Land Blinds, Pick-up Speed Drills, Adventure Drill

Emory Road

This morning, I dropped Renee off at the club where she works as a trainer and planned to pick her up a couple of hours later. Driving around looking for a possible place to train, I found a large field apparently owned by the local electric utility. The cover was mowed grass, a paved road, with ditches on either side, ran thru the middle of the field, and the field was dotted with trees and utility poles and surrounded mostly by woods. I parked on the adjacent driveway, went out to plant two blinds (two ODs at each blind), then went back for the dogs and the other equipment we'd use for the setups I had in mind.

Here's what I came up with:

SERIES A. Poison bird blind with the mark retrieved (Laddie, then Lumi)

Using an RL, weighted streamers, and a pre-positioned duck, a mark was "thrown" right to left at 80 yards. The dog then ran a 130-yard blind on a line 45° to the left of the line to the PB. When the dog returned with the OD, the dog was sent to pick up the duck. The lines to both retrieves crossed the road and ditches on opposite diagonals.

SERIES B. Poison bird blind with the mark retrieved (Laddie, then Lumi)

Again using an RL, weighted streamers, and a pre-positioned duck, a mark was "thrown" left to right, over the road and both ditches, at 60 yards. The dog then ran a 240-yard blind on a line 135° to the right of the line to the PB. When the dog returned with the OD, the dog was sent to pick up the duck. The line to the blind crossed the road and ditches on a diagonal.

SERIES C and D. Pick-up speed drill (Laddie, then Lumi)

Lumi's pick-ups have improved considerably in the last couple of weeks, but I don't want her to revert to dawdling on them, so I thought it would be good idea to continue with regular pick-up speed drills. These are relatively easy poorman marks in which I interrupt any retrieve if Lumi seems to be using delaying tactics on her pick-up. I call "Sit", walk out to her, slip on her lead, walk her back to the SL, and send her again. I usually let Laddie run the same marks, but no WOs are generally needed for Laddie on this drill.

Today's drill consisted of two doubles at distances of 50 to 80 yards, some throws with gunfire to keep it interesting for the dogs. I used one WO, for Lumi on the first retrieve of the Series C. After that WO, Lumi's pick-ups and returns were all excellent.

Creek at Black Hill Park

SERIES E. Adventure Drill (Laddie, then Lumi on each retrieve)

As in previous ADs, I hiked along the creek with Lumi and Laddie, a creek we've never played this game before. Whenever I found a suitably challenging location, I put both dogs in a sit/stay, walked to the edge of the creek and threw two white training dummies to the other side, usually landing well back from water's edge on the far side, then walked back to the dogs and sent them one at a time to pick up the articles thrown. In today's session, I sent Laddie first each time.

As usual, both dogs seemed thrilled throughout the session, and brought excitement and high quality performance to the game.