Shore-handling, Come-in Drill, Blind

Summary

• Series A. At Cheltenham, shore-handling toolkit Tool #6, Over-WTL-W/O (Laddie)
• Series B. At Cheltenham, poorman land/water double (both dogs)
  
• Series C. At Cheltenham, poorman land/water double (both dogs)
  
• Series D. At Cheltenham, poorman land/water double (both dogs)
• Series E. At Oaks, come-in drill and blind (both dogs)

Series A. Although I plan to continue building Laddie's confidence on LWL retrieves, I decided to begin also working with Laddie on the shore-handling toolkit I designed. Laddie has previously shown that he has Tools #1-#4. If we were continuing numerically, the next tool would be Tool #5, Back-WTL-W, that is, a disciplined cast (that is, a cast while the dog is carrying the article). Given Laddie's lack of fluency on LWL retrieves, I'm afraid Tool #5 might be counterproductive at this stage, so I decided to skip to Tool #6, Over-WTL-W/O:


In our version, we were positioned at the end of our swim-by area rather than on one of the sides, and I didn't pre-position a dummy. Instead, I gave Laddie the Over cast, and when he began swimming in the indicated direction, then I tossed the dummy onto the shore he was swimming toward.

We did a total of four retrieves, right/left/right/left. Laddie had no difficulty with any aspect of the drill, including the Back send-out with no target, the WS in water, and the Over casts with no target.

Series B, C, D. Series B, C, and D were once again a total of six poorman land/water doubles, in three separate locations on the Cheltenham property, one set-up for each dog at each location.

For both dogs, each double today was structured as:

• #1: Relatively short and easy land/water retrieve (though one of Lumi's required some handling as it turned out)
• #2: Challenging land/water retrieve

For Lumi, the #2 challenges were as follows:

• Series B: LWL consisting of 70-yard land segment off mound, 60-yard water segment entering channel on diagonal section of end on the way out, and 5-yard land segment up steep embankment
• Series C: Entry point and throw at section of stickpond that Lumi has previously had difficulty with
• Series D: 100 yard swim to far shoreline, past point at 50 yards five yards to the left of the line to the fall

For Laddie, the #2 challenges were as follows:

• Series B: land-water-shoreline retrieve
• Series C: land-water-land retrieve
• Series D: land-water-shoreline retrieve

The throws to the shoreline were accidental, occurring only because my throw was too short. While Laddie's retrieve on Series C was excellent, he played with the dummy a little on the retrieves that were at the shoreline.

Series E. Series E was a continuation of our work on cueing Here when the dog does not yet have the retrieval article. As I understand it, Here cannot be used in competition, since the dog will be dropped if the handler uses any verbal cast other than Over and Back. But a partial come-in cued by Here can be used during training after two or three cast refusals as attrition, before again giving the desired cast, with the result that the dog's tendency to refuse casts will decline.

As I understand it, the reason for using Here in that situation is that a whistle come-in before the dog has the article is used for directing the dog to the blind, rather than for attrition because of a series of cast refusals.

In today's drill, I once again set up three target blinds, lining poles with no retrieval article, and a cold blind, but with the longest target blind longer than any previously in this drill. Today's set-up was as follows, left to right within a 45° angle:

• #4: 150-yard cold blind (orange dummy), marked by surveyors flag
• #1: 40-yard target blind
• #2: 80-yard target blind
• #3: 120-yard target blind

Both dogs performed almost identically. They ran the #1-#3 with zero or one WSC per blind, with excellent responsiveness both on the WSCs when needed and on the WS/Here cue when the dog reached the pole. But their responsiveness on #4 was weaker, possibly because their field of vision showed many potential targets, and also possibly because temps were in the high 80s.

To reduce workload and keep motivation high, I'll try switching from three to two target blinds for four more come-in drills for the next several days: 70-140, 80-160, 90-180, and 100-200 yard set-ups.

In addition, to try to improve motivation and responsiveness on WSCs, I think I'll begin to run some land blinds at Cheltenham with happy throws into water as reinforcement for delivery.