Ups and downs, downs and ups

Since I haven't posted much this winter, in this rather long post, I'll try to provide some info on our training the last few months, as well as including details of this last weekend, in which many things happened that I, as least, thought were quite interesting.

I've felt that Laddie has been training well this winter, with good marking and handling. Whenever the weather allowed it, we trained about four times a week, including monthly training days with one of our clubs. Then this last Saturday, Laddie ran in his first Master Hunt Test of the year, and on Sunday we went to New Jersey for a training day with another club.

Perhaps thanks to the Fake Throw drill we've been using periodically, Laddie hasn't had a pop in quite some time, so I'm optimistic that we've made some progress on that this winter. Time will tell.

On the other hand, Laddie's occasional vocalizing on blinds has now spread to land blinds as well as water. I have no more idea to solve it on land than I did on water. It will probably hurt us with some judges, but since those would probably be the same judges as the water vocalizing, I guess it won't hurt us more now than before.

I think I've noticed one data point about Laddie's vocalizing. In general, I think he's more likely to vocalize on early handling than on handling further out. Since I don't understand why he vocalizes in the first place, something he's done since before he was a year old, I'm not sure what it means that he's more likely to do it on early handles, but maybe it means something.

In any case, I was optimistic going into the weekend Master test that Laddie would be successful, but it didn't work out that way. He came to the line as #50, watched the first dead-bird throw, and then watched as the out-of-order 2nd-throw flyer took a looping glide high above the gunners and then downward between the gunners and the start line, making a safe shot impossible and also creating strong temptation for the working and honoring dogs to break. Fortunately the honoring dog remained steady, but when the judges called "no-bird", Laddie broke, raced out, and brought the bird back.

My first impulse had been to run out after Laddie when he broke, but I remembered Lumi being disqualified from a Senior test once when I went out to get her after she broke on a no-bird, so I checked myself and waited for Laddie to come back with the bird.

To my great surprise, and perhaps in part because I'd stayed at the line, the judges did not disqualify Laddie for breaking on the no-bird, but rather said I should bring him back for a re-run after some other dogs ran. I arranged to run him last, about ten dogs later, giving him plenty of time to rest in the van, but it was no good. He still ended up breaking on the re-run. While I was extremely grateful to the judges for giving Laddie a chance to stay in the test, it might have actually hurt Laddie's training, since he has now started the season with not one, but two, successful breaks on flyers in the context of a test. There's no telling yet how difficult it will be to dig out of that training hole. I shudder to think that it's even possible he's now hopelessly test-wise and ruined. But of course I hope not.

I'll get to the Sunday training in a moment, but I thought I'd mention that I was also grateful to the Head Marshall for giving me a chance to work on the next series, a water triple with a water blind. I worked gun station #3 using a duck call, winger, and popper gun, then shot the diversion shot when called for, and finally planted the blinds, so with reloading the winger and gun, I was active almost continuously. Having Laddie get knocked out of the test was painful, and the opportunity to work was a valuable emotional counter-balance. I felt much better because of it.

In any case, once back at the van, I began sending out texts, emails, and voice mails, trying to make arrangements with as many as people as I could think of to find a way for Laddie to train with flyers between then and our next Master test in two weeks. I also considering scratching him from that test (I could get my entry fee back if I did it today), and perhaps that would still be a good decision. But based on yesterday's training day up in New Jersey, I'm feeling more confident that Laddie can handle both working and honoring flyers, despite his breaks on Saturday. For now, I don't plan to scratch him, but I will continue to try to find more opportunities to practice with flyers between now and then.

In addition, I plan to have him wear a tab (a flat collar with a short lead attached) whenever training between now and the next test. I'll grasp the lead whenever I feel there's any risk of a break, and Laddie will wear the tab at all times whether break risk or not so that he doesn't associate the tab with steadiness training. Hopefully, when he's running and honoring at the next test, the steadiness training will continue to apply even though the tab won't be there.

If I had not been able to arrange for flyer work on Sunday, I had planned to return to the test to continue helping, and also to watch the third setup and how the dogs ran it to learn what I could. But I was most fortunate to receive an invitation to train with flyers on Sunday, so Laddie and I got up at 4am and traveled to New Jersey for training instead.

With regard to yesterday's training day: It went very well, thanks primarily to the guy who invited me to participate, who is also the organizer for that club's training days. The participation rate was unusually high for such an activity — more than 70 dogs — yet everything went off without a hitch and I was home by 6pm despite the 3+ hour drive each way.

As often happens in training days, each trainer was allowed to run a version of the set-ups that best met his dog's training needs. Here are the versions that Laddie run:

