Laddie dropped after third series

Tidewater RC Qual, Farmville, VA

On Saturday's land triple, around-the-horn with the long memory bird retired, Laddie had great line mechanics, watched every throw, and nailed every mark.

On the land blind, he needed only one whistle, with a prompt sit and an accurate cast.

On the water blind, he maintained a tight corridor, challenged the line, sat on every whistle, and took high quality casts.

In addition, Laddie did not pop all day.

Based on my admittedly limited experience, I thought we were in a tie for First. Instead, we were not called back to run the final series.

Of course I wondered why, and asked the marshal to check with the judges for me. One of them was kind enough to show me her book for Laddie and explain her reasons.  Though I don't remember her exact wording, I'll try to convey what she said, with my annotations in square brackets:

"It wasn't any one thing. Your dog marked extremely well, one-whistled the land blind, and ran the water blind well. But we just felt you didn't work together as a team. In particular, Laddie visited the gun stations after picking up the two memory marks. He aired on every return [that is, the marking behavior typical of an intact male]. And he was noisy lining up for the land blind [a couple of quiet, excited whines when I said 'dead bird'] and on several of the water casts [his usual mournful vocalizing]. We felt he was doing what he wanted to do, rather than what you were telling him to do."

A one-time National Open judge once told me, "We don't judge the returns." Well, it seems some judges do, since the primary knocks on Laddie's work was about his returns.

Look, I'm not going to say I'm ok. This hurts, make no mistake.  I was rare or unique as owner/trainer/handler of a first field trial dog in the stake, and Laddie -- one of only two Goldens -- was undoubtedly the only positive-trained dog, as he would be in any retriever trial. Yet I feel that Laddie and I put in a good performance against tough competition. I learned from previous mistakes, and Laddie showed off his natural abilities as well as the trained skills he's acquired. Nonetheless, we still have weaknesses, and unfortunately, our weaknesses happened to be the wrong ones for this particular judging team. We're never going to win them all. With other judges, maybe we actually would have been in a tie for First heading into the last series as I thought we were. So maybe this just wasn't our day.

Trial Notes

Series A was the fairly typical Qual combination of a land triple and a land blind by invitation, with call-backs to the next series based on the dog's work in both the triple and the blind. After 26 dogs ran, we had 14 call-backs. Few if any dogs had difficulty with the blind, so I'd say that most if not all of 12 dogs were dropped because of the triple's difficulty, almost half the dogs. The land triple was around-the-horn with the long gun retired and a short flyer as the go-bird. The two memory marks were tight and the flyer gun station was at least 90 degrees to the left, so line mechanics were a significant challenge. Quite a few dogs turned from the first throw to the flyer and never saw the middle throw. Of course, even among those who saw all the throws, some still had long hunts, returned to old falls, switched, or required a handle. Those were the kinds of problems that got dogs dropped.

Since I've seen and had difficulty with that configuration in the past, I knew to run Laddie on the opposite side from the attractive go-bird, even though that meant on the opposite side of the direction of the throw, and I knew to stand near his head as the first two birds were thrown, then step back and turn to let him watch the flyer. He got a great look at all three throws and nailed all the marks, one of the small number of dogs to do so. He then one-whistled the blind, with a prompt sit and accurate cast. He never popped, never dropped a bird on his returns, delivered all the birds to hand, and was in reasonable control while under judgment. I figured we were in a tie for First after the first call-back. I didn't actually see how we couldn't be.

The water blind consisted of 110y land entry whose line passed inches from a tree whose limbs blocked the handler's view of the bird, an angle entry thru reeds into the water, a 130y swim tight to the shoreline with a small point of land at mid point and the shore receding out of sight behind the point, and a 10y climb up the steep embankment of a dam, with the bird planted at the top of the dam (all distances my estimates). Many of the handlers attempted to run their dogs within a couple of yards of the shoreline, and many of them lost the dogs into the reeds that lined the shoreline with that strategy. One pro ran a young dog far wide ("fat") of the shoreline the entire way, and I was sure the dog would be dropped for not challenging the blind, as happened to me once earlier this year when I ran Laddie the same way. It turned out that that dog was not dropped. Laddie and a few others were run fairly clear of the shoreline except at mid-point, when they were intentionally sent to the point and then sent back out wide again, thus demonstrating control and challenging the blind while staying out of trouble most of the way. Laddie never slipped a whistle, never refused a cast -- that is, he always went the direction he was sent -- and never popped. I figured we were still in a tie for first.

However, eight dogs were called back and Laddie was not one of them. I asked the marshal to ask the judges why not (you're not supposed to ask the judges directly), and one of the judges was kind enough to show me her pages on Laddie and explain why he was dropped. I don't have a perfect memory of her wording, but it was something like this: "It wasn't any one thing. We just didn't feel that you worked together as a team. Your dog was doing what he wanted to, rather than what you were telling him to."

Now, you might ask how a dog who watched the dead-bird throws rather than swinging his head to the flyer, and ran two blinds without slipping a whistle or taking a poor cast, could be dropped for "doing what he wanted to." The primary answer is that he "aired" (that is, the typical intact male practice of marking) on many of his returns. Adding to his difficulties with the judges was that he visited the gunners after picking up the birds on the two memory marks. And adding still further was that he was "noisy", meaning that he whined in excitement a little while I lined him up on the land blind, and that he emitted the mournful vocalization he's been giving on water casts since he was quite young.

I don't actually know why Laddie vocalizes on water or when I cue "dead bird". Apparently he has learned at some level that it helps him succeed. However, I'm not going to address vocalizing here. As I understand it, the world of field trainers is divided into two kinds of people: those who have never had a dog that vocalizes and in many cases are sure they know how to fix it, and those who have had a dog who vocalizes, tried everything to fix it, and were never able to.

As for visiting the gunners and peeing during returns, that's our old friend the field recall. Understand, Laddie brought back every bird on the run and with minimal delays. He even brought back the cripple flyer alive, rather than crushing it first to stop it from moving and trying to bite him, as he sometimes does with cripples. But yes, he did detour to show off his bird to the gunners on the two memory marks, and he did stop occasionally to mark the occasional tree or shrub to establish them as "his" territory. If all you cared about was fixing those behaviors using positive methods, I suspect it could be done. However, if you were also trying to train the dog to run field trial marks and blinds, you might find yourself somewhat constrained, since the last thing you want to do is to introduce any conflicts to the dog's otherwise successful natural and trained tendencies.

