Second Addendum to "Trajectory"

Well, although my first addendum to the recent "Trajectory" post was probably OK insofar as it clarified (I hope) that successful all-age dogs are not allowed to run in Quals, I have since learned of another flaw in my thinking on the trajectory topic.

That flaw is the idea that a dog who is at the level of being able to compete successfully in all-age stakes, but is not yet ineligible to run in Quals, would dominate the less skilled dogs in a Qual, and could reasonably be expected to win.

From what I have since learned, I now think it would be more accurate to say that such a dog would be more likely to win than the less skilled dogs, but that the improved probability falls far short of likelihood, much less assurance.  There's even a good chance that that dog would not make it to the last series, for any number of reasons.

I still don't plan on consciously wishing for other dogs to do badly so Laddie can win, and I still think that Laddie is on a generally rising trajectory. But I see that I need to adjust my thinking to understand that whether Laddie places or not in a field trial is only weakly correlated to his general level of competence, and that many other factors will also affect the outcome.

LL&L

Addendum to "Trajectory"

A friend pointed out a serious problem with yesterday's post entitled "Trajectory".

As she read the post, she thought I was saying that according to my understanding, successful all-age dogs can and typically do run in Qualifying stakes as well.

As my friend pointed out, that's not the case. But actually, it's not what I was trying to say.  Unfortunately, I didn't communicate effectively.

What I was trying to say is that right now Laddie is not skilful enough to compete successfully in all-age stakes, but hopefully someday he will be. That is the goal of our training, as opposed to somehow managing to earn some Qual ribbons.

In referring to an all-age dog who managed to sneak into a Qual, I wasn't trying to suggest that that has ever happened. I guess it could happen if someone wanted to cheat with look-alike dogs, but it could not happen within the rules if the dog had had success at the all-age level, or even had won two Quals  Such dogs are not eligible to run in a Qual.

But here's what is true: If a day comes when Laddie is ready to compete with all-age dogs, as is our goal, but at that time he has not met any of the conditions that would make it illegal for him to run in a Qual, then if I entered him in a Qual at that time, I would expect him to win it. The same of course goes for any dog ready to compete successfully in all-age stakes but still permitted under the rules to run in Quals, unless the Qual happens to have more than one such dog that day.

Accordingly, I was trying to say that I don't want my attitude to be, when a judge for example looks at Laddie's big, looping sit and calls it a slipped whistle, "Bad break, too bad I didn't get a judge who accepts Laddie's big, looping sit."  Instead, I want my attitude to be, "Ah, there's one more thing to work on before Laddie is ready to compete successfully in all-age stakes." Yeah, fixing it might also result in Laddie winning a Qual along the way, but that's almost beside the point.  The purpose of Laddie running Quals is for me to gauge his progress.  When the gauge tells me that he's ready to run in all-age stakes, he will also happen to win the Qual, not squeaking by but because he's clearly ready to compete at the next level.  If he doesn't win the Qual, it's not a failure, it's just a helpful indication of where we are on our journey, our trajectory.

As to the moral quandary I was dealing with: If I wish for Laddie to win a Qual, it's not that I'm wishing for anyone else to lose, it's that I'm wishing to find that we have met our objective of preparing Laddie for the next level of competition. 

This does not mean that my emotions accept our unsuccessful performances comfortably.  Not getting called back to the next series, or running them all but not getting a placement, is not fun.  But that's my emotions talking, not the analytical part of my mind.

LL&L

Silent water blind

Following up on today's trial, the water blind was 50y land, 40y stick pond, and 100y of clumpy, uneven meadow to the blind.

I didn't need to blow the whistle until Laddie had come out of the water, and it'a possible I didn't need to blow it then. But I thought it best not to let him veer at all, since I've noticed that a wet dog can get out of control unexpectedly in a strong crosswind, which we had. If the wind had pushed Laddie behind a mound that was lurking on the right, he'd have gone out of sight and been dropped as out of control.

Of course, blowing the whistle ended up being our undoing, but I still think it was the right thing to do. Laddie just needs to learn to stop better.

In any case, here are two nice positives, besides of course Laddie's great initial line (I think every other dog needed to be handled in the water): Laddie did not pop (I believe that means he has only popped in competition once in his career, a trial earlier this year), and he did not vocalize at any time running today, including the water.  I'm not suggesting he's cured of vocalizing on water blinds -- Laddie did not have to deal with a point today, and I had the luxury of just letting him roll -- but it was good to see, nonetheless.

LL&L

Trajectory

First, the news. Laddie was called back from the land triple and the land blind, which were bundled together, in today's trial. He waa them not called back from the water blind. So of course we did not get to run the water marks.

With a 360 mile drive home in front of me, I decided not to hang around for the rest of the trial, but rather get on the road.

The judges were kind enough to brief me on why they didn't call Laddie back from the water blind. They said he refused three whistles. They added that he had also refused a whistle on the land blind earlier, and they just didn't feel he was doing the level of work required.

That was helpful information to me, because: (a) I only saw Laddie slip one whistle on the water blind, though he did have big, looping sits two other times; and (b) I considered the whistle on land that the judges called a refusal to be a safety whistle, since Laddie immediately took a couple of strides to the bird after that whistle.

The judges were kind enough to pay Laddie a compliment, saying he had a fabulous initial line, giving us something to build on.

Before closing, I want to say that on my long drive up here last night, I gave a lot of thought to what I was finding to be a moral issue: I wanted to wish for Laddie to win today, but I was blocked because that meant wishing that other people would lose. This dilemma occupied my mind for many hours.

I finally came to a resolution. Laddie, and all the other dogs, are on a trajectory. They are more skillful now than when they first started field work, and in some cases they are continuing to improve. Laddie, for example, had trouble in his first Junior Hunt Test years ago, but months later, that level of work was easy for him, and he passed four tests in nine days. Similarly later on, he wasn't quite skillful enough to pass his first few Senior tests, but continued to improve, until a time came when he passed two Senior tests in one weekend.

As painful as each failure was -- as painful as today's daily was -- it is a mistake, I think, to see these as isolated events.  They were neither good nor bad. We were neither lucky nor unlucky.  Instead, these were all points on a trajectory, a trend line.  At this time, that trend line has not yet carried Laddie high enough that he is ready to run with, much less prevail over, all-age dogs.  If he were, the breaks of a particular Qual wouldn't matter. He would be dominating pretty much any Qual, just as, I assume, any field champion who happened to sneak into today's Qual would have dominated.

So nothing is wrong with wishing that Laddie were at that level.  If he had been, and the other dogs had not, he would have won going away. The fact that he didn't dominate simply says that he is not skillful enough yet to compete with all-age dogs, while dominating Qual dogs. The details are significant only in that they point the way toward some things to work on.

One question that remains is, are we throwing money away to continue to compete? In other words, how likely is it that a dog that can't get to the last series one weekend will dominate the following weekend?  Of course, that is not to be expected.

But unfortunately, I see no way to make the jump any other way than incrementally, either.  I remember how Lumi first couldn't pass the land series as a Senior dog, and then started getting to water but couldn't pass that, and then would finish the test but the judges would "have to talk about it", and then not call her number during the ribbon ceremony.  Finally a time came when she began passing Senior tests, and soon thereafter she had her four passes and her title. She had simply incrementally improved along that trajectory.

And so, perhaps, it will be for Laddie.  Of course every team has a maximum level of achievement, and it's always possible that Laddie and I have already reached ours. Frankly, I'm not sure how to recognize that level. But Lumi had a quite a few fails in her Senior career before she finally started passing. She was getting better with every test, and eventually she was good enough to pass.

So maybe I'm just throwing money away.  But I think it's also possible that Laddie has it in him to be a competitive all-age dog. If I'm correct, then we are on that trajectory, and when Laddie ascends high enough, he will begin dominating Quals just like any other good all-age dog would. Until then, we'll keep going home empty handed and, philosophical analysis notwithstanding, with heavy heart.

LL&L

Challenging the line = crossing the line

Yesterday, I managed to get Laddie dropped from a trial on a handler error once again.

One of the judges, realizing that I was inexperienced in field trials, and first checking on whether I was interested in hearing his thoughts, was kind enough to explain a concept to me while Laddie was returning with the water blind, even drawing a diagram in the sand with a stick.

The judge told me that although Laddie had taken every cast and had stayed within a reasonable corridor, I had not "challenged the line."  Specifically, I had not handled Laddie onto the left side of the line, where all the trouble was, until the last few yards of the blind.

That was true.  Quite intentionally, I had run Laddie along the right side of the line the entire blind, which I'd estimate at 210y.  I intended to keep him on the right even at the end.  I just misjudged the distance on a cast that was supposed to put him onto the little landing area.

But since Laddie remained in a tight corridor the whole way, I thought he'd run a good blind.  I'd heard the term "challenging the line" before, but I never understood what it meant.  As the judge explained to me, I think that in this case it means, simply, crossing the line.

Later I watched a couple of pros running the last few dogs.  They ran almost the identical blind that Laddie ran, except that at around 70y, they cast the dog toward the point on the left, crossed the imaginary line from the handler to the blind, and then, before the dog reached land, cast the dog back over onto the right side again.  Even dogs who had more trouble at the end than Laddie had, repeatedly refusing casts, were called back.

Actually, Laddie might have been called back, too, if fewer dogs had come into the series.  But with 14 dogs running the blind, the judges narrowed the field to nine, and Laddie was dropped.