• Series A. We moved our start line to about 35 yards from the flyer station, which also changed all the angles. Laddie then ran a round-the-horn triple with the flyer as the go-bird, followed a blind under the arc of the second throw. I requested a hand-throw for the second throw, since the winger would have thrown the bird straight behind the gun. Laddie was perfectly steady and didn't even get out of his sit when the flyer was thrown. He didn't handle as well as I would have liked on the blind, and I soon saw why — he needed to eliminate. But his marking was excellent, his returns and delivers were fine, and I felt his blind was OK though below his normal standards.
• Though we didn't have an opportunity to honor a triple with a flyer, I did have Laddie honor a number of additional throws, including two flyers, for various dogs that followed. More on that below.
• Series B. Laddie watched a round-the-horn triple, but when I looked down at him to send him for the go-bird, he was locked in on the middle bird. Someone in the gallery called out that Laddie hadn't seen the go-bird. I sent him to pick up the middle bird and then the first throw, which he didn't nail perhaps because he was drawn by a duck that was running around on the other side of the gun station having been missed when shot at earlier in the day. But Laddie quickly gave up on the loose duck, and ran back to pick up the mark and bring it in. At that point, the guy working the line and I discussed throwing the last mark again as a single, but I looked down and Laddie had lined up on it on his own. So I came to the conclusion that he had seen the throw after all, but had turned his eyes away from it by the time I looked down at him. I sent him and he nailed it. I then ran him on both of the blinds. I think he lined the first one. He blinked the bumper when I handled him to it on the second blind, running past it, but then he picked it up and brought it. Given all the distractions — the loose duck, the fact that Laddie was running behind a female in heat (see below), and the fact that I had kept Laddie out of the van for a long time before our turn came (also discussed below)  — I thought he did well.
• Series C. My friend at the training day was aware that I wanted Laddie to get as much work with flyers as possible, and told me that the set-up with the flyer station had some extra birds. So we ran another series there. Once again we moved our start line close to the flyer station, and this time I requested that the second station use the winger, resulting in a throw that for us was angled almost straight back. But this time, I asked that the flyer be thrown out of order, that is, as the second throw, and then the middle gun, which was 180s in the opposite direction from the flyer station, be thrown as the go-bird. Thus Laddie would need to watch a long mark be thrown left to right, then turn all the way around to watch a flyer be thrown right to left, then turn all the way around again to watch the go-bird be thrown left to right. Our position made the first and third marks into a reverse hip-pocket. We'd run the blind again also, but it would be in front of the second gun, not under the arc. While my primary concern was with whether Laddie would take up the slack on the tab while attempting to break on the flyer, this was also a challenging set-up even without the possibility of a break, especially considering all the effort I'd gone to in order to elevate Laddie's excitement level. As it played out, the flyer was only wounded, and the "cripple" began moving toward cover after it landed. Yet Laddie did not try to break, and when the third station fired his gun and released the winger, Laddie turned to look at it over his shoulder. When I sent him, he raced to the go-bird first. He then ran back to me with that bird, keeping his eye on the still active flyer the whole time, and as soon as I took the bird and called his name, he darted out to pick up the flyer. To finish up the triple, I lined him up for the long memory bird, on a line just behind the go-bird's holding blind, and though I remembered the fall as being wider than it actually was, Laddie remembered it correctly and nailed it. He then finished by running the blind again. We were running from a somewhat different location than Series A, it had been several hours, and a lot had happened in between, but it may not mean much that he ran the blind well this time. I'm glad he did, though.
• Again, Laddie honored several dogs after he ran Series C, including two flyers, though no one was running the same set-up Laddie ran.

As part of yesterday's training, I did something that I haven't done much before. Instead of having Laddie wait in his crate in the van as much as possible as I normally do with him both on training days and at tests, I came to a realization: Laddie becomes increasingly excited if he's out with me near the sounds, and possibly sights, of a test for a long time before he gets to run, and that excitement can hurt his performance when his turn finally comes. Reducing that excitement level in order to improve his performance at a test makes sense. But I realized that the opposite is true at training day. I now think that letting Laddie practice under increased excitement levels at training days would help him to prepare for the inevitable excitement of a test. With that realization, I brought Laddie out to wait with me while the earlier dogs were running in the last couple of series. I'll try to remember to do the same at future training days.

Because a couple of the people at the training day were aware that Laddie had broken in a test the previous day, they offered a couple of types of advice. One was the usual advice that I make it uncomfortable for Laddie if he tries to break, such as by having him wear a pinch collar or by using his normal slip lead and giving it a hard jerk. I declined as politely and respectfully as I could, saying that we've had had success using the tab in previous years, that Laddie has been steady in many tests over the years, that even dogs trained as they were describing sometimes break, and that I didn't intend to use physical aversives in Laddie's training now any more than I have in the past, whatever the consequences.

But the other advice, which I've also heard often before, was that I should cold-honor Laddie with a lot of other dogs, rather than just the single hot honor after running his own series. The theory is for the dog to learn that he's not to go unless sent. I decided not to raise the arguments that (a) it isn't going to help, because you're not really training for the situation where the dog actually breaks, (b) you can't train a dog not to do something by putting it on cue and hoping he'll only do it when you give the cue, and (c) I think there's some risk that if the dog learns too often that the birds he's watching are not for him, he'll lose some focus at the line when the birds are for him but he's previously been taught that he probably won't be sent after watching birds being thrown. However, yesterday I reflected that Laddie has always had great concentration on marks, and I felt fairly certain that it could stand up to one day of some cold honoring six years into his career. So as mentioned for Series A and C, I had Laddie honor several dogs running flyers after he's run his series, and in Series B, as I mentioned earlier, I kept Laddie with me in the gallery before it was his turn, so that he got to watch a number of dogs running their series while we were waiting.

And despite my earlier reservations, I came to feel that those cold honors were worthwhile. I don't know how to prove it scientifically, but it certainly didn't seem to reduce Laddie's concentration on his own birds when he was working, and the fact is that he was steady as a rock both working and honoring all day, despite every effort on my part to increase the likelihood of a break. On one honor, he actually lay down while we were waiting for the guns to get organized, and when they began throwing, he just watched from the ground without bothering to get back on his feet. He wasn't distracted; he did watch the throws with some interest. But he showed no inclination to stand up, much less to make a break.

One last point. I learned during the first series that the last dog to run was a female in heat. In fact, that's why the trainer had run the dog last. But when we moved to the second series, I requested that Laddie have the opportunity to run immediately after that dog, so that Laddie ended up running last. This again was to give Laddie an opportunity to practice under the increased difficulty of conditions, rather than having no experience with it in practice and then having to face that situation sometimes in tests.

In conclusion, the weekend started on a painful note, but ended up well, and once again, I'm looking forward to more training and competing as the spring unfolds.

Laddie post at Hunting Retriever Stud Dogs

I found a Facebook group that I thought Laddie should be posted in: Hunting Retriever Stud Dogs

I don't understand Facebook very well. This is a closed group, so you may not be able to see the post without joining the group. Also, unlike my YouTube videos and blog posts, I don't know how to send a link of my Facebook post about Laddie.