I'm not going to try to fix the vocalizing again. I've tried before and started getting no-gos, and I'd obviously rather we get dropped by those occasional judges who won't tolerate vocalizing than ruin Laddie entirely.

I guess I'll try working on improving Laddie's returns even more, though he's already come a long way from his dismal returns when he was younger. My initial thought is to call out "No" the moment he detours from a trotting, direct return, put the bird back where it was, walk him to the start line, and have him attempt the entire retrieve again. That might work. Things I can see going wrong: (1) He has no idea why I'm saying "No" so nothing changes except we both get more exercise and I spend more money paying for my assistants for their time (no field trial group will allow us to train with them, so I have to pay HS kids to throw for us). (2) Laddie enjoys the "correction" and the problem gets worse. (3) Laddie decides that his mistake was some behavior I actually want him to continue, such as picking up the bird and bringing it back, and thus a desirable behavior deteriorates. Of course I'll watch carefully and try to make sure none of those bad things happen, though it's never easy to be sure you're correctly correlating the dog's responses to the training methods you're attempting.

This was a psychologically expensive loss, since I felt we were in excellent shape for a placement, possibly even a win, with just one more series to go. At least one of the judges has known me and my training approach since Laddie was a puppy, and I guess she saw what she expected to see, a dog with excellent marking, line mechanics, and handling skills but nonetheless "doing what he wants."

The bottom line is this. The judges in this stake may believe, as virtually all traditional trainers do, that a positive-trained dog can't succeed in field trials, and they made sure of it in this one. 

Last week of 2012 competition

Tomorrow will probably be Laddie's last trial this year. I've been too busy with work to send regular posts, but I thought I'd record how we trained the last week before our last trial of the season.

Saturday and Sunday were off days. That would not have been my choice but none of my assistants were available.

Monday, Laddie and I went with two assistants to Cheltenham to run two water triples, with me throwing the go-bird as a side throw. Every mark except the first side throw tested water honesty, and Laddie was honest on every mark without the need for handling. For the first series, the long mark was retired and the second mark was semi-retired (thrower was mostly hidden once sitting down). Both had difficult lines and Laddie ran them well, but he glanced back at me (a pop) near the end of the long retired mark as he came out of the water after a long swim. For the second triple, our entire field was in shadow (it was after sunset), and the long mark was quite long and complex (four or five water entries), but I kept the gunners out. Laddie nailed all the marks with no popping.

Tuesday I ran Laddie on two land blinds. The first was 130y and featured a mound at 90y, with the line crossing the downslope on one side. I expected that Laddie would veer around it, giving me a handling opportunity, but he held his line so no whistle needed. The second was 310y over complex terrain and required a few whistles, to which Laddie was responsive on  the sits and accurate on the casts. Those were our only blinds of the week. I've been avoiding running blinds and marks on the same day because of my concern that doing so may make popping more likely, as the dog perhaps loses clarity on whether running independently or under control. I would have preferred to train on the weekend and have an off day Monday-Thursday, but at least Tuesday was light training.

Wednesday I was again only able to get two assistants (I usually try for three), but we still ran two land triples with me throwing side throws as the go-bird. Both memory birds were retired on both marks, both triples featured one mark over 300y, and all four memory marks were over difficult, complex terrain, the triples as difficult as I knew how to make them in those locations. Laddie nailed every mark with no popping.

Whereas I viewed Wednesday as a training day, with double-retired guns plus long, complex lines, Thursday was intended as a confidence day. With three assistants, we ran two triples which by size and difficulty level were scaled down to what I've seen as typical in Quals. For the first, a xmas-tree configuration, only the shorter memory bird was retired. For the second, a round-the-horn longest-to-shortest configuration, only the long memory mark was retired. The terrain was somewhat hilly but not too complex. In both series Laddie nailed every mark without popping.
I don't know what surprises await us in the trial on Saturday, and I remain acutely aware of the severe disadvantage we have in not being permitted to train with a field trial group. But I feel Laddie is as prepared as I know how to get him under the circumstances. I'll rest him today, and tomorrow at 330am we'll head out to the trial.

LL&L

Water work

Cheltenham

Nine weeks after Laddie's tail injury, with permission from our holistic vet, I decided to give Laddie a little water work to prepare him for our next competition, a week from today.

With three assistants, and temps in the low 60s, we trained on the big pond at Cheltenham. First, we ran three singles with the guns out as if for a triple, then we ran an actual triple from a separate location at the other end of the pond.

Every retrieve tested Laddie's water honesty, four of them involved relatively long swims, and two of those had the gunner out of sight while Laddie was swimming (a combination of conditions in which he sometimes pops), three had offline points Laddie was to bypass, and one had an online point to be crossed, though I would have accepted Laddie swimming around it.

I felt good about Laddie's work: He took five of the six difficult water entries perfectly the first time sent.  For the sixth, a hundred yard channel swim that he started to run the bank on the first time sent, he looped back as soon as I called him, then took the correct entry and swam the entire distance on the next send. He did not need to be handled all day.

He also did not pop all day, stayed clear of the three points he was supposed to, and ran over the one point he was supposed to.

In a couple of days, we'll return to Cheltenham to work on water honesty at greater distance, in case that comes up in the trial. We'll also run a few more land triples with plenty of retired guns during the next week. In addition, we'll run one or two land blinds one day when we're not running marks. And Friday, Laddie will have the day before the competition off as usual.

Then on Saturday, we'll see how Laddie does after all this time since our last event.

Land triples with two retired guns

Clarksburg Village

Overcast, muggy, temps in low 80s.  Two assistants (Annette and Liza).

Once again, my focus with Laddie was on working toward repairing his tendency to pop.  The plan was to run difficult triples and then, if Laddie popped, immediately call out "No, DOWN," and then call out to have the gunners pick up any bumpers that had not yet been retrieved while I walked out to pick Laddie up.  We'd then go to a new location and start with a new setup.

In an attempt to achieve difficult setups, today I used marks longer than we'd typically see in Quals for the two marks the assistants were throwing, both of the longer guns retired using camouflage umbrellas, and variable terrain that would make it difficult for Laddie to hold a straight line.  Series B, the more difficult of the two, featured marks of 320-170y, both uphill from the start line, and the long mark requiring the dog to traverse several crests, which I've thought might be one of Laddie's triggers for popping.

To make each series a triple, and to give both guns an opportunity to sit down and open an umbrella to hide behind, I threw a bumper to the side after the other two bumpers had been thrown.

