussion of Lumi's demeanor on camera in such videos, click here. On subsequent days, I then experimented with a cheerful version of the WO, and after that with blanket cueing. Click here to read about early progress with that. Finally, I switched to the Adventure Drill, and that seemed to have the best results. Click here, here, and here for some of the many posts on the Adventure Drill.

Head-swinging. Click here to read the article "Pointed Gun Barrel for Head-Swinging".

Popping. I think that three methods we used were the most successful: For popping in water, calling Laddie back at the exact instance he turned to look at me, even if he was almost at the far shore, solved that in one session. For popping on land, I think the most valuable method I used was training with fake throws, from which Laddie learned quickly how to deal with uncertainty without popping. When he did pop, I would instantly call out "sit" and walk out to pick him up. I did not call him in, which I think would have been significantly less effective and might even have reinforced the "pop". I also heard from a friend of another method that he used successfully, but that I never tried: hiding after sending the dog so that if he popped, no one was at the start line for him to get help from.