But here's what I wrote:

This is Topbrass Lad of the Lakes SH WCX ** (Laddie). In addition to his titles, he so far has two Master legs and six Qual JAMs, including two Reserved JAMs. He began standing stud in summer of 2013, and has bred naturally, with side-by-side AI, and with shipped frozen breeding units. He is one of the only positive-trained retrievers ever in advanced AKC competition and is his owner/trainer/handler's first Master/FT field dog, so Laddie's success, including a JAM in his first field trial when he was 3yo, is a testament above all to his natural ability. His sire was Beau Geste, one-time Field Trial News Golden of the Year for both Amateur and Open, and his dam was Pawsability, a rare combination of a breeding female Golden who also earned a field championship. Besides Laddie's proven talent in the field, he also has remarkable genetics: OFA hips rated excellent, additional OFA clearances for eyes, heart, and elbow, and Optigen status of CLEAR for both of the PRA tests as well as Ichthyosis. See full pedigree, all clearances, and a puppy picture at http://www.k9data.com/pedigree.asp?ID=257111. You can watch one of Laddie's many online videos athttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tu7U1OgSeS0. For more info, please send email to LDRidgeway at gmail dot com.

The post was accompanied by two photos (that's the maximum number of photos you're allowed to post for a dog in this group). I attached the following two photos to the post:

Switching to preparation for Master tests

Although we still have a lot of snow on the ground, it was a beautiful and relatively warm day (40s), so Laddie and I went out for some training with two assistants.

The last few months, we've been training primarily with an eye toward running in Quals and possibly other field trial events in the future, and also working on Laddie's popping (for one approach we've been using, see Anti-popping: The Fake Throw Drill).

But I've now entered Laddie in five Master tests for the spring, and will probably enter him in others when they open. He only needs three more passes for his Master Hunter title so we may end up withdrawing from some of the later ones, but in any case, hopefully we'll run at least three.

So, with a month or so to go before the first of those, I felt it was time to switch from predominantly field trail-style setups that we've been running since the fall, and start running more hunt test-style setups. That means shorter marks and blinds, use of duck calls, hidden guns (or retired when hidden not practical), dark colors for the throwers, and occasional practicing of walk ups. We've already been running hunt test-style setups at our monthly RRRC training days, but now we'll also run more of them in our daily training.

Today was an example, so I thought I'd describe it as an entry in this training journal.

We ran two series, each consisting of a land double plus a handler throw to the side, and a land blind on a line between the two marks. The blind was longer than the marks, and all the retrieves were 110-170y. For the first series, Laddie picked up the marks first, then the blinds. For the second, I had him pick up the blind first, then called for the throws. The reason for that change was that the second setup, which was designed by my assistants, had the hot blind too close to one of the throws, risking Laddie picking up the blind when sent for the nearby mark, so we just got it out of the way first.

Another difference was that in the first setup, I had both throwers fake their throws, continuing with the Fake Throw drill mentioned above, but in this session, at shorter distances and with the guns retired, both factors a bit different from earlier sessions of running that drill. As a result of the fake throws, Laddie needed a hunt on both marks, in one case a fairly long hunt. As hoped for, Laddie never showed any lack of confidence in his hunting and never showed any inclination to pop.

However, while that was hopefully good for our anti-popping efforts, I'd also like Laddie to get back in the habit of pinpoint marking under more favorable conditions (to wit, the dog actually seeing the throw), so for the second series, I asked the bird-girls to actually throw the bumpers before retiring rather than tossing them into position while Laddie was still in the van waiting to run. That resulted in better marking, including one mark in confusing terrain where I had lost track of where the fall was but Laddie raced out to it on a beeline.

By the way, I mentioned that the throwers retired in today's session. Hunt test marks use hidden guns, not retired guns, but for this session, hidden guns weren't practical.

I was pleased with Laddie's work on both the marks and the blinds. I think it was a good start for this phase of our winter training.

Distance work at Cheltenham

With temps in the high fifties and even some moments of sunshine, I picked up two assistants this morning and we drove to Cheltenham to train for a couple of hours.

First I set up a water double with both marks offering long swims and difficult cheats, and we ran it as singles. Laddie ran the first one without cheating, but needed handling on the second. Then he ran a big water blind across the point of an island on a line between the two marks. Laddie handled well on both the mark and the blind, but his vocalizing has gotten worse. He vocalized on almost every cast and also vocalized while swimming sometimes even when not being handled.

Although all of the retrieves in the first series were long, we then moved to a new location and set up another water double plus blind where the retrieves were even longer. The double was also a more difficult configuration, a hip pocket double with a cheaty water re-entry on the left and a long swim between two points on the right. And the blind was a channel crossing, a difficult angle water re-entry, and a long swim the length a stick pond channel with a key hole at mid point. All of this work was too difficult for Laddie. He needed to be handled on both marks and needed to try the blind three times, since I called him all the way back when he climbed up onto the point going thru the key hole the first two times. Interestingly, although he vocalized a great deal when handled in this series, he stopped vocalizing once thru the key hole even though he still needed additional handling. I wish I knew why he stopped vocalizing. I've always thought I noticed a pattern of Laddie vocalizing more when he's near me than at greater distances. Today was consistent with that pattern.

To end the day we ran a big reverse hip pocket land double followed by a big land blind that featured crossing the slope of a mound. Laddie ran reasonable marks but hooked the gun on the long memory bird. That was not ideal but, since it indicates he had some confusion, the good news is that he didn't pop but rather worked it out without help. On the blind, he took his initial line across the slope of the mound well and two-whistled the  blind.

Yes, Laddie needed more help than I would have planned for, but we trained on long and difficult retrieves, and he did the work with that characteristic all-out, never flagging enthusiasm I always find so inspiring. For me, it was a challenging but enjoyable session, and I hope for Laddie, too.

LL&L

Winter starts

It's not really winter yet, but we've had some freezing temps, and I've pretty much decided to push Laddie's competition until next spring.

At that time, I plan to again limit our events to Master tests, hoping to earn three more passes and thereby a Master Hunter title for Laddie.

When we've met that goal, I plan to resume running Laddie in field trial stakes: definitely Quals, and possibly Ams as well. Those are the levels of competition I would expect to run Laddie in for the remainder of his career.