My attempt to create setups that would result in Laddie popping was unsuccessful.  Laddie nailed every mark.

I don't really understand what element was missing in order to trigger a pop.  I don't think Laddie was too tired or thirsty, so perhaps those were factors that were missing.  Perhaps also his tail is healing and causing less pain than when he was popping more some weeks ago.

One new theory I have that didn't seem to apply was this: Is it possible that the more I work on Laddie's handling, and the more responsive he gets running blinds, the more likely he is to pop on a mark?  Well, the last couple of days, I took Laddie out to run long blinds rather than marks, and he did well.  Yet I saw no evidence that it increased his probability of popping on today's marks.

I had been thinking a couple of weeks ago that if Laddie had become too likely to pop on difficult marks, it might mean that he could continue to finish Quals but would never be able to receive anything higher than a JAM (or Reserve JAM).  However, after the last few sessions, I'm starting to think that I was being too pessimistic.  Laddie may indeed have an unfortunate propensity for popping, and when he does pop, it will cost us dearly.  But as his recent work shows, he may also be capable of running difficult series without popping, and if that's how he performs in a particular event, at least it won't be popping that holds him back in the scoring.

Given Laddie's performance since I began running him with both long guns retired, I think I'll continue doing that except in setups where a visible gun would actually make it more difficult, in my estimation, to run one of the other marks.  I think we'll also continue to run longer marks than we've typically seen in Qualifying stakes.  This will hopefully work as overtraining — that is, event setups may seem easy by comparison, improving performance and confidence, and perhaps reducing the likelihood of popping — and also will begin to stretch Laddie out for the kind of distances he'll see if we ever run in all-age stakes

Popping on land retrieves, multiple retired guns

Clarksburg Village

Sunny, temps in low 80s, wind calm.  Near drought conditions resulting in hard, dusty ground and much of the cover dried up.

For the last several weeks, I've been limited to training Laddie on land, since he's not allowed to swim until the broken bone in his tail has healed.  Although Laddie is marking well as he always has, I am concerned that he pops (looks at the handler) on marks too frequently.  Some training days we get no pops, but sometimes we get one or even more pops during the session.

Despite a good number of data points, I am not at all certain what factors lead to Laddie popping.  I believe that it generally happens when some combination of the following are involved:

• Relatively long marks
• Retired gunners
• Reaching the top of a rise
• Later in the day (that is, possibly thirsty or a bit tired)
• Broken tail

I mention that last because I think, though I'm not certain, that the popping may be worse now than it was before Laddie broke his tail.

As an example of why I'm not certain of this observation, I was under the impression in recent months that Laddie's vocalizing in water is something that developed after years of training.  However, I recently happened to watch a video of Laddie as, I'd estimate, a one-year-old, and he vocalizes in water in that video.  For some reason, I just didn't notice it for a long time.

While I think those are probably the factors that in some combination result in popping, I can't necessarily trigger a pop by setting up those factors.

As for solving the problem, I've tried a number of approaches.  For example, for several days, I stayed away from any long marks, and introduced retired guns only to the later series of a day's work.  The results seemed gratifying at first, since we had no pops for a few sessions, but then Laddie did pop on a mark that seemed no harder or otherwise different from the kind of marks we'd been running prior.

Yesterday, I considered that possibly I was going about this the wrong way.  I was trying to minimize the possibility that Laddie would experience whatever frustration or other emotional state was leading to the popping.  But yesterday, it occurred to me that eventually, a day will come when Laddie is going to have that feeling, and if he hasn't learned a new response to it, on that day he'll pop.  If it's in competition, it will cost us dearly.  If it's a response that happens, it turns out, in every all-age stake, then it would mean Laddie would never be able to compete at that level.

Accordingly, I decided that I'd try a different approach, and actually run Laddie on more demanding series.  Then, if he popped, I'd instantly call out, "No, DOWN", getting him to lie down, and then call to all the gunners, "Pick it up," words that Laddie knows mean that he won't be able to complete that work.  We'd then move on to another set up, or, if we were out of time, head for home.

Obviously the theory of this approach is that Laddie would want to avoid that happening and so would become less inclined to pop every time he tried popping and encountered that outcome.

It is not necessarily a safe approach.  All sorts of unintended side effects can be imagined, including causing the popping to increase rather than decrease, or possibly some new undesirable behavior such as no-gos.  However, Laddie has probably gone as far as he can in field trial competition unless his popping issue can be solved, so converting it to a different career-ending issue may not put us in any worse position.

Accordingly, today, using three of my birdkids (Annette, Liza, and William), I ran Laddie on two land triples.  Series A was a triple in xmas-tree configuration with two retired guns.  Series B was a triple in around-the-horn configuration, again with two retired guns.  It occurred to me later that these may be the first triples Laddie has ever run with human throwers in which two of the gunners retired.

In each case, the long gun was over 200y, and most of the retrieves involved hilly terrain with angled depressions and rises likely to throw off Laddie's direction if he squared any of them.

However, the go-birds in each series were short and relatively easy, since I was also using today's setups to work on an issue of line mechanics, described in a new article I've added to my "reference" blog:

Line Mechanics: Blocking the Magnet Gun Station

Today's results were mixed.  The good news is that Laddie nailed all the marks but one, and on that one (the long, center, memory bird in Series A), he had a short hunt.  More good news is that he didn't pop, even though he easily could have looked up from the ridge he was hunting on during that one mark while pointed in my direction.  But then again, the fact that he didn't pop might be considered bad news, since it means I didn't get an opportunity to show him the undesirable outcome that would have resulted if he had popped.

It's possible that I could have triggered a pop by running one more series, since he was beginning to pant  even after getting water in his crate, suggesting that he was tired, a bit dehydrated, or both.  While that might have been "good" from the isolated viewpoint of working on Laddie's popping, it didn't feel like good dog-training overall, and I decided it was time to call it a day.

Tomorrow I'll rest Laddie, and then we'll try some more land work on Saturday, Sunday, or both.  Next Friday he gets another X-ray for his tail, and the following week, Carol (our holistic vet) will give me some guidance on when Laddie might be able to begin swimming again.  Soon, I hope.

Broken tail, land training

On the eight hour drive home from our last field trial, I made a grievous error and let Laddie get his tail caught in the van's sliding door about 3am.  X-rays a few days later showed that a bone in his tail, about halfway down, snapped in half like a pencil.  Luckily, the skin was not broken, which could have led to even more serious problems.  But the ends of the bone at the break are beside each other rather than end-to-end, so the tail will never be like new.  Orthopedic surgery to insert a pin and realign the bone, I'm told, would be risky to Laddie's health, might not be successful, and would probably make no difference in Laddie's quality of life or performance in trials, so I'm just going to wait while the ends of the bone hopefully grow together side by side and heal.