Could I have challenged (crossed) the line with Laddie and then gotten him back over on the right to finish?  I think so.  In any case, I wish I'd realized I needed to try.

LL&L

No vocalizing

Today I discovered that Laddie does not vocalize running a water version of a simple T-drill. I wonder if I could build on that to get him out of vocalizing on water blinds.

Lighter schedule

On advice from Alice and Jody, I've backed off on Laddie's training schedule. For example, instead of training every day as we always have, this week we trained on Tuesday, Thursday, and today (Saturday), and next week I plan to train only on Tuesday and Thursday before our trial next Saturday.

The weather is now warm enough that we could be training on water, and ideally we'd be running both land and water retrieves. However, circumstances are pushing us to focus on land at this time.  If Laddie gets thru the land and gets dropped for poor water work in our trial, I'll change our focus for subsequent training.  We are doing some water even so, but mostly land.

Today was an example. I only had two bird-girls today, so to run triples, the last throw was just me throwing a bumper to the side as the go-bird. It was no challenge itself, but it gave the gunners a chance to retire when I had asked them to.

In that way, we ran two land triples. The first had the bird girls throwing a double at 260-110y, with the long gun retired. The second had them throwing a double at 310-130y, with the short gun retired.

For both setups, I used the hilly terrain, cover changes, obstructions to push the dog off line, repetitive visual patterns to challenge the dog's memory on retired guns, and what little wind we had, to try to maximize difficulty.

Results: Laddie nailed both of the short marks.  He "stepped on" the first long mark but didn't see it and continued running, then saw Annette behind the umbrella she was using to retire and then ran straight to the bumper, which I thought was a pretty good way to run what I thought was a pretty difficult mark.

For the last long mark, construction materials pushed Laddie to the left, and the terrain continued to push him that direction. He veered back enough to the right to run toward the gunner, ran just past her on the wrong side, but before she could stand up (per my instructions when Laddie gets behind her), he hooked straight to the bumper. Not the perfect mark, but pretty good I thought.

Finally, I ran Laddie on a 320y land blind off to the left of all the marks he'd run. The first challenge was that the initial line was diagonally across a slope and was cluttered with clumps of high cover and a few bits of construction debris. Next came a 100y stretch of dirt road in an S-shape, leading the dog offline alternately to left and right.  Next was a large slope that the line to the blind just cleared on the left. I believe that a dog can be tempted to wrap around such an obstacle, and in this case, that's also where the road led to, adding more suction to taking the dog out of sight behind the slope.

Next the line went over a small crest, such that the dog would be out of sight for 50y. I assume such a setup would never happen in a real trial, but the earlier part of the blind seemed interesting, and I wanted the extra distance, so I went with it. Assuming the dog carried straight back 50y after the crest, the dog would then become visible and then needed to carry another 50y in a depression, and finally up a steep embankment and onto a plateau, where the blind was planted in an area of sparse but high cover.

Laddie ran this blind nicely.  He took a great initial line, not attempting to square the slope in either direction, and continued straight to the road.  From there he drifted left, and took good sit-whistles and casts to the edge of the crest where he was about to go out of sight.  He stayed a bit to the left of the line during the middle section of the blind, and never came close to heading behind the slope.  I stopped him at the crest, cast him straight back, and that took him the last 110y to the blind.

All of this was on a 72-degree sunny afternoon, so I think it was a bit tiring as well as having some challenging pictures.  To me it seemed like a useful training session.

LL&L

Training day, May 2012

Remington, Virginia

Note: Cloudy weather, temps warmer than ideal.  The water series was cancelled before the last few dogs ran because thunder and lightning began to appear in the distance.

Yesterday was Rappahannock River Retriever Club's monthly training day, and I was happy to once again be chosen to "run" the advanced group.  At this club, that generally means designing the land and the water series, but when I get the assignment, I also act as "marshall" and "judge" when the dogs are running, except of course when I run my own dog or dogs.  In yesterday's case, I let Lumi stay with my daughter Cookie at home, so I only had Laddie with me.  I ran Laddie next to last on land series because I wanted to run him in front of someone who would be running the full triple with a flyer, and the guy whom I arranged to go in front of wanted to run last so that his dog would be less likely to shop on the long blind.  I was planning to run Laddie last on water so that I could finish "judging" the series for the other dogs first and try to keep things moving quickly, but as mentioned above, that resulted in Laddie not getting to run at all on water because of the risk of lightning.  With the four hour drive, that meant a ten-hour training day ended with Laddie running a total of five retrieves.

Anyway, here are descriptions of the two series I set up, and also a report on how Laddie did on the land series.

SERIES A. Land triple with available flyer, plus three available land blinds

For Series A, the first mark was on the right, thrown right to left from a holding blind into cover at 90 yards.  The early throws (some with winger, some hand thrown) were either too long or too short, resulting in comparatively easy lines to the fall, but finally the throws were the intended distance and the line was thru some high cover if the dog didn't skirt around it.  (Laddie was the only dog who actually ended up taking that line, unless the last dog, whom I didn't watch because Laddie was honoring, might have.)

The second mark was in the center, thrown right to left with a winger from a holding blind into cover at 35 yards.

The third mark was on the right, originally thrown left to right at 70 yards.  That was the flyer station, and the intended throw was from the side of a road into an open field, with care given to safety.  However, despite our trying to plan for the light crosswind, the duck doubled back on the gunner the first two times we tried that setup, so we reversed the gun station and the direction of the throw, so that as actually used, the third mark, like the other two marks, was right to left.  We didn't have any more no-birds, but most of the flyers ended up being "cripples" (wounded rather than being killed in the air), so I guess something about the conditions -- maybe the equipment? -- was producing poor shooting conditions, despite having an experienced gunner and assistant at that station.

As with any triple on training day, lots of opportunities for modifications were available, and several variations were used by the handlers for particular dogs.  Some ran the series as singles, in one order or another, or as a double plus a single (various choices for which guns were used for the double).  People training for Hunt Tests used a handler's gun, an empty shotgun available on a gun stand at the start line.  A couple of people wanted to practice Walk Ups, so for those teams, I walked them forward from the holding blind and after some distance called for the middle mark rather than the right mark first, with no duck call.  For Laddie, I requested no duck calls and that the gunner shoot before throwing rather than while the bird was in the air.  It didn't quite happen that way, but at least I made the request.

If a handler wanted to honor, the honoring position was to the right of the start line, so that the working dog would not cross in front of the honoring dog when sent to the flyer go-bird.  That made the honor less difficult than if it had been on the left, but it seemed a more prudent position.  I've seen tests and trials where the judge chose a position analogous to either of those choices.

In addition to the triple, I set up three blinds, and people could choose any combination:

* We had a "Senior" blind on a line well to the right of the rightmost gun station, a "pile" of bumpers pre-planted ad marked with a vertical lining pole at 60 yards.  The second half of the line was thru medium cover, with a diagonal crossing of a change in the terrain, a strip where cover had been flattened by previous vehicle traffic.  A diagonal crosswind added to the challenge, and no dog who attempted that blind was able to line it.

* We had a "Master" blind at 100 yards on a line under the arc of the flyer station, with the dog being rewarded for getting thru the scent of the flyers by picking up a duck on that blind.  The dog was upwind of the duck so hopefully the scent of the blind itself was no advantage.  Of course that blind had to be planted for each dog, whereas the other two blinds were "hot" (a "pile" of bumpers pre-planted before we started).  The marker for the "Master" blind was an unusually long pole with artificial flowers attached at the top, a design which for some reason threw off several people's depth perception, with their dogs ending up behind the blind and having to be brought back in.  On the other hand, two dogs lined that blind.

* We had a "Qualifying" blind at 180 yards on a line midway between the second and third marks, with the terrain and wind pushing all the dogs who ran it to the left.  I couldn't find a longer line to use for that setup, but one challenge was that the blind was planted 20 yards in front of an arc of thistle cover, so that similarly to when a blind is planted on the face of an embankment, this blind did not lend itself to having the dog overrun it and then come back in to pick up the bumper.  The marker was an orange lining pole inserted on a 45 degree angle, to facilitate the handlers seeing it against the vertical background and at the same time not salient to dogs.

SERIES B.  Water triple plus two available water blinds

For Series B as I had planned Laddie to run it, the first mark was on the left, thrown left to right at 90 yards.  From the planned start line, the line to the mark featured a 40 yard land entry with an extremely sharp angle, tempting the dog to run the bank on an easy cheat around the water and behind the gun station.  Easier starting lines, chosen by several of the trainers, made the cheat less likely, though we still had a couple of dogs not get wet running that mark.

The second mark was in the center, thrown left to right at 100 yards.  The entry was fairly square, but if the throw was as I had designed the mark, the line to the fall was off one point on the left and then off another point on the right.  Unfortunately, the first few dogs got throws on that mark that were too short, so that the line was over the island on the left, a different picture entirely, though I suppose one still worth practicing.

The third mark was on the right, thrown right to left along the length of a narrow peninsula at 50 yards from the planned start line.  The water and land entries were steep and protected by high cover, but this mark's primary purpose was to occupy a corner of the dog's memory when running the water blind afterwards.  The long blind would take the dog past the point of that peninsula, while the short blind would take the dog on a line not too far to the right ("behind") that gun station.

All the marks were hand thrown from holding blinds.

Two water blinds were available, but dogs either ran no blind, or they ran the long blind.  No one ran the short blind, but I'll still describe it.