The last few months, all of our training has been geared for Master events, but beginning this morning, I decided to switch gears with our future plans in mind. So for most of this off-season, we'll train for field trials. Then as spring approaches, we'll switch back to Master-style training to prepare for the first events we'll be running.

Today, then, Laddie ran two big land doubles, each including a land blind on a line between the two marks. The retrieves were in the range 170-370y, the throwers wore white coats, and we used no duck calls.

Laddie did well. I can't explain why, but Laddie seemed more comfortable with today's big marks and blinds than he has been running Master set-ups, and I was also more comfortable.

As we begin the off-season, I'll miss competing, but hopefully the training will continue to be fun as it always has been.

LL&L

Laddie and water

Some thoughts on Laddie and water:

- Laddie likes to cool off in water when he's hot. This has nothing to do with retrieving and is in fact a training challenge. I designed a drill a couple of years that seems to have put that issue behind us most of the time, though occasionally it still crops up.

- Laddie is so crazy about going out to a thrown article that he'd probably run thru a brick wall and look like he was enjoying it. It is a waste of time to judge Laddie's attitudes about water based on his send outs on marks, especially the go-bird.

- Although it's pleasant to think that Laddie's vocalizing is actually exuberance based on a love of water, it's hard to see the huge problem he used to have with LWL returns, and his new problem with going OOC at the line, in that light. Those clearly were and are avoidance behaviors. Not necessarily of water, but of something, and water looks like an excellent candidate.

- Eventually Laddie became able to perform LWL returns, and as I continue to strengthen his response to "heel", I may be able to eliminate going OOC at the line as a concern in competition. But should I ignore the underlying reason for the behavior in the first place, wherever it may be, perhaps water aversion?

- If I could somehow develop in Laddie a powerful affection for going to an unseen target, comparable to his attraction to a thrown target, it could conceivably solve both the OOC issue and the vocalizing. This is not to say I know how, but it seems to cover the data points on where Laddie is with water. He might still not like water per se, but it wouldn't matter.

More on that last point in future posts, hopefully.

Another near miss

For the second Master test two weekends in a row, Laddie has made it to the third (last) series, and most of the dogs who made it to that series passed the test, but Laddie didn't.

Frankly I don't enjoy writing posts when Laddie (or Lumi) is unsuccessful, and would rather discuss the matter in private correspondence. But in this case, I guess I should include some info in our training journal for the record.

First of all, the judges did not allow Laddie to complete the last retrieve of the test, the water blind, because he was vocalizing. As Laddie was swimming back, one of the judges offered some suggestions on how to fix the problem. Vocalizing in water is a problem Laddie has had since he was a puppy, though I never noticed it in the early years and then later saw that it was in his videos all along. I guess the judge felt his suggestions might enable me to solve the problem.

This incident reminds me of two things that one of my mentors told me. One was that some judges won't tolerate vocalizing, and Laddie's just not going to pass those tests. This is the first time it's happened, so hopefully we'll have more opportunities to pass with other judges, as we have in the past at every level we've competed. I guess I should make a note not to run Laddie under this judge again, perhaps either of these judges.

The other was that, in my mentor's experience, there are two kinds of trainers: those who have had a dog that vocalizes and tried everything, sometimes over a period of years, to fix it but never could; and those who have never had a dog that vocalizes, and are sure they know how to fix it.

I was actually both of those simultaneously at one time: I couldn't fix Laddie's vocalizing in water, but I was sure I knew how to fix vocalizing at the line if I ever were to have a dog with that issue. :0)

I've written in the past about my efforts to fix the problem and won't discuss it further in this post, other than to reiterate that I'm not working on it any more.

I do have an unrelated insight from today's test, however, that may not be unrelated at all. In several of our Master tests, especially this fall, Laddie has gone OOC at the line, nosing around in cover near the start line and strongly resisting my calls of "here" and "heel" for some time, just before running a second water mark or a water blind. You'd think I'd have seen that this was a pattern, but sadly, it wasn't till today that I realized it is. You'd also think I'd have noticed it in training, but for the last several months, virtually the only water retrieves Laddie has done were in Master tests. I simply don't have the time and money to bring him to water with several assistants I pay on an hourly rate on any regular basis. I don't actually know whether Laddie would go OOC near the line in training or not. Obviously it's not something I've noticed, and that may be because it's recent or because it only happens when we get to water in a Master test, which hasn't happened that many times. Of course I'll begin to watch for it in training, and hopefully get it fixed. Now that I see the pattern, it seems to me that it's some sort of avoidance behavior, whatever that implies as a possible point of departure for a solution.

Following thru on that idea brings to mind a new thought: What if Laddie actually finds water aversive, and maybe both the lifelong vocalizing, and the more recent line control issues, are actually manifestations of that same emotion? This thought is so alien and so unpleasant to me - a retriever with Laddie's superb pedigree uncomfortable with water? - that I can barely stand to consider it. Besides, what about his bold, crashing big air water entries? What about his many competitive successes? What about his lifelong attraction to water at times that I didn't want it, such as going swimming in a pond instead of completing a land retrieve, a training issue I had to contend with when Laddie was younger? Yet I must consider the possibility that something about water, if not everything about water, is a problem for Laddie and that some of his behaviors, maybe even others besides vocalizing and going OOC at the line, derive from that emotion.

For now, I plan to work on the control issue as a training problem and accept the vocalizing as a flaw that will block us from success in some situations. A more general understanding may come with time.

With respect to competition, I think we will end our season today, despite it being on an unsuccessful note. Any remaining tests would be a very long drive and would probably involve retrieving in very cold water, which doesn't seem like the wisest strategy at this time.

Then again, Laddie's pick-ups and returns have improved hugely the last couple of tests, he hasn't broken in a long time, and he's gotten thru all his honors his entire career without any apparent issues with the nearby presence of another dog despite all my worrying. In addition, we did make it to the third series in both our last two tests, and we did get two Master passes this year. Those are real positives to reflect upon as we enter the winter months. We can resume our pursuit of an MH title in the spring.

