Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Come-in Drill, Blind

We only had time for one training session today, which we ran at the neighborhood lacrosse/baseball field.

The intent was to continue practicing Here without a retrieval article, plus a relatively difficult blind. The series consisted of three target blinds (lining pole, no retrieval article) followed by a cold blind. The purpose of the blind was to work on WSCs, and also to provide reinforcement for completion of the target blinds. To make the cold blind more enjoyable for the dogs, I set out birds (a pigeon and a duck) rather than dummies.

The set-up was as follows, left to right within a 90° angle:
  • #4: 150-yard blind (bird), no marking but in front of a small tree
  • #1: 40-yard target blind
  • #3: 100-yard target blind
  • #2: 80-yard target blind, the pole positioned at the pitcher's mound of the baseball diamond, requiring the dog to cross from grass onto the red, sandy surface of the infield
Laddie ran first, then Lumi.

Laddie did well, requiring one WSC on #2 the first time he ran it, and several on #4, including a slipped whistle when he scented the bird. However, he went OOC when I cued come-in on #2 the first time. I walked out, slipped on his leash, walked him back to the SL, and ran #2 again. He didn't go OOC again.

Lumi needed more WSCs on all the send-outs, but had reasonable good responsiveness on all of them, except that she also slipped a whistle when she scented the bird near the end of #4.

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