The long blind was on the far shore at 100 yards, on a line midway between the second and third marks.  The picture was strikingly similar to the middle mark, which was a few degrees to the left.  For the blind, after a 30 yard land entry, the line was past the point of a peninsula on the right as mentioned above, then over the endpoint of an island on the left, then point the point of another peninsula on the right.  Handlers were asked to have their dogs take a straight enough line that they would cross over the point on the left but stay off the points on the right.  A little open water existed off the point on the left into which the handler could cast the dog with an "over" to the right, avoiding a "back" cast that risked losing the dog behind the island, but once the dog was in the water, the dog had to be turned back toward the blind quickly or would end up on the next point on the right.

The short blind was on the far shore of an inlet at 50 yards, 15 yards behind the rightmost gun station.  If a dog had run it, the dog would have had a 30 yard land entry, a 45 degree water entry, and a short diagonal crossing of the inlet, with a tempting cheat around the water on the right.

As mentioned, Laddie did not get to run the water series, but I'll describe his rather uneventful work on the land series.

Laddie was steady from the line watching the birds thrown.  As with most of the flyers in this series, he got a "cripple" (I dislike that terminology, but that's what field trainers say), and I was pleased to see that, after nailing the mark and spending a little while finding a good grip, Laddie ran the bird back to me without killing it.  Of course it didn't save the bird, whom as is normal at these things I turned over to another handler to finish off, but I'd prefer Laddie not kill the birds himself, since I don't think judges like to see that, and in training, we can sometimes re-throw a bird if the dog hasn't killed it, reducing the number of birds we need to kill that day though I guess making it worse for the birds we do use.  :0(

Laddie overran the short middle bird by five yards, then spun around and grabbed it in a clump of cover.

Laddie then nailed the longest mark on the right, running a laser line that took him thru, rather than around, an easily avoidable patch of high cover, and requiring no hunt to home in directly on the bird.

By the way, Laddie's pickups and returns of all three birds birds were top notch, as opposed to his not uncommon mediocre work once he's gotten to the fall, with dawdling pickups and/or meandering returns.  Except for the flyer which he was more careful with picking up, but not unreasonably so, he grabbed each bird on the fly and raced back with it.  I usually take the bird as Laddie approaches, then bring him to heel, as opposed to the way virtually all other handlers run their dogs, bringing the dog to heel first and then taking the bird.  But no judge has ever complained, and as far as I know it doesn't hurt our score, so I find my approach removes some of the risk of a dropped bird and also removes the disincentive to a high quality return that I believe would come from Laddie having to execute the heel and sit maneuver while holding the bird.  Of course, some dogs would prefer to go on holding the bird forever, so I guess coming to heel without giving it up would actually be preferred by those dogs, but in Laddie's case, he wants to give up the bird as quickly as possible, so I think the delivery is most pleasant for him if I take the bird as Laddie approaches.

Another point I'll mention is that a black Lab was in the holding blind behind us while Laddie was running his series, and I saw on every return that Laddie seemed to alert to that direction -- perhaps he was scenting the dog? -- as I took the bird.  Seeing that and concerned about the possibilities, I was quick to demand Laddie's attention and bring him to heel for the next retrieve, and finally for the honor, rather than losing my concentration and risking that he rush behind the holding blind to visit, or possibly even attack, the dog waiting there.  Laddie was attacked by a black Lab while he and I were in a holding blind at a trial last spring, and it seems to have affected his behavior in certain situations ever since.  I'm not yet clear what exact pattern triggers it, but I think black dogs are part of the pattern.

Laddie ran both the "Master" and the "Qualifying" blinds nicely.  Going to school on the difficulties the other trainers had had on the long blind, I didn't let Laddie continue to drift further and further left as I had seen happen with other dogs, but rather stopped him as soon as he veered, I think a total of three times.  I believe he was the only dog who ended up finally arriving at that blind from the right, so that the last cast was actually with the wind.  That may have had the disadvantage that Laddie was upwind and couldn't scent the bumpers as he got close, but that hadn't seemed to be as much of an advantage for the earlier dogs as the disadvantage of having to take their last cast(s) into a headwind, perhaps because of a confusing scent dispersion on that particular blind.

I had arranged to have Laddie honor one of the few other dogs who would be running the series the same way he had, hoping for maximum excitement as opposed, for example, to honoring a dog that would start off by running a single or a double, or for whom the handler had not chosen to purchase a flyer.  When the time came to honor, I felt I had two reasonable choices.  First, I could honor him off lead, the same as if we were in competition, and also the same as my friend Dave has asked me to do when we train on honoring flyers with Dave on weekends occasionally.  Alternatively, I could place a lead lightly around Laddie's chest, a setup that hopefully would mean little to Laddie but would allow me to stop him if he broke.  The disadvantage of this latter approach is that it doesn't really give me the assurance that Laddie would not have broken without sensing the lead.  But the advantage is that Laddie cannot gain the reinforcement of an adrenaline or endorphin burst by breaking, possibly strengthened further if he manages to get to the flyer.  Foregoing the extra information in favor of a better training setup if Laddie did happen to break, I took my honoring position facing away from the field off Laddie's right flank with his lead resting lightly around his chest but gripped tightly in my hand, and Laddie was on high alert but rock steady for the honor.  I hope that was the right decision in terms of maximum training benefit, I'm not certain.

I'll end this post with an apology.  I try to make these posts as interesting as I can, though my primary purpose is to provide a useful record of our training journey.  In this case, I'm afraid the latter objective completely overwhelmed the former, with details that won't be of interest to anyone but a future me studying my steps and missteps over the years.  Hopefully the boredom factor was not too extreme.

LL&L

Reducing workload

As Alice and Jody have pointed out to me, now that Laddie has turned five, and most of his work consists of physically and mentally demanding simulations of Field Trial setups, experience with generations of competition retriever suggests that Laddie no longer benefits from intense daily training.
Accordingly, despite my own preference for being out training at every opportunity, I am trying to significantly scale back our work. For example, after our competition last Saturday, I rested Laddie on Sunday and Monday. We then ran a couple of big singles and a couple of blinds on Tuesday, one big double and a blind on Wednesday, and two big triples plus one blind on Thursday. Today, Friday, will be another rest day.

All of these were land retrieves because of the cold weather, and also because Laddie has not been successful on land in competition yet this year, so I'm comfortable with focusing on land retrieves while we await arrival of warmer weather.

To give a sense of the work, here's a description of our last setup yesterday.

We were working at the huge new construction area someday to be known as Clarksburg Village, an area 20 minutes from home that a few weeks ago I discovered to now be suitable for training.  I had already positioned Jenny and Annette at their gun stations, but I wanted to run Lumi on a short triple before I ran Laddie.

Lumi, who is eight and who no longer competes because of physical issues, usually lives with daughter Brooke these days, but this week she's staying with me.  I don't run her at distance, but she is still an extraordinary marker.

I had run her on an earlier short triple before Laddie's first triple, and Laddie had doubled back during his retrieve of the retired mark to search the area where one of Lumi's marks had been thrown.  So hopefully learning my lesson, I threw the three marks for Lumi on this second setup so that they would be well off the lines Laddie would be running. I has Liza, one of our three new assistants, run Lumi, then take her position in the field for Laddie's triple.

I should mention that for all Laddie's work this week, I've had him rest in his crate in the van while the girls took their positions and while Lumi ran her series. For Laddie, this meant not only more rest than when he was running around, but it also meant that he had only a few second to grasp each setup, as happens in a real event, and it meant that he had to deal with the excitement of gunfire and another dog working while he awaited his turn, again simulating event conditions.

Here's the setup I used for Laddie's second triple:

The first mark was in the center, thrown left to right into cover behind a small ridge at 260y.  Annette, the thrower, would retire into a ditch behind the gun station when Laddie was later sent to the go-bird.

The second mark was on the left, thrown left to right by Genny into a depression at 190y.

The third mark was on the right, thrown right to left by Liza to a fall behind a ridge at 40y.

The line to the the first, retired mark ran close to the last fall.  This meant Laddie would have to pick up the short go-bird, run the second, longish retrieve several degrees to the left, and then run the big, retired memory-bird in the same direction as the first mark, running thru the area of an old fall to get to the last mark more than 200y beyond.  My experience is that dogs sometimes have difficulty remembering two marks that are both in the same direction, or at least resist running the second one because of the sense that the dog is "returning to an old fall", something they are taught all their competitive lives will not succeed, despite their instincts as young dogs that if one bird is at a particular location, perhaps more birds are there as well.

The lines to all three marks included diagonal slopes, diagonal crossings of changes in terrain, and for the two longer marks, obstacles forcing the dog temporarily off line.  We ran from level ground rather than a mound, making it somewhat more difficult for Laddie to see the gunners than it might have been.

In summary, I made this triple as difficult a setup as I could come up with for the particular start line I'd chosen. Perhaps it would have been marginally more difficult if I had also retired the second gun, but I've never seen a Qual with two retired guns, and my goal, after all, is preparing Laddie for Quals.

Historically, I've followed a practice of carefully pointing out all the guns to the dog, in reverse order of the throws, before calling for the first throw, and I still frequently take that approach. But lately, I've been starting our line mechanics by just standing by and letting Laddie pick out gunners himself. If he finds them all, then I just line him up on the first gunner, cue "sit, mark", and begin calling for the throws.

That's how it went on this series. Laddie immediately picked out the long gun, then looked around on either side and found the other two. When it was clear that he knew where all three stations were, I lined up on the first one and raised my arm to signal the thrower.