Laddie's on an herbal medication called "Pain Relieve", and he won't be able to swim for weeks.  That's because a retriever unavoidable uses his/her tail both for propulsion and steering in the water, which would interfere with the healing process.  In addition, it could result in pain and the dog developing an unpleasant association with water entries, big water, or other aspects of water retrieves.

However, three weeks after the injury, Laddie's holistic vet (Carol) said that I could try Laddie out on some land retrieves, to keep up both his training and conditioning, assuming I didn't see any problems.  Since then, we've been out about five times, sometimes alone for blinds or poorman multiples, sometimes with one or more of our neighborhood assistants.

I saw no problem on the blinds, but in fact Laddie's popping was worse than it had been previously for the first couple of sessions we tried retrieving.  He didn't pop every retrieve, but he popped too often, and I'm still not certain what was causing it.  Was it being caused by pain in his tail, or by other factors such as confusion, uncertainty, a drop in conditioning, or other kinds of discomfort?

I've tentatively concluded that the combination most likely to produce a pop at this stage in Laddie's development are long distance (over 300y), a retired gun, and heat (over 80 degrees), especially if Laddie has already been working and is now a bit tired or thirsty.  I can't tell whether his broken tail is a factor or not.  One possibility is that it was at first, but he's learned how to avoid carrying it or moving it while working so as to minimize any pain.  As I understand from Carol, that's possible on land retrieves, whereas it's not possible when swimming is involved.

Today's session is an example of where we are now.  With two assistants (Genny and William), we started early, so that we were able to work in temps below 70 degrees.  We ran three series: a land double with both throwers staying out, and two land "triples", with me throwing a short go-bird from the line on the triples to allow one of the throwers to retire.

Series A was a relatively short double, 110-160y, over difficult terrain featuring large, irregularly-shaped depressions, diagonal hillsides, broad areas of high cover, and hidden falls. Laddie absolutely nailed both marks.

Series B was a triple featuring an unusually difficult 340y long mark, a 180y middle mark with the gunner retired, and me throwing a bumper to the side while the shorter gunner retired.  Same sort of challenging terrain as in Series A.  Laddie bounced over to pick up the short throw, then nailed the retired mark, though he spent some time finding and circling Genny, who had thrown the mark, before returning.  After that, Laddie was unable to handle the long mark.  He took a good line for 250y thru difficult terrain, but then veered offline for some reason.  At 300y, he popped.  I froze and he quickly turned back to his outrun, but continued to veer in the wrong direction, so I called for William to help.  That was all he needed to complete the retrieve.  I didn't mind Laddie needing help — in fact I welcome it, because it gives him a chance to practice Plan B (if you can't remember the fall, find the gunner) — but the pop was a major concern.  It has probably already affected his score in some Quals, and will certainly get him dropped from an all-age stake, if we ever get that far.

I had planned to run the last triple with the long gun retired, but in hopes of avoiding another pop, I made this a shorter set-up.  The long gun was 180y, while the middle gun was 150y.  The terrain for the long mark featured a diagonal ditch crossing, and both marks included confusing crests and depressions, and patches of high cover.  Laddie grabbed the side throw I used to allow the long gun to retire, then nailed both of the other marks, including crossing the ditch early rather than allowing it to lead him offline.  As with Series A and the retired mark on Series B, Laddie's performance on Series C was, to my eyes, top-notch Qual-level work.

Laddie's tail will be getting another x-ray on September 7.  Carol has assured me that it will not be healed by then, but the x-ray will tell us how the healing is coming, and may help predict how much longer it will be before Laddie can resume water training.

Meanwhile, Laddie just crushed five of the six marks he ran today, every one over difficult terrain that didn't fool him for a second.  As I mentioned, his pop on the one long mark remains a major concern, but aside from that, I felt it was a good session.

Fourth Qual ribbon in a row for Laddie

Laddie competed in another Qual yesterday, and again completed the trial and came home with a ribbon, this time Reserve JAM in a field of 17 entries, six dogs finishing.

I'm guessing anyone who's interested knows what a typical Qualifying stake is like, but just in case that's not the case, here's what Laddie had to survive in this particular Qual:

Series A.  Land triple with flyer as go-bird.

Series B.  Land blind with line running "behind the gun" of the previous stake's flyer station, though all of the equipment had been removed (thank you, judges).  Suction of duck scent a significant factor.

Series C. Water blind.  Line to blind had no landings until far shore, but went past a point on the left, then an island on the right.  The island was surrounded by shallow water, which can be major suction to pull the dog onto the island and around to the back.  That would put the dog out of sight, technically "out of control", and generally results in the dog being dropped (happened to one of the nine dogs who made it to that series).  Note that judges expect handler to "challenge the blind", which I decided in this case to mean that you might get dropped if you played it safe and kept the dog well away from both landings.  Instead, I let Laddie roll toward the point, then stopped him and cast him around it when he got fairly close.  Additional challenge on this blind was that bird was planted at top of dike, so dog had to push thru reeds at water's edge and up hill, without getting diverted to planter's holding blind behind reeds on right side.

Series D. Water triple with honor.  Though no gunners retired, the test dogs and 3-4 of the working dogs who got to the fourth series, including Laddie, never saw the middle throw.  They watched the long throw on the right, then for some reason turned to the short left station to watch for that throw.  Gunfire was not enough in those acoustics to draw their attention back to the middle gunner when he threw.  To deal with that situation, you had to run the middle mark, past the island, as a blind, as either the second or third retrieve.  If you were lucky, you wouldn't have to handle, and the dog would swim past the island to the blind.  In Laddie's case, he thought I was sending him to the island and I did have to handle, hence the RJ rather than, perhaps, a placement (none of the placements handled).

As you probably know, distances on field trial retrieves are generally considerably longer than other US retriever competition venues.  The water blind yesterday, for example, was around 210y, with 180y swimming.

Laddie now has ribbons in four successive trials: RJ, JAM, JAM, RJ.  Not bad for a Golden (all the placements in yesterday's Qual went to Labs).  Also not bad for an amateur owner/trainer/handler (three of the placements went to pros).   Even one FT ribbon is precedented, to my knowledge, for a dog trained without physical aversives.

