Steadiness Training, Water Blinds

AM: Clevenger's Corner

This morning, Lumi, Laddie, and I trained with Dave and his dog. We had no one else to shoot for us or train with us, so we worked as follows:

• Standing five yards to our left side, Dave fired live ammo, then threw a dead duck for the following dogs in turn: Laddie, Dave's dog, Lumi, and Dave's dog again. Laddie and Lumi honored Dave's dog.
• Repeat of the same series but with duck fliers.
• With me holding first Laddie, then Lumi, Dave threw dead ducks while blowing duck call and firing starter pistol 10 yards in front of the dogs. After throwing, Dave would indicate whether or not I should send the dog. Two times out of three, Dave would say "no bird" and pick up the bird himself. In each case, I would then call "Here" and send the dog to a duck lying on the ground behind us and the dog I would play a game of chase with that bird.

For all of the above, I held Lumi's and Laddie's tabs so that if they tried to break, they would not be successful. Although both dogs alerted at times, neither of them tried an outright break.

I discussed with Dave some questions I had about standing at 11 or 1 o'clock rather than at 5 o'clock, and he said that he did not recommend the change, that we were likely to have problems with judges if we tried it.

PM: Stadler's Pond

On way back from training with Dave, and knowing that we probably wouldn't be able to get out in the afternoon because family would be visiting for Mother's Day, I took Lumi and Laddie to the pond behind Stadler's Nursery for a little water work.

First I put out two ducks at each of two locations, then I ran Laddie first, then Lumi, on the double blind. The first blind was at 20 yards, planted in high grass near water's edge. The line to the blind had some suction for squaring the bank to the right. The second blind was at 60 yards straight across the pond, again planted in high grass near water's edge.

Both dogs had reasonable pick-ups and good re-entries into the water.