When all three throws had been made, I sent Laddie to the short mark. Not surprisingly since it was so short, he nailed it, even though he couldn't see it until he had gotten over the small ridge.

I then sent him to the second mark on the left side. He nailed that one, too.

When I sent Laddie to the final mark, the gunner now retired, he veered offline a little to the right, in effect running "under the arc" of the first mark rather than thru the old fall. Once he was past the old fall, he arced back onto the correct line. From the distance, I thought Laddie had a small hunt when he got to the area if the fall in that last mark, but Annette, who could see Laddie from her hiding place once he was in the area, said that he ran straight to the bumper and picked it up immediately, then ran around for a little while carrying the bumper, for reasons known only to Laddie, before turning around and heading back for home.

In summary, on the hardest triple I knew how to set up in that location, Laddie nailed all three marks. 
Laddie doesn't perform that well in every setup we practice, but if he performs that way at one of our trials, I think he'll get a good score.

LL&L

Finding assistants and grounds

A few days ago, I distributed flyers in my neighborhood advertising for dog training assistants, and within a few hours, got a phone call from a young woman named Genny, a high school student planning on animal studies when she goes to college.

A few days later, another young woman named Annette called, with a friend, Liza, also interested in participating.

Just like that, Laddie and I no longer needed to train alone every day.  All three girls are juniors in high school and live within half a block of me. I don't know how I'd have found them without the flyers.

Some days only one or two are available, sometimes we have all three and can actually run Field Trial-scale triples with real human throwers. I believe this will be an improvement in our training arrangements.

On top of that, about the same time, I also located new training grounds, 15-20 mins from home. Like many of the best local places I've found for training, this location is a construction site, where someday hundreds of houses will be built. Not long ago, it was private farm land and woods, not available or useful for field training.  Now it's cleared, cross-crossed with dirt roads and drainage ditches, and covered with a variety of surfaces including bare ground, grass, strips of high cover, and rocks filling some of the ditches. The grounds are naturally somewhat hilly, and the bulldozers have helped us out even further, creating mounds, ridges, and depressions with steep embankments. The place is so big that we have many potential lines for marks and blinds. No one is around when we train in late afternoon, county leash laws do not apply because we're on private property, and the gun stations I set up are far enough from nearby housing that, at least so far, our pistol fire has drawn minimal attention and no complaints.

Training with inexperienced assistants on a construction site with no water doesn't put us on an even footing with many of the teams we compete against, who routinely train with field trial groups on actual field trial properties. I say this not so much to complain, but to help any reader learning the sport understand how important it is to train with a group whenever possible. That said, I think having human throwers is still a big step up from training alone, and I'm grateful to have found new training grounds so close to home. 

Now we'll have to see whether it all starts to translate into more success in competition.

LL&L

Five tomorrow

Today, Laddie competed for the last time as a four year old, with his birthday tomorrow. This was his third trial of the year, and as with the others, he was dropped after one series.  In fact, we honored on lead.

However, I don't feel as bad as I might. Running as #8, and the fifth working dog, Laddie nailed the go-bird flyer at 220y on the right, and had a reasonable hunt on his second retrieve, the retired bird at 130y on the left.  He also took a nice initial line to the middle bird at 160y, but cheating around a wide strip of cover, he ended up behind the gun with no wind to help him. He seemed to be on a reasonable hunt for awhile, but eventually got out across a distant road, and one of the judges became worried he might get hurt in the power company's cables that had been left lying out there.  By that time he was too far out to hear my whistle or even the bird-boy's hey-hey, so the judge offered for the marshal to take me out in a four-wheeler to pick him up.  Seeing me, Laddie ended up picking the bird up and we trotted back in together. My knee and back are still hurting these days, but I wasn't feeling any pain at the time.  Being out in the field with my dog feels good.

So we honored on lead, like all the dogs who had run before us. And we got a nice compliment about the first mark from the judge, who commented that it was nice to see Laddie's work after half the earlier dogs had needed the thrower's help on that mark.

I hung around on the off chance that they'd end up scrapping the test, but after a while, the temps were up 20 degrees (perhaps enlarging scent cones), the wind picked up enough to start helping the dogs who were downwind of their birds, the falls had more scent, and the lines to the falls had more drag scent. First some of the dogs started picking up all the birds with a handle, and then with no handle. The first two times a dog ran the series with no handle, the gallery broke into applause, but after that, it became clear that the test had changed and people just watched and chatted.

I don't feel Laddie or I embarrassed ourselves, if you set aside the fact that Laddie should be winning every trial he runs.  For Laddie's part, his first mark was excellent, his mark on the retired gun was reasonable considering that that mark, too, had finished a couple of the earlier dogs, and his returns were satisfactory. For my part, I showed Laddie the birds in the order as intended, I lined him up on the correct first mark before calling for the birds (unlike one of the pros), and I had learned my lesson from the previous trial so that, when Laddie lined up on the retired gun after returning with the flyer, although I had planned to run him on the middle mark that had been thrown second, I immediately accepted his selection, realigned myself, and sent him to the earlier memory-bird, retired though it was.

Despite Laddie not seeing a land blind in competition yet this year, I don't think we're outclassed at this level, and I'm not ready to throw in the towel.

I will, however, look for opportunities to have my new bird-girls help when Laddie's marking is a little weak.  I would have liked for him to look for the gunner on that last mark when he started to get lost, and to me, that's something that we've lost by having no field trial group to train with.  On the other hand, running so many poorman marks may have given him more confidence on retired marks than some dogs at his level.

Now it's time for the trip back home, for a total of seven hours driving this morning. At least Laddie can catch some z's while we're on the road.  After a 3:30am wake-up, I wish I could.

LL&L

Follow up on "Simulating flyers"

I tried something like what I described in my previous post with Laddie and two assistants later that day. It didn't work well at all, and I'm glad it didn't. I see now that it was a bad idea.

The set up we tried was a 240y mark over variable and hilly terrain on a field we've never used before, and a second gun station off to the side at 60y. I directed the bird-girl at the side station to wave a bumper and blow a duck call while Laddie was supposed to be watching the throw of the long mark -- not easy even without the distraction because his field of vision also contained other white objects, this being a construction site. I then had the bird-girl on the side continue waving and blowing the duck call as I sent Laddie to retrieve the long mark.

It took some effort, but I was able to get Laddie to watch the long mark. However, he was unable to make a good outrun to pick it up. He repeatedly stopped to look at the other thrower, and kept veering toward her. A couple of times I called him back to the start line and resent him. The last time I just kept calling "back" each time he'd turn toward her. I must have had to say "back" ten times.

After seeing the issues and thinking them thru, I see that this was an epically awful idea, for at least two reasons:

(1) It is not unprecedented for me to forget the order of the throws at a practice day or competition, and line up the dog (Lumi or Laddie) on the wrong first gun before calling for the throws. Both my dogs have always rescued me from that mistake by turning to the correct gun when the duck call or gunshot sounded. On her WC land double some years ago, I didn't line Lumi up incorrectly, but she turned on the sound of the flyer pheasant's WINGS when the time came, giving her a great look at the mark instead of just watching the bird fall after being shot. It is now obvious to me that I would not want to lose my dogs' ability to turn instantly to sounds indicating that a bird is being thrown, since normally they would mean that a bird really is being thrown.

(2) The idea of expecting Laddie to ignore a thrower waving and blowing a duck call while Laddie was running to another mark was, if I may say so, idiotic beyond words. In general, that behavior on the part of a thrower is called "helping", because sometimes the dog is running the wrong way and the handler calls for a gunner to help by doing such things as standing, waving, calling hey-hey, and blowing a duck call. If I were crazy enough to continue down this road and succeeded in training Laddie to ignore such "distractions", it would then become impossible for me to call for help in the future.

Needless to say, I don't intend to try that "training plan" again.

Before closing, I thought I'd mention that while it's true that twice this year Laddie has run poorly on long marks in competition, I have set up longer, more difficult marks in practice repeatedly over the last couple of weeks, including today, just to work on long singles, or doubles featuring a long single. For at least a week, including today, Laddie has run extremely well on them, in most cases taking and holding a great line (rather than, for example, running at the gun), then nailing them without any need for a hunt. To me this says that his vision seems to be fine, seeing the throw itself as well as the thrower, to say nothing of Laddie's desire and marking talent.

Based on those observations, I don't yet have an explanation for his difficulty at the trials, other than two possibilities: the fact that those were Field Trial triples (which Laddie has seen very few of the last year) and general Event Discount Factor, Alice Woodyard's term for the loss of performance that results from the excitement and distractions unique to the competition experience. If those are the problems, I think I know the solution that most trainers use: regular group training with a Field Trial group, where triples are often thrown and event conditions are somewhat simulated. But that solution is not available to Laddie and me, no matter how aggressively I've pursued it, of course risking further alienating people just by repeatedly trying to arrange to train with them.

I belong to four retriever clubs, which gives me access to occasional training days, but most of those are Hunt Test setups, and I'm not sure how much they really add to Laddie's Field Trial preparation. Of the two that run FT setups, one of them has only one training day per year, and the other seems to suspend training during competition season.

The closest I've come to an alternative solution lately was to distribute flyers advertising for "dog training assistants" in my neighborhood. So far I've lined up three high school girls, though we haven't succeeded in finding a time when all three could come out at once yet. This is an expensive solution, and at the same time it's a long way from simulating the full context of an event, nor does it have all the advantages of training with experienced field trainers on a competition-quality property. In addition, I don't know how long I can go on spending hundreds of dollars a week this way. But hopefully for now it will give Laddie better preparation than what we've had in a long time.