LL&L

Challenged blind

I think I made a step forward as a handler in today's Qual. The water blind was quite long, I'll say 180y, and the line went past a point on the left, then an island on the right.

Per Alice's recent advice, even though Laddie would be the first dog to run it other than the test dog (#1 would run later and #2 scratched), I thought about what the judges might need you see, and decided they needed to see the dog challenge the point.

So when Laddie took a line toward the point, I let him roll till he got fairly close, then stopped him and cast him around the point. I didn't mess with the island, though. I felt the judges had what they needed and kept Laddie away from the island and its surrounding shallow water, which I knew could draw a dog onto the island and from there to the back of it, putting the dog out of sight, technically "out of control", and dq.

Laddie did pop as he approached the point -- a current flaw in his work -- but otherwise I thought he did a great job on a tough water blind.

LL&L

Fwd: Another Reserve JAM

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "Lindsay Ridgeway" <ldridgeway@gmail.com>
Date: Jul 27, 2012 7:11 PM
Subject: Another Reserve JAM
To: "Alice Woodyard" <fetch@surewest.net>, "Jody Baker" <baker.jody@gmail.com>

Laddie finished another Qual today, and for the first time in a Qual came out in front of one finisher in the judging. Her dog got a JAM, Laddie got Reserve JAM. That's because she handled in two marks on the water triple, I only handled on one. The four numeric placements didn't handle.

More later if I have time. Right now,  another grueling 350-mile, 8-hour nighttime drive ahead of me.

Another Reserve JAM

Laddie finished another Qual today, and for the first time in a Qual came out in front of one finisher in the judging. Her dog got a JAM, Laddie got Reserve JAM. That's because she handled in two marks on the water triple, I only handled on one. The four numeric placements didn't handle.

More later if I have time. Right now,  another grueling 350-mile, 8-hour nighttime drive ahead of me.

RE: Third green ribbon in a row

Woo woo Lindsay, that is VERY good! It is cool for any dog, especially a first time owner-trained one (first time in FT), and of course first 2Q. But even for 4Q it is a good accomplishment. FTs are a hard row to hoe.    As you know!

 

---

From: Lindsay Ridgeway [mailto:ldridgeway@gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, July 20, 2012 2:07 PM
To: Alice Woodyard; Jody Baker
Cc: Test Series
Subject: Third green ribbon in a row

 

Laddie finished his third Qual in a route, rhoda time the Western New York Retriever Club's O/H Qual.  He again ended up with a JAM.

Obviously we'd like to get something more than a green ribbon someday, but I guess it's pretty cool for a positive-trained dog to get this far.

Details to follow if I have time for a write-up, but besides all the call-backs, Laddie did need to get thru the honor on the water triple (dead birds), so that's good.  Also, he had excellent whistle sits on both the land and water blinds.

LL&L

Third green ribbon in a row

Laddie finished his third Qual in a route, rhoda time the Western New York Retriever Club's O/H Qual.  He again ended up with a JAM.

Obviously we'd like to get something more than a green ribbon someday, but I guess it's pretty cool for a positive-trained dog to get this far.

Details to follow if I have time for a write-up, but besides all the call-backs, Laddie did need to get thru the honor on the water triple (dead birds), so that's good.  Also, he had excellent whistle sits on both the land and water blinds.

LL&L

Driving to Batavia

At times this sport can push one's tolerance for hardship. Tonight is one of those times.

Pitch black, needing to reset GPS every few minutes (what if it falls?), rain the whole way obscuring visibility and pushing ETA back, one headlight out, too little sleep all week because of long hours working, will only get four hours tonight because work delayed planned departure, lonely eight hour, 350 mile drive.

So tempting to turn back and scratch from event.

But I press on, fighting to stay awake and keep up speed. Laddie asleep in the back. Will he be ready to give his best? Will I?

Land multiples, land blind with video

Clarksburg Village


Weather conditions: partly sunny, low 80s, NW winds around 15 mph with gusts up to 25 mph.  With little rain in our region over the last few weeks, the field was hard and dusty.

Since I've been running Laddie almost exclusively on water series for the last couple of weeks, and temps were fairly mild today, I thought I'd take him out with two assistants — William and his friend, whose name also happens to be Laddie — for some land work.

First we ran a double.  Then we ran a second double, except that I also threw a little mark from the start line so it was sort of a triple.  I don't know whether field trainers generally call that a double or a triple.  Anyway, it gave one of the guns a chance to retire.

When the two multiples were over, Laddie didn't seem tired, and we still had some time before we had to get home, so I ran him on a big land blind featuring a keyhole at the end.  William took a video of Laddie running the blind.  Then I had Laddie run the last few yards of the blind again so that William could video that as well, showing the keyhole a little better.

A little more detail is provided in the following descriptions, and the video is also included.

SERIES A. Land double

The first mark was on the left, thrown right to left into the wind and into a depression at 270 yards.  The line to that mark included hills and ridges plus two diagonal dirt road crossings.  A dirt road ran to the right of the gunner.  The wind and road were intended as factors to push Laddie behind the gunner.

The second mark was on the right, thrown right to left into the wind at 180 yards.  The intent was that it, too, should fall into a depression, but it was short and landed in plain sight on the ridge above.  Again a dirt road ran to the right of the gunner, with the wind and road again intended to attract Laddie behind the gunner.

Laddie nailed the short mark, of course, since it was visible the whole way.  Running the long mark, Laddie was on a line to run a little behind the gunner, but 50 yards short of the gunner, he suddenly cut left and ran over the road, over the ridge, and straight to the bumper.

SERIES B. Land triple with retired gun


The first mark was on the left, thrown right to left at 320 yards into a depression.  The line to the mark was down a steep hill, across a large field made up of hard dirt, sparse, medium-height cover, and criss-crossing dirt roads, and up a series of terraced rises.

The second mark was nearly 180 degrees to the right, thrown left to right at 80 yards.  The gunner was only partially visible, but gave an excellent throw so that Laddie could see the trajectory.  The bumper then fell out of sight behind the same stand of cover that hid most of the gunner.  The line to the fall was diagonally across a slope covered with sparse, high grass, down to an arcing dirt road, and then back up onto a rough embankment again covered with high grass.

The third "mark" was just me throwing a black bumper even further to the right, no gunshot.  As Laddie was retrieving that bumper as the go-bird, the long gun was retiring behind an umbrella.