LL&L

Socializing milestone

With as many as a dozen dogs at the dog park today, mostly the same size as Laddie and some of them pitch black, his ability to run around comfortably with them was of course a welcome reminder of the socialization progress he's made the last few weeks.

And having other dogs trying to steal his puppy bumper as he trotted back to me with it, one dog actually succeeding after a prolonged game of tug in getting the toy away from Laddie, all without any hint of aggression, was a great reprise of behavior I've been starting to see.

But today was a new milestone, when a big Goldendoodle put a paw on Laddie's back, and then attempted a full-blown tackle, complete with the snarling uproar of a all-out dog fight. Except that only one dog was interested in fighting. Laddie simply maneuvered out of harm's way while maintaining a casual interest in the engagement. "As soon as you get that out of your system," he seemed to be saying to the Goldendoodle, "we can get back to playing."

If this trend continues, I think a time could come where I could work with Laddie at an event, at the line or on honor, and not have to worry about some potential incident with another dog. Of course I'm not ready to let my guard down yet, but I really think we might be getting there.

LL&L

Master ramp

Thanks to everyone for all your good wishes to Laddie on me on Friday's Master test. We made it to the third and last series on Saturday.  Laddie picked up all the birds without a handle (he had needed a handle in the first series triple), but he didn't get the pass. Final result was 76 dogs entered, 34 dogs qualified.

As we experienced in other levels of field events, we're on a ramp, and we've reached the stage where we're getting called back deeper into the test and even passing sometimes (Laddie has two Master legs), but we're not yet at the stage where we can pass every test.

We'll try to keep learning the countless nuances of handling. For example, in this test I learned (or re-learned), don't let the marshal tell you to "get your dog" to run out of turn and then stand around, while your dog gets more and more pumped up by the nearby gunfire, as more and more other handlers insist on running ahead of you. Let your dog relax in his/her crate until the marshal really has established a place for you in the line-up. The excitement of an event significantly deteriorates a dog 's performance under the best of circumstances. Don't let that excitement level be raised even higher by the marshal having you bring your dog out just to stand around waiting unnecessarily.

And we'll continue to strengthen Laddie's training -- for example, Laddie's ability to be controlled at the line under sometimes extremely compelling distractions (in this case a scent or perhaps the sound of movement in the cover in front of the line, especially while the dog is in a highly excited state). This is a proofing challenge -- I need to find ways to expose Laddie to an ever-widening range of really difficult distractions. Perhaps our continued visits to dog parks will help with this.

Being on a ramp like this is frustrating and discouraging, because of course you don't know what lies ahead. Will I continue to improve as a handler, and continue to strengthen Laddie's skills,  and as a result have better and better results in competition outcomes? Or are tests and trials so different from one another that the idea of a trend line is meaningless?

Only the future will tell. I see only two choices: Quit, or keep trying. At least for now, we'll keep trying.

LL&L

Premac at dog park

Although I've been taking Laddie to dog parks lately primarily for socialization, turns out it's also a good opportunity for proofing line manners.

"Premac" is a type of positive reinforcement, in which a behavior being trained is rewarded by the opportunity to perform a different behavior the subject has a strong desire to do.

At the dog park, Laddie has a strong desire at times to sniff the grounds or interact with other dogs.

So periodically I call "heel". As soon as he complies, I reinforce with the release cue "go play". As a variation, I might have him retrieve a thrown or planted bumper or tennis ball first.

Compliance of course must be non-optional.

LL&L

More pick-ups, more socializing

Similar to our work a couple of days ago, today we had two training sessions, one focused on pick-up and delivery of birds, the second focused on Laddie once again getting along well with other dogs.

For the retrieve training, I used two assistants, throwing various combinations of a drake mallard, a hen mallard, and a rooster pheasant, all mostly thawed.

Laddie ran five doubles, then a triple with one of the gunners throwing a momma-poppa. Every pick-up and delivery was phenomenal. It's hard to believe the progress from our last event.

At the dog park, Laddie had no problems with any of the dogs who greeted him as we came in, including a Visla, a Golden, and a number of other dogs mostly around Laddie's size. Laddie also did fine as new dogs came in, with two exceptions: a large black male Shepherd, and a grey Chow whose sex I never did figure out.

In both cases, Laddie began to growl a little as the dog came in, and I immediately wrapped my arms around his neck, stoked his neck, face and shoulders and gently reminded him, "That's a nice doggy, that's a nice doggy." Then I slipped on his lead and walked around the park with him, repeatedly approaching the dog he'd had some problem with sometimes and letting the other dog approach Laddie sometimes. Each encounter was calm -- they'd sniff each other, then lose interest and head in different directions. After half a dozen such encounters, I slipped Laddie's lead off and followed him closely as he re-entered the mix of dog activities. Occasionally I'd throw his white puppy bumper for him.

Nothing close to a fight occurred at any time, even when other dogs growled at him, made contact with him, tried to steal his bumper, or made any other move that I feared might provoke aggression. It just didn't happen.

It's interesting that Laddie is learning, or re-learning, to play with other dogs again so easily. I had been led to expect that it would be difficult, perhaps impossible, for him to get over his fear and fear response after having twice been attacked. I'm hoping our progress continues until it ceases entirely to be an issue.

LL&L

Practicing pick-ups and returns

Laddie is entered in another Master in two weeks. Since his performance last weekend was strong on marks and strong on handling, but weak on pick-ups and returns, I've decided to devote these next two weeks primarily to strengthening those skills.

This is not the first time we've done this, and you can probably find posts on the same subject in this blog if you go back a few years. But for the record, this is how I'm approaching it this time.