LL&L

Simulating flyers

Flyers are a retriever's favorite thing in the world, so on behalf of the dog, it's always great to see a flyer station as part of a series.

But flyers present challenges. Both Lumi and Laddie would sometimes fail to bring a flyer back on their early days.  And both dogs also needed a lot of work in their steadiness with flyers as the working dog and especially honoring.

This post isn't about those challenges. Rather, this post is about the challenge a flyer presents for line mechanics, and an idea for a drill that can be run without actual flyers to work on those issues.

First to describe the issues. It's not unusual in my experience to see the judge place a flyer station as the go-bird well to one side of the field and fairy short, maximizing its suction away from the other marks. If the dog swings her head to the flyer station prematurely, she doesn't get a good look at the early throws, or may miss the second mark of a triple entirely.

On the other hand, if the dog holds her gaze on the first bird until the next gunshot, and then misjudges the direction of the sound and out of wishful thinking turns to look toward the flyer rather than the second gunner, again she may not see the second throw or may only glimpse it.

If the judges meanwhile decide to retire the second gun, as well as stacking other factors against the dog on that mark, you have a pretty good challenge.

But if you don't have many opportunities to train with flyers, how do you prepare a dog to exercise good line mechanics in the face of such suction?

Here's one idea: Setup the same sort of triple, complete with retired second mark if desired, and have the gunner at the "flyer" station, whether throwing a bird or a bumper, swing the article and perhaps even yell hey-hey or blow a duck call WHILE the other marks are being thrown.

If the dog can learn to perform well with that sort of distraction, she may be somewhat better prepared to handle a flyer distraction at her next event.

Possible risks I have thought of:

* The training is ineffective, because the dog doesn't generalize the lesson to flyers

* The dog gets so good at ignoring the "flyer" during the early marks that she ignores it, or loses intensity, when it's actually time to watch the flyer.

I'll give this drill a try for a few days and see what happens. Hopefully, at the minimum, no irreversible harm.

LL&L

Remote singles plus land and water blinds

Cheltenham, MD

Yesterday, in Laddie's first field trial (Qual stake) of the year, Laddie's marking, once his strong suit, was so poor on a 210y memory-bird that, even though Laddie did not need to be handled, he was one of the only dogs not to be called back to the land blind.

I see this as, once again, the curse of not having a field trial group to train with.  The fact is that, as simple and routine a triple as was featured in that first series, as much like the triples most field trial dogs see several times a week in their training, Laddie has only seen two or three such triples in the last YEAR.

I'm renewing my efforts to address that deficit.  But today did not achieve that goal. I got up early this dreary, damp, chilly Sunday morning and brought Laddie to the superb training property in Cheltenham, hoping that perhaps I'd find a training group that would let us join them. But the gate was locked on arrival, and even though we stayed two hours, no other trainer ever showed up. So as usual, we were on our own.

I began by running Laddie on three land blinds, taking advantage of the mounds, strips of cover, tree groupings, and slopes to give him some challenges we don't have available on our local fields.  He handled nicely.

Next I decided to try what I'll call a remote single.  As simple as it was, it's not something we've ever run before. But I tried Laddie on a short one and he understood immediately, so we did several more at 180-220y distances.

To run a remote single: Place a lining pole in a visible location you've selected as the start line. Walk with the dog, perhaps throwing fun bumpers or playing tug, out to the area where you want to throw the mark. Show the dog your starter pistol, bring the dog to heel facing the lining pole, use some new cue such as "remote mark" rather than "dead bird", and send the dog with "back". If necessary handle the dog to the lining pole, but this was rarely necessary with Laddie in the eight or ten remote singles we ran today.

When the dog arrives at the lining pole, blow sit whistle. When the dog sits and faces you, call out "sit, mark," just as you would if you were standing beside him about to run him on a mark.  Fire the pistol and throw the mark. Face the dog, so that your posture provides no directional information, and call the dog's name using the same inflection as a send from the line.  If things go right, the dog launches and runs the mark, picks up the bumper or bird, and brings it to you as the thrower.  In theory you can help, like any thrower, if the dog needs it, though that never happened today.

I'm not necessarily recommending remote singles to other trainers. All sorts of things could go wrong. But for Laddie, I think remote singles may be superior to using a Bumper Boy and stickman for several reasons, and they're certainly a lot faster to set up.

For today's remote singles, I didn't have any birds with me, but I used a black bumper because I wanted Laddie to deal with limited visibility on the throw and an invisible target on the outrun, a better simulation of some of the marks we get in competition than using white bumpers.  All my throwing bumpers do have streamers on them, however.

Today's results with this new kind of marking practice were promising. On the first mark, Laddie understood the game but needed more of a hunt than I wanted, perhaps the result of too much of the kind of approximate marking that's reasonable with a "retired" mark, like those he sees so often when we run poorman multiples.  But with a gunner standing there, I feel that he should generally be able to take a perfect line, needing a small hunt only if the fall is in an unusual position, such as at the bottom of a slope on an angle-in from the gunner.

And by the end if the day, Laddie's marking had bounced back and he was running those great lines I've always expected of him. The last remote single today was at 210y, and the line required the dog to climb uphill thru some rough terrain when an easy, unobstructed, and obvious path a little to the right would have brought Laddie to the wrong side of the thrower (me).  Laddie took a laser-straight line to the fall, wrapping up a nice session.

By the way, midway thru the training, despite the near-freezing temps we've been having at night recently, and the fact that our morning temp had only reached 42, Laddie decided to go swimming at one point, apparently to cool off.

Accordingly, I ran a couple of the remote singles so that they featured short swims, and I also ran Laddie on a Qual-like on-and-off-the-point water blind.  He vocalized on the blind, but if you set aside the yelping, he handled great.  I'm afraid that's who this dog is.

I'm thinking of entering Laddie in another trial in a couple of weeks. If we go, I hope he marks the way he was starting to today.

LL&L

Is barking a behavior?

After many months of trying to find a way to cast Laddie during a water blind without him vocalizing, I have finally come to the conclusion that Laddie does not comprehend barking as an operant (voluntary) behavior.

This is consistent with other vocalizing I have worked on with both Laddie and Lumi before him, in Lumi's case, barking while backing up as a freestyle move.

And perhaps more importantly, I've concluded that trying to train the dog to perform a desired behavior, while suppressing the vocalizing that has come to accompany the behavior, runs the risk of damaging performance of the desired behavior without even suppressing the barking, other than if the behavior itself becomes suppressed.

I'm not talking about vocalizing at the line. I suspect -- I'm not sure, but I suspect -- that that can be suppressed, especially if dealt with early in the dog's career, by taking the dog off the line instantly any time she barks, with 100% consistency.  At least I don't see the dog having some other, desired behavior suppressed by that approach.  I feel it would be safe to try, worst case being that the dog could never figure out why she was being taken off the line sometimes.

But I have repeatedly tried various versions of separating the correct response to a cast, with the vocalizing that accompanied it, only to see Laddie become increasing uncertain whether to move at all when cast.  If vocalizing is less than desirable, "ignoring" a cast is disastrous.  I do not believe a trainer can afford for the dog to have any doubt in his mind whatever whether to take a cast.

So is there any solution to the vocalizing? Perhaps.  Here's an approach I had some success with today.

The general idea is to train the behavior itself, adding some element that removes the dog's inclination to bark. After that version is well trained, slowly, gradually, fade the extra element.

Here's today's example of the concept. I placed a duck (highly desirable retrieval article) at the edge of the shore, letting Laddie see me do so from the start line we would be using up the shore from there. Then I walked halfway back to him and threw an orange bumper well out into the water. Returning to Laddie, I lined him up to pick up the duck.

Then I sent him, and he ran along the shoreline toward the duck. At the halfway point, I stopped him with the whistle and cast him into the water toward the bumper.  That's a cast Laddie will take without vocalizing, because her can see the bumper.  After he was a few feet into the water, I stopped him again and cast him back to the duck.  This again was a cast Laddie could take without vocalizing, since he could see the duck or at least had a clear memory that it was there.

Hooray, Laddie just performed a difficult water-handling maneuver involving two casts that would normally be accompanied by vocalizing, but without a sound.

We repeated this several times, always sending Laddie initially toward the bird, both targets always known and more or less visible. Sometimes I let Laddie  finish the original outrun and bring back the bird. Sometimes I let him complete the cast to the bumper.  And sometimes I cast him twice, first over, then back, much as you might need to do in an advanced on-and-off-the-point blind retrieve.  With the known and visible targets, all of that could be done without vocalizing.

But the bird wasn't that visible from the distance. And neither was the bumper if I threw it out far enough and the current carried it even further.  Increasingly, Laddie was taking his casts on faith that the article must be where he had seen it propelled toward. And also that it must be there because it's been in that same location throughout the season.

I ended the session with one send toward the bird's location even though no bird was planted. At the halfway point, I stopped Laddie and sent him "over" to the bumper, far out in the water and possibly not visible to Laddie from shore.  I had laid the groundwork for the double-cast maneuver with the final target not visible, and no vocalizing. That was enough for today.

But I can imagine that on another day, in the same or another location, I will eventually be able to call for the double-cast maneuver without a bumper in the water, as long (initially) as Laddie thinks a bumper is still out there, he just can't see it because it has drifted too far out to see from shore.

