Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Hunt Test Training

Today's training was at Cheltenham with Bob Hux and one of his Hunt Test training groups. Lumi, Laddie, and I participated in both series:
  • Series A. Two land retrieves, one land/water retrieve, and a land blind.
  • Series B. Two water retrieves.
LUMI

Lumi ran the land retrieves as a double and needed help on the memory bird. She also seemed to be confused by the blind, which was set at 90° from the closest mark. I think that for an inexperienced dog, that might actually be easier than a tight blind, but because we practice blinds that are tight to marks so much, Lumi seemed to have trouble holding the line I cast her on.

She had no difficulty with the water retrieves.

LADDIE

Laddie had no difficulty with the marks in the first series, though he seemed to have the same problem as Lumi with the blind. He got briefly marooned in some wetland grass on the first mark of the second series, and then got badly marooned on a larger island covered in high grass on the second mark. I tried various recall cues, throwing a bird on land at the SL, walking away, and driving away. After about 15 minutes, I tried throwing a dummy in the water between the island and the SL and Laddie abandoned his bird, leapt in the pond, and brought me the dummy.

Although Lumi has been making progress with LWL retrieves, today's retrieves were apparently too difficult for him. I'm not positive what the difficulty was, but I suspect it was the tall grass. Months ago, Lumi and Laddie would both stall when faced with a return thru high cover, and although they no longer have that problem, today's problems on the water retrieves both involved high cover.

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