For Laddie at this time in his development, it seems that the optimum set-up is a short single mark with a gunner using an enthusiastic duck-call (for excitement), a high throw (for excitement), a gunshot (for excitement), and a fresh duck (for excitement). The handler then sends the dog, and as soon as the dog is on the bird, the handler whistles come-in, pauses a moment to see if the dog picks the bird-up, and if not, uses some cue with a known high assurance of getting the dog to pick the bird up. In Laddie's case, that's "pick it up." If the dog makes a quick pick-up, either after the come-in whistle or after the verbal cue, the handler then goes into a game of chase with the dog when the dog gets back to the line, finally takes the bird and instantly throws it again. Here again, as soon add the dog gets to the bird, it's tweet-tweet-tweet, slight pause, "pick it up," chase game, and another throw. After 2-3 of those happy throws, the handler sets up for another throw from the field.

If the dog does not respond with a quick pick-up even after the verbal cue, then the handler says "no, sit," walks out to the dog, slips on the dog's lead, walks back to the start line, and sends the dog again. If that still doesn't work, I wouldn't continue this drill, because at that point the dog should be highly motivated, and if the dog still isn't picking up the bird, the dog doesn't understand the game and needs a more basic level of training than I'm discussing here.

Some notes on the design of this drill:

- The mark is short so that the positive reinforcement for picking up the bird, namely the game of chase and the happy throws after delivery, occurs almost instantly after the pick-up. The longer time between a behavior and its intended +R, the less effective the +R trends to be.

- All of the excitement has two purposes. One is to make the training session as enjoyable as possible fir the dog. The other is to simulate as much as possible the emotional state of the dog in competition, which is high excitement, so that competition retrieves, to the greatest extent possible, are "like" these practice retrieves in the dog's perception.

- The mechanism of using a come-in whistle immediately followed (if necessary) by a cue that's known to work followed by a high value positive reinforcer is a general approach to transferring a known (or strong) cue to an unknown (or weak) one. What happens the first few times is that the dig hears the unknown cue, doesn't know how to respond, hears the known cue, responds correctly, and is quickly rewarded. After a few reps, the dog, wanting the reward as soon as possible, realizes that the first cue predicts the second one, and so begins to respond to the first one without even waiting for the second one. This is called anticipatory response, and is the same reason a tennis player looks away from the ball before the ball has made contact with the racquet. Anticipatory response is often a disadvantage in sports, but using it to transfer a dog's understanding of one cue to another is one situation where anticipatory response is a helpful mechanism.

- The reason to walk out and get the dog if the dog did not respond correctly to either the come-in whistle or the verbal cue is that that deprives the dog of something valuable, in this case, both the opportunity to carry the bird and the opportunity to play a game of chase. These are extremely valuable to the dog, and losing them is something the dog hopefully greatly wants to avoid the next time the dog is in that situation.

- The reason for running the dog again immediately after a failure is so that dog can immediately compare the outcome of an incorrect response versus a correct one.

A note about today's session: I am under the weather and did not feel up to doing all the running around that my training plan called for on the part of the handler. So I went out in the field and did the throwing, and let my assistant, Annette, do the handling. I think it's good for Laddie to have several handlers anyway because I think it strengthens his understanding of the skills by abstracting them from the handler/dog relationship. So having Annette handle hopefully strengthened Laddie's understanding of his pick-up and return skills, and at the same time let me be a bit less active. 

I think this is the kind of drill you won't read about in a traditional field-training program because the ecollar is such a powerful tool that traditional trainers don't need a drill like this one. It may also be that training these skills with an ecollar makes a more powerful impression, eliminating the need for remedial training later on in the dog's career. I  guess positive methods tend to be more work.

Anyway, now for a nap.

LL&L

Laddie's second Master pass

After a two-day Master test that ended this afternoon, Laddie qualified for his second Master ribbon.

The judges were great and offered a number of suggestions, which I'll incorporate into Laddie's training immediately.

A brief description of the test:

Series A. Walk-up land triple, with long flyer go-bird on center; then double land blind, both blinds inside the outer marks

Series B. Land/water triple (throws land-water-water): then water blind

Series C. Momma-poppa (flower pot) water double with honor

56 dogs entered
51 dogs ran
44 dogs called back to Series B
42 dogs called back to Series C
40 dogs qualified

Laddie: No handles on marks. All blinds tight with few handles. Terrible pick-ups. 

Another handler lesson, another training task

Laddie and I were out after the first series in today's Master test. :0(

Lessons learned:

Handling - Prepare yourself mentally in advance: If the dog is about to get into the same trouble you've seen several other dogs get into, don't let him get that far. Blow the whistle before he gets in trouble and spend the handle, live to see another series.

Training - You need to be able to use your come-in whistle when the dog gets into woods or high cover, he can't just wander around in there. Planned drill: plant a bird, have gunner blow duck call and fire shot but not swing arm, send dog past the fall into woods or high cover, use come-in whistle to bring dog back to fall.

So much to learn!

LL&L

Specialized socializing

Yesterday, Laddie was dropped from a Master test. I had the opportunity to ask one of the judges why, and he assured me that it wasn't Laddie's work. Rather, it was "trainability", specifically line manners. The judge commented, "For example, on the first series, you said 'here' to your dog 12 times before you got to the start line."

Well, as far as I know, we've never been dropped for line manners before, but it was certainly a legitimate criticism. Laddie had locked his eyes onto the honor dog while he was still on lead in the holding blind, and my wrist fear wasn't that he'd have trouble with the retrieving, but that he'd decide to visit, or even charge, the other dog. Obviously a dog fight would be far worse than getting dropped from the test, so as I always do these days, I focused with all my energy on keeping Laddie under control when another dog is nearby and taking my chances that the judges would allow it, and this time I lost. 

It may never come up again, but it is something new to work on, so I put some thought into how I might address it, and in correspondence, Jody made several excellent suggestions, including making use of a dog park.

Laddie has been j going to dig parks a few times a year all his life, and has never been in a fight at one. However, he tends to spend most of the time running around sniffing other dogs, especially females. Whatever learning is going on seems to have little to do with coming to the line in a competition with other dogs nearby.