And then, perhaps someday, all that practicing of that maneuver, increasingly with invisible targets, will enable Laddie to execute that maneuver in a trial, where there really isn't a bumper out in the water, and he can't see the blind till he gets to it, all without vocalizing. Not because he learned to suppress the barking per se, but because he learned to perform the maneuver without barking.

LL&L

Breaking on honor

Nearly a year ago, I pulled Laddie from competition so we could work on his breaking problem.

Since then, we've trained with flyers nearly every weekend, right thru the winter. Yes, we've had some good sessions, with Laddie steady on seemingly difficult setups.

But today, Laddie broke on honor, one week before our first trial of the year.  Here was the setup:

Land triple plus blind

This was an indent configuration. The first mark was on the right, thrown right to left by Carol's friend Chris at 170y along the tree line.  Chris would later retire into the woods once Laddie was on his way back from the first retrieve. The second mark was on the left, thrown right to left by a Bumper Boy/stickman at 130y, with a duck planted near where the bumper would land so that Laddie could bring back a bird. The third mark was in the center, with Dave throwing and shooting a chukar flyer right to left at 60y.

We also had a blind set up at 240y, on a line to the right of the right gun station. Since that was a hot blind (the bird was planted before the marks were thrown), that's why I had Chris throw right to left, to minimize the chance of Laddie finding the blind while trying to hunt up the retired mark.  I actually would have preferred to throw the retired mark in the opposite direction of the other two marks to see if Laddie would make that adjustment in his memory, but I felt it was still a reasonably challenging triple.

Although the blind was planted, I decided to have Laddie honor Carol's dog on the marks immediately after he ran his triple, and then run him on the blind. I felt he'd be more pumped up, and a little better rested, if we didn't run the blind first, increasing his likelihood of him breaking on honor.

Also, to perhaps increase Laddie's temptation of breaking from the start line when he was the working dog, I had Carol stand with her dog in a "cold honor" a little closer to us than the usual honor, and closer to where the flyer would fall than Laddie's position.

Laddie did fine on his triple. He was steady; he nailed the flyer; he nailed the bumper and then, experience telling him there was a bird nearby, he spotted the duck and left the bumper to pick up the duck; he needed a bit of a hunt on the retired mark (including a visit to Chris in the woods) but never got behind (on the wrong side of) the spot where Chris had thrown from.  I've seen Laddie run better lines to a retired gun, but with all the variations in slope he had to traverse, and the basically featureless backdrop of trees, and running as the #1 dog without the benefit of drag scent, and with no other dogs running the same retired mark to compare it to, I felt it was a reasonable job.

Now it was time to honor. I set Laddie a bit further back than I had Carol and her dog, so that again the other dog would be closer to the flyer's fall. I had intended that Carol have her dog watch the big triple (to build Laddie's excitement) even though the dog would only be picking up the flyer, but I forgot to tell Carol, so she called for the flyer immediately.  Dave, a skilled hunter, aimed his shot in such a way that the bird might glide a bit (to increase excitement and perhaps trigger a break), but it worked even better than he planned, with the bird soaring in a big circle around to Dave's other side and then landing behind a small crest. An out of sight fall, too, increases excitement.  Meanwhile, Carol was waiting for the bird to land to send her dog.

I was standing at Laddie's right flank, facing away from the field with my eyes on Laddie, our standard honor mechanics, so I couldn't see what was going on. I glanced away from Laddie to see why Carol hadn't sent her dog, and at that instant Laddie broke. I yelled "here" repeatedly and chased after him, but he didn't respond and I didn't catch up to him till we were in the area of the fall.  Before he could find the bird, I yelled "sit", he did, and I grabbed him by his shoulders, rolled him onto his back, and held him pinned while reviewing with him the guidelines about how to honor in a somewhat elevated tone of voice. We then heeled to the van and Laddie could see Carol's dog running to pick up the bird. Finally, I heeled Laddie back to an honor position while Dave threw two more singles for Carol's dog. Dave used the chukars again and tried to create as much excitement as possible, and Laddie was steady, which was good, but I doubt he thought the birds were alive. 

Dave and Carol both felt it was a valuable lesson for Laddie, and I grant his heeling was noticeably more attentive after the correction than before it.  However, I'd have been a lot happier to see Laddie fall sleep during the honor, showing a true comprehension that it flat wasn't his bird,  than have to hope that today's correction will matter much next weekend.

To end the session, I fired the Bumper Boy again as a poison bird and then ran Laddie on the blind. He handled well, which may say more about the difficulty of creating challenging factors for Laddie on that field than necessarily predicting success running land blinds in our upcoming trial.

Five more days to train before the trial, less really since I'll rest Laddie at least one of those days. We'll run land blinds and poorman multiples for sure, and get in some water blinds if possible. I see no opportunity for water marks, which means Laddie will be seeing big water marks at the trial, assuming we get that far on call-backs, for the first time in nearly a year. What a terrible disadvantage that puts him at compared to the professionally-trained dogs we'll be competing against, some of whom have been training with real humans throwing event-like water series for them right thru the winter at training facilities in the south.  This is the curse of not having a group to train with.  Well, we'll just have to see how Laddie fares.

LL&L

Retired guns and honoring

Rixeyville, VA

Sunny, low 40s, light variable wind. 

For today's training with Dave, we were fortunate enough to have another trainer and her dog: my dogs' holistic vet, Carol Lundquist, and her remarkable Bernese Mountain Dog, Dyna. Dyna is so versatile that among titles in other sports, she's earned a herding championship unprecedented for her breed, and once took a placement in a Super Singles event for retrievers.

Although Carol enjoys retriever training with Dave, she and Dyna were primarily there this morning as a favor to me, so that Laddie could work on steadiness honoring.  As an unexpected bonus, Carol brought along a friend named Chris, and he went out in the field to act as a thrower for each of the two triples we ran.  Since we had a human thrower rather than a remote launcher, that meant we could also try Laddie out on some retired guns.  Yay!

I also asked Carol to have Dyna honor Laddie as he was running each series.  Since Laddie was running the series first, this was a cold honor for Dyna.  Though I would think cold honoring probably provided little if any training benefit to Dyna, I think it was beneficial for Laddie.  It added an element of competitiveness for the bird, with the potential for triggering an anticipatory break.  In addition, it introduced the distraction and excitement of a nearby intact female.  Finally, it simulated the picture that Laddie will experience as the working dog in a competition, with the preceding dog now honoring.  The more experience Laddie can have with success in a context similar to competition, the better his chances would seem to be in a real event.

Here are the series we ran today:

SERIES A. Land triple plus blind

The first mark of Series A was in the middle, with Chris throwing a pheasant right to left at 230y.  The second mark was on the right, using a stickman and a remote launcher to throw a bumper left to right on an angle back at 130y.  A duck was planted near where the bumper would fall so that Laddie would spot the bird and retrieve that, leaving the bumper behind.  The third mark was on the left, with Dave throwing and shooting a chukar flyer left to right at 30y.  Once the dog picked up the flyer and headed back to the start line with it, Chris retired into the woods to the right, so that when the dog came to heel and looked out at the field, the long gunner would no longer be visible.

Laddie ran the triple first, with Dyna in a cold honor as mentioned earlier.  Then Laddie honored as Dyna watched all the throws and was released to the flyer.  Once Laddie had successfully honored, I brought him back to the van for a few fun throws of his softball.  Then I brought him back out to run a 180y blind from the same start line.  The line to the blind was under the arc of the throw for the flyer go-bird.  The gunners were no longer in the field, but the bird crate still containing two live chukars was a few feet to the left of the line to the blind.  Since Dyna only runs singles these days, and so far had only retrieved the flyer, I went out and threw a chukar for Dyna at 70y to finish the work on this series.  Both of her marks were dead on, by the way.

Laddie's performance in Series A: Most importantly in terms of today's training objective, he was completely steady both working and honoring.  On the honor, Laddie actually stood up when Dyna was released to pick up her flyer, but he didn't break for the bird.  Instead, he immediately turned away from the field, apparently realizing that picking up the bird was out of the question and so looking forward to playing back at the van as the next best option.

When running the marks, Laddie nailed the go-bird and the bird on the right.  For the long memory bird with the retired gun in the center, he made up his mind at the start line that the fall was further to the left than it really was, and even though I locked his gaze onto the correct line before sending him, once I sent him, he immediately veered to the left.  However, when he reached the tree line and after a short hunt was unable to find the bird, he finally turned and raced over to the real fall, quickly coming up with the bird.

Laddie slipped a whistle on the 180y blind, so I called out "SIT" and went out to pick him up, quietly walking him back to the start line on lead.  I call that procedure a Walk Out.  I've found it effective in making the dog less likely to slip whistles thereafter, at least in the short term, since it deprives the dog of the objective he or she had in slipping the whistle in the first place, getting to the bird.  Back at the start line, I ran Laddie on the blind again.  This time he apparently knew where the bird was and would have lined it, but I had Laddie sit twice, once at 120y and again at 170y, just to confirm the lesson that a correct response is rewarded by a cast to the bird, in contrast to the outcome of a Walk Out that he had experienced a little earlier for slipping the whistle.  A sit when Laddie knows where the bird is is much easier than one where he doesn't -- Laddie is highly motivated by curiosity -- but it's all I had available at that point.

