Marks and Blinds, Shore Handling

This morning, we trained with Barbara and her Lab, Deuce, at Sundown (Series A). Then we drove to Cheltenham for continued work on shore handling (Series B). Summary:

• Series A. Marks and blinds (both dogs)
• Series B. Shore-handling toolkit: Lumi worked on Tool #5 Back-WTL-W, while I focused with Laddie on Tool #2 Here-LTW-W (no WS)

Series A. This was a series of marks and blinds run by Lumi, then Laddie. Both marks were ducks thrown right to left with gunshots, while all the blinds were orange dummies marked by surveyors flags. The set-up was relatively tight, with all five retrieves within a 60° angle, in the following arrangement left to right:

• #3: 110-yard blind
• #2: 70-yard mark TTL for #3 and marked by a chair
• #4: 100-yard mark TAL for #5 and marked by a stickman
• #5: 200-yard blind
• #1: 100-yard blind

Both dogs did well on both the marks and the blinds.

Series B. We worked on the shore-handling toolkit at the pines channel at Cheltenham, the work with Lumi and Laddie being considerably different.

LUMI

I felt that Lumi was ready to try Tool #5, Back-WTL-W:



This is an example of what's called disciplined casting, in which the dog takes casts after picking up the retrieval article. In this case, the cast she is a left or right Back.

To train this tool, I started with a water retrieve warm-up, having Lumi run two land-water-land retrieves across the channel. Then we rehearsed Tool #5 on land as follows:

1. I placed a lining pole on a road off to the side, 40 yards from our SL.
2. With Lumi sitting at heel, I threw a dummy onto the road, 20 yards toward the lining pole.
3. I sent Lumi, and when she picked up the dummy and turned back toward me, I blew WS.
4. I cued Back and Lumi spun 180° and ran to the lining pole.
5. I cued another WS and then recall.

The first time we ran this, Lumi took the disciplined cast in step #4 correctly, but dropped the dummy during step #5. So we ran it again, and when I blew WS in step #5, I immediately called Hold. Lumi then sat without dropping the dummy and I whistled recall, to which she responded with an enthusiastic delivery.

After the two land rehearsals, we then ran the same pattern twice more, but this time across the channel. Both times Lumi responded to the tool we were training correctly. That is, she retrieved the dummy in open water, then carried it up onto the far shore when I cued Back. As with the land version, Lumi dropped the dummy in step #5 the first time, taking the opportunity to shake off. And as with the land version, I was able to get Lumi not to drop the dummy by cueing Hold during step #5 the second time.

Except for a few land-water-land retrieves, that completed Lumi's training day.

LADDIE

Although at one point we tried Tool #5 and Laddie performed the Back correctly, today consistented primarily of about 15 land-water-land retrieves across the channel. My goal was to establish some consistency for an immediate return, but I was unsuccessful in accomplishing that goal.

On about half the retrieves, Laddie returned on whistle or voice recall. On the other half, he stalled, and I reacted by getting in the van with Lumi and driving away. That always resulted in Laddie immediately grabbing his dummy from the ground on the far shore, swimming across the channel, and chasing the van until he caught us. In addition, Laddie always responded correctly on the next retrieve. But he never responded correctly more than twice in a row, and began to show some variability in his behavior on the last couple of retrieves.

Because Alice had suggested that Laddie may have some trouble overcoming an obstacle — the water entry — while carrying a dummy, I had Laddie leap into the driver's seat of the van while still carrying the dummy each time he caught us. He had no difficulty doing that, but it did not seem to improve his water entries.

I am not certain how to interpret the data. It appeared that driving away punished the incorrect response, because Laddie always responded correctly on the next retrieve. But overall the incorrect response did not decline.

It appears that this is an especially difficult behavior for Laddie for some reason. The next time we train shore-handling at Cheltenham, I think we'll start with some retrieves across standing water, then across the narrow neck at the east channel where we've had success in the past, and finally move back to the pines channel. Perhaps establishing a pattern of success with the other water retrieves will enable Laddie to do better at the pines channel.

I also have some question about the correct number of retrieves to attempt. The variability in Laddie's behavior at the end of today's session suggested that he was becoming uncomfortable. Yet little enough was accomplished even with the number of retrieves we ran, and I'd be concerned that cutting that number to a smaller number would eliminate any progress at all, an expensive proposition considering the cost in time and money to train at Cheltenham.

Still, it's clear that we went too long today. Next session, I'll run Laddie on six retrieves across the pines channel, and if he is not successful on the last one, we'll run another one or two until he has a good retrieve. As soon as Laddie has a correct retrieve, we'll quit there.

It also seems that it's time to stop trying to keep Lumi and Laddie in sync on the toolkit training. Lumi is ready to go on to Tool #6, Over-WTL-W/O, whereas I need to continue to work with Laddie on Tool #2 until he is completely comfortable with land-water-land retrieves.