Laddie nailed the unusual second mark, doing a nice job of holding the slope rather than squaring it to run to either the top or the bottom.  I couldn't see him pick up the bumper, but the gunner told me Laddie ran straight to it.

For the big, final mark, Laddie took a line too far to the right, I guess somewhat fooled by the similarity of that line to the one that would have taken him straight to the bumper.  However, he veered more to the left as he ran, which took him up behind the gunner within 20 yards.  I considered asking the gunner to help, but Laddie spotted the guy once he was behind him and the umbrella no longer concealed him, and Laddie then immediately changed direction and ran straight to the mark, even though it was in a depression and he couldn't see it until he got close.

I would have preferred if Laddie had stayed further left the entire time, but as I understand it, judges typically don't score a dog as behind (on the wrong side of) a gun if the gun is retired, and at that distance, with the tricky repeating pattern of the terrain, I thought it was a pretty good mark.

Also, the fact that he ran all day, including that big retired mark, without any hint of popping was excellent news.

SERIES C. Land blind

Series C consisted of a 350 yard blind.  The line to the blind was down a steep incline, across meadowland combining hard dirt and sparse, dry cover, over a gravel mound, across additional meadowland, thru a tight keyhole at 330 yards, and to a 2" orange bumper planted in front of an orange lining pole.  The keyhole actually consisted of three wooden construction stakes within a few feet of one another in a triangle.  On the ground within that triangle lay another stake and a large rock, both of which would tend to act as obstacles against entering the triangle.

I usually use lining poles only as diversions these days, but in this case, the challenge was that Laddie might spot the pole  from the near side of the keyhole, and go out of control, making it impossible to handle him thru the keyhole to get to the far side and the blind.  In this situation, I wanted him to spot the lining pole once he got fairly close.

However, from the distance the stakes making up the keyhole, and the lining pole, did not present a particularly salient target, because several other stakes and poles stood elsewhere on the field at various distances in the same general direction, and I don't think the orange lining pole was particularly visible to a dog at distance.

As mentioned earlier, William videotaped Laddie's blind.  I then had Laddie run the last few yards of the blind again so that William could videotape it at closer range, showing the keyhole and obstructions that Laddie had to navigate thru.  Both videos follow.

My thoughts on how Laddie did running the blind:

• I was pleased all his handling, including his nice launch, his reasonably tight whistle sits (I don't require Laddie to actually sit as long as he stops and turns to face me), his accurate casts, and his good carries (rather than taking a cast and then scalloping back in the old direction).
• I didn't want him running over the high sections of gravel and sand for fear of an injury, and was pleased with his comfort level in running thru that area when cast into it.
• I thought he carried well when he was out of sight, so that when he reappeared he had not veered off line.
• Seeing the video with improved detail because of the zooming, I see now that Laddie actually went thru the triangle on an angle back the first time I sent him back at the end.  When it was happening and without the benefit of a zoom lens, I couldn't see what had happened and thought that Laddie might have bypassed the triangle, so I stopped him, brought him back to the near side on the right, and then used small, silent "over" casts to send him first left a bit too far, then right, and finally on a straight back again.  That last time, he seemed to be lined up well but managed to dart around the left of the triangle before I could react.  I have no idea how a judge would score the overall blind, but to me, Laddie showed good control.  I'm glad he accepted a come-in whistle to get him back in front of the triangle, but actually, in competition, I'm not sure that would be a good idea.  The judge might think I was picking him up if I blew a come-in whistle.  I need more understanding of how to correctly handle in that situation.

Here's the video:

Water triple at last

Today, on a sunny day with temps in the 80s, three assistants came with Laddie and me to train at Cheltenham. Here's how it went:

Series A: Water blind

Since Laddie had slipped whistles in Friday's trial on the water blind, I wanted to run him on a blind this morning that had pretty good distance and that he would be likely to need some handling on.

The blind I set up was water all the way, except for the start line on shore and the blind (2"orange bumper) planted on the far shore. The distance was 160y, and it was a channel swim the entire length. However, the shoreline was not straight on either side, so at various locations, the line to the blind approached either shore fairly close. Most challenging was a point at 70y on the left. The line to the blind passed within two yards of that point. To increase the challenge, while the birdgirls were planting the blind as I watched from the start line, I had William, our lone birdboy, place a lining pole with a ribbon attached on that point at 70y, with a 3" white bumper in front of it, lying on the face of the embankment so that it was visible from the start line.  The white bumper was a diversion.  Laddie would not be retrieving it.

My intent was to let Laddie roll as much as possible, with minimum handling, till he got near the point. Then, if he want already on the left, I would handle him over the line toward the point. Then, before he got to the point, I would handle back into open water to the right off the point and send back the rest of the way to the blind. The idea was to make sure we "challenged the line", including crossing it.

As it happened, Laddie veered too far right early on, so when I handled him back toward the left, he crossed the line at that time, taking care of that objective. I then let him swim toward the white bumper without further handling until he was a few yards short of it. I blew the whistle and cast him on a right over, which he readily took.  I felt we had fully at that point met the "challenge the line" requirement.

It was not entirely clear sailing the rest if the way.  First, Laddie acted a bit reluctant to enter the big water I was casting him back and into, and ping ponged laterally a couple of times before finally taking a cast back toward the blind.  Secondly, near the end, I thought he had spotted the bumper since he was swimming straight at it, so I took my eyes off him to chat with the assistants, and when I looked back, he had veered and needed to be handled back on line and to the bumper.

In summary, I felt it was an nice blind for a Qual dog. Laddie never slipped a whistle, never popped, vocalized only a little early on, and mostly took and carried his casts well. Most important, I guess, from a judge's viewpoint, was his successful maneuver near the point.

Series B. Water triple

For Laddie's first big water triple in more than a year:

The first mark was on the left, 210y thrown RTL. The line was down a mound, across variable terrain on land most of the way, then a 10y swim across a channel to the bumper, which was not visible till the dog was almost to the water.  This was not intended as a difficult mark, but rather for building confidence as the final mark of the day.

The second mark was in the middle, thrown LTR on an angle back into the water behind a strip of land at 110y. The line to the mark was the most difficult of the day: down a mound, past a tree, across a small inlet with a easy cheat around the left, over the strip of land, and into the water to pick up the bumper. From the start line, the gunner was visible on one side of the tree, whereas the mark was thrown to the other side if the tree, which I've found to be a confusing concept for Laddie. Adding to the difficulty, it was not a good throw, and disappeared below the embankment while still visible on the gunner's side of the tree.  The dog would have to assume the gunner was strong enough to have thrown the bumper further than was visible.