SERIES B. Land triple plus blind

Lately Dave and I have planned our setups so that one of the flyers would be a short mark and the other would be a long mark, giving Laddie experience with both kinds of flyer distances in each session.  The shorter marks are breaking birds, unlikely to occur at such short distances in a Qualifying stake from my experience, but really testing Laddie's steadiness both working and honoring.  The longer marks are more like what Laddie might see as the flyer's distance in a Qualifying stake, so we want to make sure Laddie is experienced with, and steady with, flyers at those distances as well.  However, I've never seen a flyer thrown as anything but the go-bird in a Qualifying stake, whereas Dave often throws the long flyer as a memory bird in our setups. Today was another example of that.

For Series B, the first mark was again in the center, with Dave throwing and shooting a chukar flyer left to right at 180y.  The second mark was on the left, with Chris throwing a pheasant right to left so that it landed behind a crest and behind a strip of cover at 140y.  Chris would again retire once he was out of the dog's sight when the dog was later sent to the first mark.  The third mark was the stickman and the remote launcher, throwing right to left at 80y, with a pheasant planted near the fall for the dog to pick up instead of the launched bumper.  A hot blind was planted at the previous start line, now between the first two marks at 160y, at the top of a diagonal slope.

Laddie again ran the triple first with Dyna in a cold honor.  Then Laddie honored Dyna, with no suggestion of breaking.  The flyer mark was more difficult to honor than it might have been because Dave had to fire several times and the bird soared a long way, finally landing behind a crest.  That kind of a fall seems to hold great attraction for Laddie, but again, he seemed to understand that it wasn't his bird and made no effort to break for it.

Dyna had a lot of difficulty finding the bird at that distance, especially after the long glide, and eventually Dave and Carol met in the middle of the field to assist Dyna in finding the bird.  That looked to me like a good diversion for Laddie, so I brought him to the start line to run the 160y blind while all that was still going on.  Laddie found the situation more confusing than I expected, and though he held a good line, twice he started to turn as if about to pop.  In each case, I blew a sit whistle before he could pop and cast him back.  After those two casts, he went into his usual after-burner gear and charged up the hill.  His line was a little too far to the right, but he responded well to a whistle and cast to the bird.

I'll end by describing how Laddie ran the Series B triple.  First of all, he made it clear at the start line that he wanted the long flyer first, rather than the shorter go-bird on the left, so I decided not to let this be a conflict.  If it comes up in competition, I'll take the same approach.  Laddie nailed the flyer despite the long distance and general difficulty of finding a chukar in that terrain.  When he brought it back, I sent him to the short go-bird mark on the left, and he took an incorrect line, reaching the correct distance but on the wrong side of the stickman.  Without hesitation he then raced past the stickman to the duck and picked it up.  I suspect that he had never seen that throw, and was relying on the bird being throwing distance from the stickman, though it may have just been a lapse of memory.

Finally, I sent Laddie to the mark on the right, where by now Chris had retired.  Laddie took a perfect line and disappeared over the crest.  He came back several seconds later, so from where Carol and I were standing, it looked like an excellent mark.  But later Chris told me that Laddie had picked the bird up as soon as he reached it, but had carried it a short distance, dropped it, looked around for a few seconds, and finally picked it up again and headed home with it.  All of that happened behind the crest so Carol and I couldn't see it happening.  I'm not thrilled that Laddie dropped the bird, and I question whether a traditionally trained dog would have been capable of it.  On the other hand, I think it's unlikely -- not impossible, but unlikely -- that a mark will fall out of sight in Qualifying stake, which means that in an event, I'd be able to blow a come-in whistle as soon as Laddie had the bird.  That's no guarantee that Laddie still wouldn't have a poor return, since he has a history of them.  But it might not have happened in that particular way.

If Chris trains with us again, I'll suggest to him that he wave when a dog picks up a mark he's thrown, especially if the dog isn't visible from the start line, as a more experienced thrower would probably have done.

Laddie's work wasn't perfect today.  But he showed excellent steadiness and ran the marks reasonably well, including nailing one of the retired guns.  Learning that he couldn't succeed by slipping a whistle, even with people and dogs around -- simulating an event context -- was also probably a good lesson.  I felt it was a good session as we prepare for competition later this month, and was pleased for the opportunity to work on such key skills.

LL&L

Typical practices

Since I don't have time to maintain a daily journal, and it would tend to be pretty repetitious most days any way, I've begun limiting my journal entries here to those when I have the time and also feel I have something at least vaguely interesting to say.

At the same time, the purpose of this blog is to provide a record, for me or any other reader now or in the future, on the training of a competition field retriever without the use of physical aversives.

I don't want large gaps in this journal to make it appear as though we're not training every day.  We train even when I'm having physical problems — for example, we've continued daily training even when I was on crutches — or because of bad weather — for example, we've trained on the fringes of hurricanes and in snow storms. I make exceptions, for example if the ground is icy and poses a risk to Laddie running on it, but those days are rare, and were especially rare this last winter.  Also, my work occasionally becomes simply too demanding for me to take even a little time for Laddie's training.  But again, we almost always have time at least to run a few blinds.

So in this post, I'll just itemize the sorts of typical working sessions we're currently having on those days when I don't write a post:

• If the weather is in a stretch of temps below 40 degrees, we don't do any water work.  In previous years, we have done a little water training even in freezing weather, which I felt, based on correspondence with Alice Woodyard, was appropriate for Laddie's training challenges at that time.  I've documented such sessions in this blog.  But nowadays, I don't think it's necessary or valuable to work Laddie in water that's likely to be colder than 40 degrees and I don't do it.  If he goes in himself, I might throw a hey-hey bumper or two, but that's it.
• Typically, I'll set up and run Laddie on a series from one start line, then set up and run another series from a different start line. The series might be on the same field in different orientations, on different nearby fields, or on different fields in different locations.  They all might be included in one continuous session, or we might do several sessions the same day separated by hours.  We might do anywhere from a single series, if time is really short or other constraints prevent more work, to six or more series when that seems appropriate.
• Typically all of our focus is on a single skill the whole day — land blinds, inline triples, quads — but sometimes a day might have more than one kind of session, or a session that combines multiple training objectives.  Working on a single goal is far more common, however.
• For some sessions, we concentrate exclusively on blinds, which in cold weather means land blinds.  In a couple of recent sessions, it's been warm enough for water blinds as well.  The blinds are almost invariably in the range of 150y-350y (land), 120y-180y (water).  I try my best to come to the start line not hoping that Laddie will run well, but rather that he'll slip a whistle and require me to use a Walk Out.  I feel this is an important mind-set, but I admit it's not an easy one for me to maintain.  The psychological impulse is to cheer for the dog, and also to save the time and energy that Walk Outs require.
• For some sessions, we concentrate entirely on marking.  Since I have been unable to find a training group to train with for some time, we don't have gunners to help.  I could use our two Bumper Boys, but I rarely do any more.  One reason is that it's much more time consuming.  But a stronger reason is my belief — purely a theory, I have no proof for it — that poorman marks help a dog, or at least Laddie, develop the skills needed for successfully running marks with retired guns in competition.  After all, a poorman mark is similar to a retired gun: the dog sees a thrower in a white jacket make the throw, but the gunner isn't there while the dog is running the mark.  The similarity is even stronger for a multiple: the dog arrives back at the start line after each retrieve, looks out in the field, and sees no gunners out there to help the dog remember where the falls are.  Thus the dog must find other ways to remember the lines, even though the gunner is visible when the throws are being made.  We don't see a lot of true retired guns running Qualifying stakes, but we do see quasi-retired guns when the visibility to a thrower is poor because of the terrain, and we also see hidden guns all the time on club training days.  I'm pleased with Laddie's skill in all those situations: He really doesn't seem to need a gunner to be visible when he's running a mark, yet he seems to take advantage of the data when it's available.  So you might say I've been reinforced for using lots of poorman marks in our daily training.
• These days, I generally run Laddie on quadruple marks.  My feeling is that I want him to come back to the start line in competition remembering, and ready to go out for, another bird.  I've never seen a quad in competition, but this would be an example of over-training to try to compensate for the drop-off in skill that invariably occurs, for both the dog and the handler, in the excitement of a competitive event.  If Laddie marked poorly on quads in our practice, I'd drop back to triples, but since he seems to have an excellent memory, I feel that quads are beneficial.  This will especially true if we ever get a real quad in competition.
• It's not unusual for me to work on a specialty topic in a particular session.  Those would be the days I'd try to write a post, but that's not always possible.  A typical subject for a specialty session would be water blinds featuring on-and-off-a-point, which is something Laddie and I worked on a great deal last fall before the weather turned cold.  My goal was to help him learn to run such blinds without vocalizing.  We'll see how things turn out as competition resumes this year.  I've pretty much given up on that training objective.  If Laddie yelps when taking his casts, and the judge penalizes his scoring because of it, I think that's just something we're going to have to live with.
• Another occasional specialization subject is in-line triples, in which three marks are all thrown in the same direction, so that all the gunner stations, and all the falls, are in one continuous line, fairly closely spaced.  I've found that Laddie continues to find it somewhat difficult to remember the middle fall, or at least tends to try to pick up the long bird immediately after the go-bird rather than running the marks in the reverse order of the throws, as I require him to do for in-lines.  I think these setups are actually hardest when the first (longest) gunner remains visible, rather than when he's retired.  I won't say more about this at this time, it's just something we work on some times.
• I'll end by mentioning that on weekends, usually on Sundays, Laddie and I almost invariably drive down to Rixeyville, VA, to train with Dave.  He is usually able to obtain live flyers — ducks if possible, pheasants as a second choice, otherwise chukars or even pigeons — and we set up series in which Dave shoots the flyers for us.  The primary goal of these sessions is to work on Laddie's steadiness, so on a typical day, in at least one series the flyer will be thrown at long distance (at least 150y), more typical of Qualifying stakes, and in at least one series, the flyer will be thrown at close range (as little as 20y), trying to simulate an extreme breaking test.  Earlier this year, I brought along Lumi on these training days and tried various strategies to let Laddie honor Lumi after running the series himself.  However, Lumi's arthritis has made her reluctant to leave the house when it's cold, and without an extra handler, I'm not convinced that the training setups we use — such as letting Laddie sit by himself to honor while I handle Lumi — are really providing meaningful preparation for competition, which never has that picture.  In any case, the three fields Dave and I usually train on have no water, and we usually set up triples by using stickmen and Bumper Boys for two of the gunning stations.  Dave usually also sets up one or more land blinds for each session, typically 150-250y. As a long-time AKC field judge, Dave is skillful at incorporating factors into his setups that elude my analysis until I actually try Laddie out on them.  Dave sometimes lets me know in advance what difficulties he expects Laddie to have so that I can react better when they happen.

