Steadiness Training, Cheating Singles

Clevenger's Corner

Today we again trained with Carol and her dog, Dyna, and Carol's instructor, Dave.

Before we started Series A, I told Dave I was considering two approaches, and asked for his advice which I should follow. The choices were:

• Run short marks, say at 30 yards, and run my dogs with their tabs, so that they could learn that a break wasn't an option if they did attempt a break.
• Run longer marks as are more likely in a Senior Hunt Test, say at 60 yards, and run my dogs without collars as they'll need to run in the test in a week.

Dave seemed to feel strongly that I should run them with no collars, so I set up Series A and B with 60 yard marks, and left the dogs' collars in the van.

SERIES A. Land single (Lumi, then Laddie)

Series A was a rehearsal for Series B. For Series A, Dave threw a dead duck at 60 yards, using live ammo in his shotgun for the gunfire. I ran Lumi, then honored her as Carol ran Laddie. Finally, I honored Laddie as Carol ran Dyna.

Lumi was rock steady when I ran her, but she flinched on the honor and seemed on the verge of breaking when I called "Here" and we ran back to the van to play. That was worrisome, considering that these were dead birds at pretty good distance.

Carol told me that Laddie was on the verge of breaking when she sent him, and Laddie did break honoring. Dave picked up the bird so Laddie didn't get to retrieve it, and Laddie did come running right back at that point, which he might not have done a few weeks ago, so perhaps there's been some progress. But obviously, Laddie's steadiness was even more of a concern than Lumi's.

I'm not entirely sure why both dogs seemed to be weaker on steadiness today, even with dead birds, than they have been for some time. The only theory I have is that the set-up I came up with had an unusual feature: because we were working in an area of rolling hills, the birds were falling behind a crest and out of sight from the start line. Both Lumi and Laddie craned their necks in an attempt to catch sight of the fallen bird, and that may have interfered with their steadiness. One more thing to work on, I guess.

SERIES B. Land single (Lumi, then Laddie)

Carol was concerned that some of Laddie's problem was that I wasn't running him, so for Series B, I ran and honored both my dogs. To give us an opportunity to honor, Carol ran Dyna twice, once after each of my dogs.

Although I understand that it is risky to put a dog's collar on as a result of a break, because it gives the dog an opportunity to discriminate the difference in outcome from a break between wearing a collar and not wearing one, I felt I had no choice now to put the dogs' collars on for Series B, so that I could use their tabs.

Therefore, I ran and honored both my dogs on tabs for Series B, and both seemed rock steady. I have no way of knowing whether that means they have learned to discern the collar, or whether that means they had improved between the two series.

SERIES C. Cheating single (Lumi, then Laddie)

With temps in the high 80s, we wanted to stop land work as soon as possible and get in a little swimming at the large pond on the property. Dave proposed an open-water 60-yard retrieve. From my point of view, that had little to do with preparation for a Senior Hunt Test, but the dogs did have to swim parallel to the shoreline.

Both of my dogs had solid outruns (outswims) to the mark, and required no handling to keep them on line. But both of my dogs displayed suction toward the shoreline on the return, which I believe represents a decline from where they were in their skills last fall. At the same time, both were responsive to verbal and visual cueing to stay on line and not swim to the side bank.