Blinds, Honoring

AM: Zion Road

Today's weather was uncomfortable, with temps in the 30s, light rain, and a light layer of wet snow on the ground.

SERIES A. Double land blind

Series A was a fairly short, but interesting because of the varied terrain and need for whistles on both blinds.

The first blind was to the right at 110 yards. The line to the blind was on an angle over a dirt road, through a wide keyhole formed by trees, and into an area of sparse high cover. The second blind was to the left at 130 yards, through a narrow keyhole formed by trees and also through an area of sparse high cover and relatively dense underbrush. Both blinds were unmarked ODs.

Because I've recently learned that Master-level Hunt Tests require the dog to maintain a narrow corridor on all retrieves, I kept each dog as close to the line as possible.

In addition, I ran the blinds with the mind-set of a hair-trigger WO, meaning that if the dog was at all hesitant in responding to a whistle, I immediately called "no, sit" and went out to pick the dog up. This resulted in one WO for Laddie during the short blind. Aside from that, both dogs showed excellent responsiveness on their WSs and nice accuracy on their casts.

PM: Oaks Area 2

SERIES B, C, and D. Honoring practice

Because of the bad weather and the likelihood that birds would deteriorate rapidly getting wet, we trained with dummies. But we continued to have Nate run each dog while I handled the other dog for honoring.

Each of the three series was run to a pile of 12 dummies. Sometimes the dogs switched after three retrieves, sometimes after two, sometimes after one. My intent was that they not be able to anticipate when the next switch between handlers would be.

Because Lumi is lagging Laddie a bit in understanding that the running dog is to return to the handler who sent the dog, which in today's case was always Nate, I had Nate give Lumi treats after each delivery. Lumi showed quick improvement in her returns to Nate once we started that procedure.

We used a number of versions of the series as the dogs became more proficient. The version we ran for the last series was as follows:

1. While I stood with Laddie behind the van, Nate ran Lumi on a couple of retrieves from the pile.
2. I left Laddie in a sit behind the van, went to Nate and Lumi, and took Lumi to an honoring position, where I cued "Just watch", our honoring cue.
3. Nate went to pick up Laddie behind the van, brought him to the SL, and ran him on a couple of retrieves to the pile.
4. As Laddie headed to the pile on his first send-out, I stepped back from Lumi and cued Here, her release from the honor. Together, we ran behind the van for a high-energy game of happy throws and tug.
5. When Laddie completed his second retrieve under Nate's handling, I had Lumi sit behind the van and went out to pick up Laddie for his turn to honor.
6. Nate went to pick up Lumi behind the van to run her, and we practiced the same pattern as above but with the dogs reversed.
7. We continued to switch dogs in that way for a total of six series, three per dog.

As in previous sessions recently, both dogs apparently continue to enjoy the honoring component of this sequence, with its end game of happy throws and tug, at least as much as the retrieves. As in previous sessions, neither dog showed any inclination to break from the honoring position.