I think the notes I've listed above represent a fairly comprehensive summary of our typical daily training at Laddie's current stage of development.

Early spring water work

Seneca Creek Park

Though it's still technically winter, we had temps in the low 70s today, so I decided to try Laddie on some longish swims, 120-150y. We trained at a regional park where, fortunately,  I  was able to obtain permission to train Laddie off lead from the park manager a few weeks ago.

I found a stretch of shore with a slight point of land protruding at midpoint and ran Laddie in blinds to 2" orange bumpers in both directions. I was able to handle him on and off the point the second time. 
A bystander began asking questions, and after awhile, I asked her to throw a double for Laddie. Wearing my white handlers jacket, she threw a 3" white bumper as memory-bird on the far shore, and a go-bird as far out into the choppy water as she could throw a 2" white bumper.  I forgot to tell her to say hey-hey, but Laddie saw both throws.

The challenge in the go-bird was that the bumper was invisible from the distance. Laddie had to hold his line in 15-20 mph winds, gusting to 40, blowing into shore, and yet compensate for the current carrying the bumper back toward the thrower. I don't actually understand how he figured out the trajectory, but after the long swim, I saw him swimming back toward me. Had he given up? No, soon I saw the bumper in his mouth. He had apparently swum straight to it and had not needed to hunt in the waves.

The challenge on the memory-bird was the point of land. The strong wind and current pushed Laddie hard toward shore, but as on the blinds and the first mark, he shouldered into them, refusing to give in. He held his line all the way to the far shore, arcing out just a little to stay clear of the point.

I felt good about his work.

LL&L

Two triples with blinds

Rixeyville, VA

Sunny, mild winter temps.  Wind calm.

Laddie, Dave, and me training alone, using Bumper Boys and stickmen for extra gunners.  No opportunity to work on honoring. Dave had been able too obtain two chukars.

I told Dave before we started that I didn't want any marks longer than 180y, that I wanted to give Laddie a chance to train on Qual-style triples and blinds. I especially wanted to see his marking without the weather conditions, not typical of Quals I've been to, that have been so much affecting his performance the last few sessions.

Series A. Out-of-order land triple plus blind

For Series A, Dave stood on a hillside at 180y on the right side of the field.  For the first mark, he threw and shot a flyer right to left, with the fall over a crest and invisible from the start line.  For the second mark, I fired a Bumper Boy in the center of the field beside a stickman, left to right on an angle back with the fall at 160y.  For the third mark, I fired a BB on the left of the field beside a stickman, right to left on an angle in at 70y.  A hot blind (OB) at an LP on a 45 degree angle lay on a line behind the middle gun station, with the blind at 220y.  The terrain was hilly, and the line to the blind included a stretch diagonally across a slope.

Although I wanted to run the triple as in an event, Laddie would never have seen the go-bird if I'd just fired it on a normal cadence.  He watched Dave's throw, of course, and seemed to get a reasonable look at the middle throw, but even though I'd shown him all three gun stations (in reverse order) before calling for the first throw, Laddie never turned to look at the stickman on the left, even after I repeatedly sounded the BB's duck call.  The sound was faint, and the woods-encircled field had echoes that made it difficult to pinpoint sounds.  Instead of wasting the setup, I cued "Sit" and moved in front of Laddie to get his attention on me, then repositioned him until he was locked in on the stickman on the left.  I fired that BB and sent Laddie.

Of course, he nailed that mark.  I sent him to the flyer next.  Dave was quite happy with how Laddie ran that mark.  True, Laddie began hunting short, and ended up with a relatively long hunt, but it was within a confined area.  Laddie never considered leaving the area of the fall and never got behind the gun.  Considering the fact that chukars are almost invisible lying in this clumpy hayfield, and apparently have little scent, I guess Dave felt Laddie did a nice job.  I sent Laddie to the middle mark last.  He took a line a bit on the inside but never behind the gun, and darted over to the bumper as soon as he got out there.

Laddie had no difficulty with the blind.

Series B.  Land triple with breaking bird, plus triple

We only moved the gun stations a bit for Series B, but the marks all were thrown in different directions, and we ran from the other side of the field.  The distances were roughly the same, and the blind was once again on a line to the right of the middle gun.

The first mark was a BB and stickman on the right of the field, throwing LTR at 180y.  

Again, I had intended to run this as a triple, but suspecting that Laddie might head-swing to the flyer, I notified Dave that if Laddie looked off either of the first two marks before watching it to the ground, I'd send him immediately.  That's exactly what happened on the first mark.  When I sent him, Laddie didn't no-go, but the line he took showed that he was confused, apparently thinking that at least one of the other marks must have also been thrown and so not knowing what line to take.  He eventually popped, but I just froze.  After a moment or two, he swung around and nailed the mark that had been thrown.

We then ran the middle mark and Dave's mark on the left as a double.  The first mark was a BB and stickman in the middle of the field, throwing LTR at 160y.  The second mark was David throwing and shooting a flyer from the left of the field.  The bird was active, and Dave shot it in such a way that it had a long glide to ground and remained active on the ground, with the fall at 30y.

I would have sent Laddie early again if he'd swung his head, but he didn't, so we ran it as planned.  He nailed both marks.  He then ran the blind needing only one whistle.

Dave asked me afterwards, "Well, are you still worried about Laddie's marking?"  No, I wasn't, although failing to see the last mark in Series A could have knocked us out of an event, as well as head-swinging as Laddie did in Series B.

But Dave and I were both pleased to see that Laddie had learned the intended lesson when he was sent early on the first mark of Series B,  Over all, it seems to have been a productive session.

LL&L

Diversion blinds

Today I took Laddie to the huge field we used to train on with the neighborhood kids, but rarely do these days.  The problem is that it's mostly flat and lacking in features.

However it was good for today's work: a total of twelve blinds, distances in the range 120-250y.

Six of the blinds were 2" orange bumpers, stood up in the dry cover. The other six were 3" white blinds with lining poles.

The orange and white bumpers were in pairs. In each case, the orange bumper was 20y further from the start line than the white bumper and lining pole. The lines to the two were just a few degrees apart, so that Laddie had to run past the white bumper to get to the orange bumper.  For half the pairs, the line to the orange bumper passed to the right of the white bumper. For the other half, the line to the orange bumper passed to the left.

I had Laddie run each pair by handling him to the orange bumper first, then sending him for the white bumper as a freebie, that is, no handling required.

I've heard that judges actually set this sort of thing up occasionally. But more importantly, even without a "poison bird", it's commonplace for the dog to think she knows where the bird is when she doesn't. This drill is intended to help the dog gain experience handling in those situations.

Unfortunately, today's work wasn't much of a challenge for Laddie, but he had fun. Between the blinds and the hey-hey bumpers afterwards, he also got in some work on his endurance, which may have suffered a bit over the winter.

HT training day

Remington, VA

On Sunday, Laddie and I went to a training day with a club that focuses mostly on AKC Hunt Tests and NAHRA events, in contrast to the previous day, when we trained with a group running Field Trial setups.

Sunday's work consisted of a land series featuring a triple and three blinds, followed by a water series again featuring a triple and three blinds.  In each case, the three available blinds were scaled separately for Senior, Master, and Field Trial dogs, with no dog running more than two of them.

I was pleased with Laddie's marking.  He nailed all six marks, and in the water series, never seemed to consider cheating on the two marks that cut across coves despite the cold air and cold water (it's early February, after all).  Laddie also ran his two land blinds well.  He completed his two water blinds, but I think it would have required a generous judge to call him back on either of them.

While I was pleased to have the opportunity to run Laddie with a group, even on set-ups that were scaled for a Hunt Test, I was also pleased to have the chance to "run" the advanced group.  That is, I got to design the setups, and run the line, for both series.  For the land series, it was just the Senior/Master dogs, including a few dogs who, like, Laddie, will be running in Field Trials this year.  For the water series, instead of a separate novice group, all the dogs ran together, so the setups needed to include versions for dogs at an even wider spectrum of levels.  Some of the other trainers had great suggestions on how we could provide versions for the different levels, and I thought we ended up with good challenges for all the dogs in both series.

It was great fun.

LL&L