The third mark, the go-bird, was on the right, thrown RTL up-the-shore at 120y.  This was also a difficult line: down the mound, a long land entry, an angle water entry, and a swim past the gunner to the fall just up on land, with an easy cheat around to the right as well as the risk that dog would enter the water but bail out early and come to shore behind the gunner.

For that go-bird, Laddie took a great line almost to the water, then started to veer right.  I did not feel it would be productive to watch and see if he darted further right, because he's so fast that by the time I would then blow the whistle, he would be clear of the water and I'd have to cast him on a left "over" rather than to the fall. That wasn't the point of this mark.  Also, the gunner would not be able to help, because Laddie might still run the bank: after all, he knew where the fall was. So rather than wait, I immediately blew the whistle and cast Laddie into water. That allowed him to take exactly the right line, with no inclination to bail out early.  OF course, because of the handle it would have scored badly in a trial.

Next Laddie ran the indent middle mark. He ran past the tree on the wrong side, so I knew he would need to be handled, unless he veered right into the inlet rather than taking the cheat.  When I saw that he was unlikely to do that, I again blew the whistle and cast him into the water, again allowing him to run the correct line though of course again requiring a handle.

Laddie then nailed the final mark easily as expected.  I was relieved to see that he did not pop despite having to clear a ridge without being able to see the bumper, a situation that sometimes produces a pop.

Though I rarely run Laddie on the same retrieve even months later, with modifications this seemed like a good setup to run Laddie on again immediately, to cement the lessons. So I moved the stay line off the mound and forward forty yards and brought in Liza, who had thrown the long mark. That left us with the two shorter, more difficult marks as a double. It also took the tree out of the picture in what had been the center mark.  It also changed the angles into the water a little, making the cheats a little less tempting. Also improving things, we had good throws for both marks.

Laddie nailed both of these marks, showing no inclination to run the bank or bail out early on either one.

I thought it was a great finish for the session. We packed up and headed out for the hour drive home.

LL&L

Another JAM for Laddie

Not great, but it beats being dropped. Sixteen dogs were entered, fourteen ran, seven finished., one of the seven had one handle on a mark. Laddie finished, thus, in Sixth Place, which of course is a JAM, not a placement.

Positives:

* Laddie nailed the #2 bird on the land series.

* Laddie nailed the #1 bird on the land series, long, difficult,  and effectively retired until the dog got out there.

* Laddie's superb initial line on the land blind took him across a slope and thru a keyhole, one of the only dogs to get that keyhole and the only one to do it without handling.

* Laddie readily accepted casting into two water entries on the water blind, and swam the long shoreline to the end without bailing.

* Laddie honored on the final water double without breaking.

* I never lapsed in maintaining control of Laddie when he was off-lead near other dogs in each series.

Major negatives:

* Laddie slipped at least three whistles on the water blind.

* Laddie cheated around water twice on the long, difficult, "bridge" water mark of the final double.  Only the test dog (best Derby dog in the country) and the eventual First Place took the second of those entries, however, and of the others, Laddie was the only one not fooled by the bridge, running the bank to the correct side rather than the thrower side.

Finishing two trials in a row is nice, but we still haven't run a big water triple in a year.  Hopefully we can fix that before our next trial.

LL&L

Tune up for trial

To summarize our week since our trial last Saturday:

* On Sunday, I took one assistant (William) with me to Cheltenham, and we worked on only one thing: up-the-shore marks, on which Laddie had gotten out of the water early on twice the previous day. Working on both left and right banks, I would have William stand at water's edge along one bank, Laddie and I would stand at the end of the pond, I'd have Laddie at heel on the opposite side of me as the bank, I'd call for the throw, and William would fire a pistol and throw a puppy bumper (2" white) further up along the bank. The bumper would fall on land just a few feet from water's edge, often with reeds between the shoreline and the fall. The challenge was for Laddie to run straight at the fall, taking a sharp angle entry into the water, rather than "cheating" by running the bank. We did around 15 of these. I didn't use handling at all. If Laddie started to run the bank, I called, "No, here". If Laddie took a nice entry, I applauded. He made steady improvement, and a couple of times entered the water wide, exaggerating the lesson. I guess some judges would not like that, but it could work in Laddie's favor if a strong wind were blowing toward shore. In our first Field Trial ever, the winner was a dog who took just such a wide arc, keeping the dog clear of a point that many of the other dogs, including Laddie, were blown onto. Laddie made good progress, but the key question is, what would he do on an up-the-shore at the beginning of a session, with no corrections preceding it that day? We need to get to the stage where Laddie would consistently be successful on the first such mark of the day. We also need to build more distance for both the land entry and the swim, but it was a good start, I thought. And today, we did get one answer to that question (see below).

* We didn't train on Monday. I wanted to, but I couldn't put together a good team of assistants for what I would have liked to be our hardest day of training for the week, so Monday was our rest day.

* On Tuesday, which I would have preferred as a rest day instead of Monday, I had three assistants available, so we ran two big triples at the future site of Clarksburg Village, my favorite nearby, recently discovered training area. Each triple featured a retired gun, and every mark was planned to present significant challenges. Laddie had three good retrieves, needed help on two, and got way behind the gun on one. That might sound bad, but these were long, difficult marks, and at this stage in Laddie's development, I welcome opportunities for Laddie to use Plan B. Plan B is, if you didn't see the throw, or have forgotten the line to it, or have gotten lost on the way out, then guess where the bird is by spotting the gunner; the bird is nearby. I've trained the assistants to help without me saying anything if Laddie gets behind them (except if retired) -- "behind" meaning on the wrong side -- but on the last and one of the more difficult marks on Tuesday, I got on the radio and said, "Don't help, I want to see what he does." I was pleased to see that Laddie seems to have learned Plan B from earlier training over the last few weeks where we've been working on it by calling for early help from the thrower rather than having Laddie hunt. On that last mark, Laddie spotted the girl, and I guess remembered which side the throw had been on, because once he saw her, he immediately ran past her to the bumper. This was a long, difficult mark with half a dozen factors stacked to push him behind the gunner, so it was not surprising to see the factors do their job. But it was great to see Laddie get himself out of trouble without needing to be helped or handled. And after all, he had nailed the other two marks on that series, including a tough retired gun that I was sure would fool him but didn't.