However, I thought I might be able to set up a scenario more similar to competition. So I brought Laddie to a dog park with lots of dogs, including Labs, and brought him in in his lead with his favorite puppy bumper in my other hand. I did not try too char any dogs away, and told owners who asked that I didn't mind their dogs being near us, but I didn't let Laddie engage with any of them. If I thought he or another dog was getting tense, I hugged him close to me and held him immobile by the scruff, saying quietly, "It's ok, it's ok." Soon the other dogs lost interest and Laddie and I had a corner to ourselves.

I slipped off his lead, cued "sit",  tossed the bumper, and sent him. He faced to pick it up and brought it back, we played a little tug, and then repeat.

We played that way for about half an hour. Many variations occurred. For example, another dog might approach Laddie's toy or Laddie himself. If I saw any possible danger, I rushed to Laddie and got him under control as described above. Sometimes we didn't play tug, I just threw the bumper again. Sometimes: didn't keep him steady and let him run as soon as he saw I was throwing, which is more exciting for Laddie than having to watch the throw while sitting. We also moved to several different locations. And another variation was that sometimes Laddie would get distracted and not complete the retrieve. Again, I would rush to him, cue "pick it up" if he had dropped the toy, and get him involved in the game again.

As luck would have it, : found an excellent reinforcer for staying in the game. Temps today are in the high 80s, and someone had brought a child's wading pool and placed it near the faucet and host. It was ready teaching Laddie to step over the rim of the pool, and once in the pool, he lay down to cool his belly and lapped the water. Great way to cool off!

So after that, when Laddie would bring back the bumper, in a single motion, I'd grasp the rope, swing it away from Laddie as he released it, and toss it into the wading pool. He'd get in the pool, lie down, and sip a little water. In a few seconds, he was ready to bring the bumper back for another retrieve. This scenario was especially useful for immunizing Laddie to other dogs who might try to engage him or steal the bumper. He'd simply step out of the way, tiff his head away from them, and continue his jog back to me so I could throw the toy back into the pool.

I hope to have quite a few more such sessions with Laddie, with different locations and of course different mixes of dogs. One goal is to improve Laddie's behavior in these situations. But another goal is for me to learn to read the situations, so that I can trust him to perform well without my intervention whenever possible. Between those two processes, I think I may have a realistic shot at being able to bring him to the line in competitions with far less risk and tension than at present. That's the hope, anyway.

LL&L

Laddie's first Master pass

Yesterday and today, Laddie ran in the Master stake of the Tidewater Retriever Club Fall 2013 Hunt Test.

I'm pleased to report that Laddie qualified.

That gave him his first leg toward an AKC Master Hunter (MH) title, which requires a total of five Master passes for dogs who, like Laddie, previously earned an AKC Senior Hunter (SH) title. It was the first Master pass for either of us. It may have also been the first Master pass ever by any retriever trained entirely without physical aversives.

The test consisted of three series, two yesterday (Saturday) and the third today. Descriptions of each series, together with the stake's statistics, follow:

59 dogs entered

Series A. Around-the-horn land triple with flyer go-bird and honor

6 dogs scratched
1 no-show
52 dogs ran
48 dogs called back

Series B. Walk-up water/land double, plus land and water blinds, which could be run in either order

38 dogs called back

Series C. Diversion shot and water blind, plus around-the-horn water triple with both memory-birds drifting downstream

38 dogs called back and qualified

(If possible, I'll add more detail later.)

Puzzler triples and working on popping

I was in the hospital for several days last week (pancreatitis), but I have a few moments, so I thought I'd describe the sort of land triples I've been running Laddie on the last few weeks. We go out several times a week, and we can run these with three assistants, or if I only have two, we can run the momma-poppa one.

When we run them, I often add one or two land blinds, which are usually longer, possibly much longer, than any of the marks, with the lines designed for maximum factors. Although this may be a fallacy, my feeling is that by practicing field trial-style blinds, we should be fine for the Master blinds Laddie will actually be seeing in competition this fall.

The high temperatures in our region the last few months have limited how much I'm willing to work Laddie. Plenty of days we don't go out at all, and not infrequently, we only run one triple when we do go out. At most, we run two triples, plus possibly some number of blinds.

I would put all of these kinds of triples in a category I'll call "puzzler triples", in that they all seem to have the potential to cause significantly more confusion on some particular mark in the configuration than most other configurations for triples would have.

An obvious goal of running Laddie on these puzzlers is to familiarize him with the configurations, rather than having him face them for the first time in some test some day.

But I have another goal as well: Laddie has developed a tendency to pop, and while I have never gotten a clear understanding of the trigger or triggers for his popping, I assume that at least one risk factor is confusion.

Meanwhile, after trying a number of other approaches to cure Laddie's popping, I've come up with an approach that I'm feeling optimistic about: my old standby for slipped whistles, the Walk Out (WO). In fact, perhaps the very fact that Laddie was trained not to slip whistles with the WO may perhaps be adding to its efficacy for popping, in much the same way that a clicker-trained dog like Lumi gets quicker and quicker at figuring out what she's being clicked for when learning a new skill. Or perhaps there is no such accelerating mechanism, but the WO is just an intrinsically powerful training tool.

In any case, by running Laddie on puzzlers, he gains experience with the configurations, and I get the opportunity to use a WO if he pops, thus hopefully making future pops less likely. I think it's working, but of course only time will tell.

I don't mix and match the puzzlers in any one session, and in fact, if the various fields we use permit, I try to run Laddie on any one type of puzzler repeatedly over several sessions until he becomes comfortable with it. If we run two triples that day, I generally use a mirror image of the first triple for the second triple.

I would say that the distances of the marks Laddie runs these days are generally in the range of 25-220 yards, which I think is about right for Master preparation, with an eye toward perhaps running Qualifying stakes again someday. I typically use the very short distances as the #1 throw when we're practicing walk-ups, but I don't use walk-ups for puzzlers, so the low end of the range for puzzlers is more like 50 yards.

