Swim-by, Land-water-land, Cheaters

Summary

• Series A. At Cheltenham, swim-bys (Lumi)
• Series B. At Cheltenham, working on land-water-land retrieves (Laddie)
• Series C. At Cheltenham, cheating singles (Lumi)

Note: Although I've written Series B as coming between Series A and C, actually all of today's series were spread over several sessions. Lumi's work was Series A followed by Series C. Laddie's sessions were mixed in with Lumi's.

Series A. After a couple of warm-up retrieves, Lumi seemed ready to run what I understand to be a traditional swim-by drill, as follows:

1. Dog at heel on shore facing water.
   
2. Handler cues Back and Dog enters water, swims forward.
   
3. Handler blows WS, Dog turns 180° to face handler, treads water.
4. Handler cues Over, Dog turns 90° and swims in direction sent.
5. Handler throws dummy onto shore in direction Dog is swimming. (That's what I did. I think some trainers pre-position one or more dummies there.)
6. Dog climbs onto shore and picks up dummy.
7. Handler blows WS, Dog turns to face handler and sits, holding dummy.
8. Handler cue Over, Dog enters water and swims in direction sent.
9. Dog swims by handler, arrives on other side of pond, climbs onto shore still carrying dummy, and runs around edge of pond to deliver.

Lumi ran this drill four times:

• Swimming with dummy right to left, sent from right heel.
• Swimming with dummy right to left, sent from left heel.
• Swimming with dummy left to right, sent from right heel.
• Swimming with dummy left to right, sent from left heel.

Because we haven't worked on this pattern for long, I cued Over several times so that she would continue swimming across rather than turning to swim to me. With practice, I believe Lumi would learn to complete the swim-by with a single Over cue, but it didn't seem like a priority to me, so instead, I decided to try Lumi out on some cheating singles after a break.

Series B. Laddie has now become fairly comfortable with land-water-land (LWL) retrieves. He still sometimes uses delaying tactics such as shaking off, but today he almost always responded to Here when that would happen. The three times he didn't, I drove the van away and he picked up the dummy, swam across, and chased the van. We did not use a long line today.

I believe Laddie's confidence is growing primarily because of practice and learning that he can be successful, but nonetheless I did use an array of extrinsic reinforcers:

• Food (string cheese, turkey dogs, liverwurst)
• Tug
• Happy throws onto land or into water
• Chase games

We practiced LWL in two locations and on two pictures in each location:

1. Near east end of property, across belly-high standing water thru high grass
2. Near east end of property, across narrow neck of swimming pond
3. At stick pond, toward narrow island
4. Near stick pond, across channel

These were mostly vanilla retrieves:

1. With Laddie in sit, I step forward to throw dummy.
2. I step back beside Laddie and release him with his name.
3. He leaps into water, swims across, picks up dummy, and returns to deliver it.

We also had a few unusual retrieves:

• Land-water-land-water without WS: I threw the dummy over the top of the island. Laddie crossed the island on the way out and back without stopping.
• Land-water-land-water with WS: At the moment Laddie came up onto the island holding the dummy, I blew WS. When he sat, I cued Here and he re-entered stick pond and delivered the dummy. This was a version of shore-handling toolkit Tool #2, but with a WS in this case.
• From a front, right Back and left Back to LWL retrieve. These practiced Tool #3.

Although Laddie was successful the majority of the time today, he is not yet fluent with LWL retrieves. I plan to practice them with him for at least two more days, maybe more, before proceeding to any of the other tools besides #2 and #3.

I am so pleased that Laddie has made such progress in this area.

Series C. Here's how Lumi ran cheating singles:

1. I positioned Lumi in a sit under a shade tree because temps were in the mid to high 70s.
2. I walked to one side of the channel or the other, alternating between the left and right sides.
3. I threw the dummy into the middle of the channel.
4. I ran back to a position 15 yards from the end of the channel and called Lumi to left or right heel (chosen randomly).
5. I released Lumi on her name. She ran to the edge of the water, entered the water, swam straight to the dummy, and picked it up.
6. As she was pouncing on the dummy, I whistled recall. Lumi turned 180° and swam straight back toward me. At no time did she appear to consider swimming to either shore beside her.
7. Lumi climbed up onto the bank and delivered the dummy.
8. We celebrated with cheers, treats, tug, and happy throws.

I threw the dummy from a point further along the channel each time. The distances were 10-20-30-40-50-60 yads from the end of the channel, making the retrieves 25-35-45-55-65-75 yards.

The channel ended at a channel running perpendicular, forming a T. The 40-yard throw was at the end of the sides of our channel. The 50-yard throw was into the middle of the channel running perpendicular. The 60-yard throw was across the perpendicular channel and onto the far bank. The 60-yard throw was more difficult than I intended because the dummy stuck in the mud and Lumi had to pull it out rather than just pick it up.

I was thrilled with Lumi's performance, first on the swim-by, then on these six cheaters.