* On Wednesday (yesterday), we had what I'd call a confidence session, meaning I hoped that Laddie would have 100% success rather than the 80% we'd normally aim for. The session, which again took place at the huge cluster of fields that will someday be Clarksburg Village, consisted of two setups. The first was a triple with a retired gun, and with factors pushing Laddie to the wrong side of every gun, but shorter distances than the previous day. The factors did their job and prevented Laddie from running straight to the bumpers on two of the marks, but he cut back early and didn't get behind ("hook") either of those guns, and he flat nailed the tough retired mark, which for an extra challenge was thrown into a depression. After that, I set up a combination single and blind. For the mark, I had both of the teenage girls stand at their station and throw one bumper into a depression to their right, then sit down facing the fall. At 120 yards, that was a gimme for Laddie and he nailed it, as expected. Next came the blind. The line to the blind, at 140y, was a few degrees to the left of the girls (that is, it passed a few yards behind them), and also involved two diagonal road crossings and getting thru some medium-high cover without cheating around it. Laddie took a great line over both road crossings and into the cover, then veered left, away from the girls. Since I was mindful of the rule I learned a couple of weeks ago -- challenging the line = crossing the line -- I stopped him and cast him on an angle back to the right. While that took him back toward the line and then over it, which was good, it also meant that I was sending him right at the girls. This is a Golden, you understand, and he's crazy about those girls. Anyway, I stopped him and cast him back toward the blind again, and he took the cast. We needed one last safety whistle to prevent him from running too far back, since he had not spotted the bumper at first as he was racing out. I was pleased with all five of the day's retrieves, and felt it was a good way to complete our week's preparation for the trial tomorrow (Friday).

* However, I got a text from William this morning asking whether we were training today, and decided to go out for one last tune-up. We'd keep it short, and like yesterday aim primarily to build confidence. First, we went to the oval pond at nearby Rolling Ridge. I had William throw an up-the-shore mark while Laddie and I watched from a longer land entry than we'd been using last Sunday. The water entry was very sharp, but the shape of the shoreline and placement of the throw was such that Laddie didn't have as tight a shoreline swim to the far shore, once he was in the water, as he had in Sunday's work. I was prepared to call him back and resend him if he tried to run the bank, and to handle him if he did it a second time, but I was pleased to see a great angle water entry right at the fall, which landed on the backside of the far embankment and not visible after the bumper was down. Tremendously happy with that water entry, I clapped for Laddie for some time as he swam the rest of the way across. He then ran up the embankment and out of sight to the far side, and appeared a moment later with the bumper. Laddie has been taught that he is allowed to run the bank on his returns, and he raced to me without re-entering the water so that we could celebrate his fabulous mark. Next, we drove to the nearby group of three fields I call Oaks where we've been training for years, but I set up a blind Laddie's never run before. It was only 130y, but I stacked up several factors (by "stack", I mean that the factors all pushed the dog the same direction, in this case, to the right): (1) We had a stiff left-to-right wind. A dog can always fade with the wind, but especially a wet dog. (2) At 150y, on a line a few degrees to the right of the blind, was a white pole that's always there, and looks like a lining pole. (3) At 90y, a wide trench/depression swept across the field on a diagonal and then arced back toward the pole, later continuing to sweep around in a U-turn. A naive dog entering that near leg of the trench would tend to follow it around toward the right. (4) Inside the arc of the trench was a hillside, with a hedgerow at the top. The line to the blind was diagonally over that slope, and gravity would tend to pull a dog down and to the right. As an added risk but on the left, you could also lose the dog behind that hedgerow. Since a dog sometimes squares a slope by going uphill, that was not such a remote risk, but it was in the opposite direction of the other factors. (5) Once the dog has crossed the slope, he would be back down in the trench. If he were to square the far embankment, he'd be aimed at the white pole again. Or he could follow the trench further left and behind the hill. All in all, I thought it was a pretty good tune-up blind. Well, Laddie took a great initial line thru some rough terrain, including a diagonal ridge crossing early on. As he approached the trench, he began to veer toward the pole. One strategy would have been to let him continue in that direction, then stop him when he was even with the blind and cast him "over" to the left. However, that would have meant not crossing the line, which as I mentioned I've been cautioned about. So I stopped Laddie as soon as he veered right and cast him on an angle back to the left, sending him over the line and up the hill in front of the hedgerow. Next I had to stop him and cast him back toward the line, which I did, but that meant sending him straight toward the white pole. It was not problem, however. After he crossed the line again, I stopped him and cast him back toward the blind. He took a new line away from the pole but not quite at the blind, sat on one last whistle, and took an over to the blind. I don't know whether an all-age judge would have had a problem with the work -- such concerns are far in our future -- but to me it looked like a nice, workman-like Qual blind.

Look, I'm well aware that no one needs to read such detailed descriptions of Laddie's work. I mean, a competition retriever runs zillions of retrieves like the two Laddie ran today, and there are several good ways to run many of them. But given where we happen to be in Laddie's development, I thought it would be worth recording his performance on these particular retrieves as an indication of his current level of progress.

We still haven't trained on a big water triple in more than a year, but aside from that, I think this was a good week of preparation. Tomorrow morning, we'll leave the house at 4:30am, drive three hours to the Swamp Dog Qual, and see how Laddie (running as #3 of 16 entries) does.

LL&L

Laddie earns Reserve JAM at Ft. Pitt Qual

[Posted to the DogTrek and PositiveGunDogs lists this evening]

Laddie has been running in AKC Retriever Field Trials this spring.  Yesterday, he ran in the Qualifying stake at the Ft. Pitt 2012 Spring Trial and came home with Reserve JAM.

This was not Laddie's best performance.  His water marking has deteriorated sharply as a result of our inability to find a field trial group to train with for the last 12+ months.  Just think, despite our active training schedule, Laddie hasn't run a big water triple in a YEAR, while many dogs competing in these events have run several dozen in that time.   But Laddie survived the cuts from the first three series and brought back all the birds in the last series, so the judges were kind enough to give him the green ribbon.

This was Laddie's second field trial ribbon, after earning a JAM in the Tidewater 2011 Spring O/H Qual, Laddie's first trial ever.  As far as I know, no other dog trained without physical force has ever taken a ribbon in a retriever field trial.  Very gradually, I guess we are learning.

Leaving the house at 4am yesterday, Laddie rode in the van for twelve hours of driving round trip, besides running the trial.  But he was on fire as usual for some water drills this morning, probably not noticing the new ribbon on his bulletin board.

Lindsay, with Lumi & Laddie (Goldens)

Gaithersburg, Maryland

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