Land Blinds, Alternating Handlers

Oaks Area 2

CONDITIONS: Unseasonably warm, with overcast skies and high humidity.

We were fortunate today to have son Dave come out to train with Lumi, Laddie, and me. We started with some blinds I'd planted earlier, then ran pick-up speed drills with Dave doing most of the handling.

SERIES A. Triple land blind with poison bird (Lumi, then Laddie)

The first blind was to the right at 80 yards. The second blind was in the center at 100 yards. The third blind was to the left at 150 yards. Before the dog ran the third blind, Dave threw a "poison bird" left to right at 50 yards from the far left, toward what would be the line to the third blind, so that the line to the blind passed within 20 yards of the bird on the left. After the dog ran the third blind, the dog was sent to pick up Dave's poison bird.

Though short, the first blind (an OD) was challenging because it was in front of a narrow strip of woods and underbrush, and among several widely spaced trees, just to the right of an opening in the woods. The challenge of the second blind was that the line to the second blind was only a few degrees to the right of the line to the first blind, but this time the dog had to go through the opening in the woods, which functioned as a keyhole. The blind was a CCD placed in a depression so that it was invisible until the dog was quite close to it. The primary challenge of the third blind was, of course, the poison bird that Dave had just thrown, but an additional challenge was that the line to the third blind passed within a couple of yards of the left edge of the narrow strip of woods, drawing the dog to wrap around behind the woods rather than continue on a straight line up a hill to the blind (an OD).

Lumi, apparently confused by the first blind's placement, required about ten WSCs for that blind. She then ran the second blind thru the keyhole with little difficulty, apparently leaning on previous experience with blinds on narrow angles and the challenge of following a blind just in front of an obstacle with a second blind past that same obstacle.

On the third blind, Lumi remained responsive to every WS, which pleased me greatly, but she apparently found the poison bird thrown toward the line of the blind by a real human too confusing to deal with. After a few attempts to retrieve the bird, and of course being whistled to sit and cast away from it each time, she finally froze and would not take another cast. I called her toward me, blew WS, walked about 30 yards closer to her, and was finally able to handle her past the bird, after which she had no difficulty completing the blind.

When I put Lumi in the car and brought out Laddie to run the same series, he put on a clinic, performing fabulously on every blind. That included the third blind past the hand-thrown poison bird, a set-up neither dog has ever experienced before.

SERIES B. Pick-up speed drills with alternating handlers

Series B consisted of each dog getting five pairs of singles thrown by a single thrower. Because I didn't want Lumi to get back into head-swinging in anticipation of multiple marks, after addressing and seemingly solving that problem recently, I had both dogs run singles exclusively during Series B. With one dog on a tie out, Dave or I would throw two ducks for the other dog while the other of us handled. One duck was thrown to one side, the dog would retrieve that one, and another duck was then thrown to the other side.

I handled both dogs for the first series of two throws per dog. Dave then handled the dogs for the next four series, again two throws per dog per series. Dave is not a field trainer and has rarely if ever handled either of my dogs when coming out to help in the past, but he learned quickly and performed well. For some reason, he decided to call Here instead of blowing a come-in whistle for the dogs, but it seemed to work well and I didn't try to change his decision.

All five series were run from the same SL but on different lines. The first series, with Dave throwing and me handling, was a pair of singles at 70-70 yards. The remaining series, with Dave handling and me throwing, were a pair of singles at 10-10 yards, a pair of singles at 20-20 yards, a pair of singles at 50-30 yards, and a pair of singles at 70-50 yards.

Laddie's performance was outstanding except for a single dropped bird during delivery of the first mark he ran for Dave. I called no-no-no-sit, ran to the SL and threw the duck back out into the field, ran back to my position as a thrower, and had Dave run Laddie to that bird again. Laddie didn't drop another bird.

Lumi had only one great pick-up, her last one, but almost all of her other pick-ups were reasonably fast. The exception was one bird that she picked up, then put back down before starting to pick it up again. I immediately called no-no-no-sit, walked out to her to block her from the bird, and had Dave come out to walk her back to the SL.

On Lumi's one outstanding running pick-up (a routine pick-up for Laddie), I let out a cheer, Lumi ran toward me, and I broke into a run toward Dave waiting at the SL, so that Lumi and I completed the return on a sprint together, Lumi joyously carrying her bird and then delivering it to Dave with her usual excellence of delivery. Hopefully, that lovely moment shared sprinting together added some weight to Lumi's reinforcement history for high-quality pick-ups.