I guess it goes without saying that I don't run Laddie on the same set-up in the same location and orientation more than once within a long period of time, probably a year or more if ever.

For these descriptions, I'll arbitrarily make the first throw left-to-right (LTR). In practice, we're equally likely run these configurations either as described, or in mirror image. I make the decision based on factors such as terrain and wind, as well as taking care not to run them one way too much more often than the other.

For these descriptions, I'll arbitrarily make the longest throw 100 yards, to give some sense of the proportions of the three marks. As mentioned above, we often run longer marks. In addition, the proportions also are not in concrete. It wouldn't be unusual for two of the marks to be about the same distance, and on occasion all three are.

I think somewhat more than half the time, I have the throwers throw the mark on a bit of an angle back, so that the dog must run past the thrower to reach the fall. I believe that's the best kind of mark for a dog to practice the most often. Most of the rest of the time, I have the marks thrown "flat"; that is, the distance from the start line to the fall is the same as the distance from the start line to the thrower. However, occasionally, I do have the thrower throw a "check-down" mark, that is, on an angle in. I don't like to Laddie to practice those very much, because I would not want him to get too comfortable with hunting short, which would hurt his scoring. But check-down marks do occasionally occur in competition, and I've seen that they can be extremely confusing for dogs who have never practiced them, and even dogs who have. So I do mix them into our practices occasionally, including sometimes using an angle-in for one of the memory-birds in some of the puzzler configurations. I've found they can definitely add to the challenge.

Since we are practicing for Master, we run our puzzlers with hidden guns and duck calls. If we were preparing for field trial events, I think the same configurations would be worth practicing, perhaps at longer distances, with white jackets and maybe one or more retired guns. However, I might add that some of the configurations are probably harder if certain guns do not retire than if they do.

I'm well aware that other puzzling triple configurations exist. For example, I believe that an "indent triple", in which the center mark is the shortest, is supposed to be confusing for dogs, but I'm not sure how to set it up to achieve the best puzzler effect.

Meanwhile, here are some puzzler triples that I have come up with:

Hip pocket with converging second mark

The first mark is in the center, thrown LTR at 100y. The second mark is on the right, thrown RTL at 60y. The third mark is on the left, thrown LTR at 50y. An imaginary line drawn from the start line thru the fall of the third mark would hit the first thrower's hip pocket, hence the name given to the configuration made up of the first and third marks.

Laddie has been practicing hip pocket doubles practically all his life, but breaking up the double with a converging single apparently tends to dim, or entirely erase, a dog's memory of the long mark. Especially if the second mark is fairly tight, I guess the dog has the sense that he/she has already picked up a mark in that direction.

Reverse hip pocket with converging second mark

The first mark is on the left, thrown LTR at 100y. The second mark is on the right, thrown RTL at 70y. The third mark is in the center, thrown LTR at 50y. An imaginary line drawn from the start line thru the hip pocket of the third thrower would hit a few feet to the right (outside) of the fall of the first throw. Thus projected into 2D, in the "reverse hip pocket" double, the long thrower is seeming to land his throw nearly into the hip pocket of the short thrower, while in the "hip pocket" double described previously, the short thrower is seeming to land his throw into the hip pocket of the long thrower.

If the angle between the second and third gunners is too tight, their converging throws will cross, which I would not think is a desirable configuration to practice. Even if they don't cross, and depending on how far out the gunners are, the falls might be so close that the dog would have no way of knowing which one he/she is being sent to, which again I would not think would be good to practice. So I would say that that angle should not be too tight, and that the falls should be well away from one another.

Again, Laddie has been practicing reverse hip pocket doubles for years, but breaking the double up with a converging single seems to play havoc with his memory of the long mark. I guess any mark that takes the dog close to one of the shorter gunners, whether hidden, retired, or out, presents a special challenge anyway, and in this configuration, the dog must run just behind the third gunner to get to the long mark.

Momma-poppa with converging second mark

The first mark is in the center, thrown LTR at 100y. The second mark is on the right, thrown RTL at 70y, so the line to the fall is to the right of the line to the first fall. The third mark is also thrown from the center position, this time RTL at 100y.

Once again, this configuration seems to make the long memory-bird difficult to remember. I have no idea what would happen if the guns were on so tight an angle that the line to the second mark were to the left of the line to the first throw. I would not think that would be a good configuration to practice. I don't know if it ever occurs in competition.

I've previously written that momma-poppa triples and quads seem to be so confusing for Laddie that I had decided not to practice them, and hope for the best if they ever came up in a test. However, given my desire to challenge Laddie with situations in which he might be inclined to pop, so that he can learn from my Walk Out strategy not to do so, I've reintroduced this puzzler to our mix. It's especially handy to have available if you've only got two assistants. For an example, please see "Note on today's training" below.

Inline triple

I believe that some trainers use the term "inline" to mean that a line drawn from the start line goes thru both falls. I don't use the term that way. What I mean by an inline triple is that all three guns and all three falls are in a continuous line, and that line runs either across the field, or on a diagonal, with the middle gunner in the center of the field. The first and longest gunner throws away from the other two gunners. Then the center gunner throws toward the first gunner, with the fall about halfway between the two. Finally the shortest gunner throws toward the second gunner, with the fall again about halfway between the two. Variations would include spreading the gunners further apart, so that the falls are closer to gunner that threw them than to the gunner that the throw was toward.

I have heard that it's customary to require the dog to pick up the center mark second, rather than picking up outer-outer-inner. I don't think that judges would have the right to lower the dog's score if the handler chose to have the dog pick the marks up outer-outer-inner, but I just thought I'd mention that for some reason it seems to be a strong convention that the dog must pick up the marks in the reverse order of the throws for this configuration, at least in the minds of some trainers.

For some reason, dogs can have a great deal of difficulty with the second mark of an inline triple, even at fairly short distances, even with the guns out, and even with no other major factors in the configuration. If you are going to retire any of the guns, retiring the second gun while leaving the first gun out might actually be a harder test than retiring both of them.

Note on today's training

It so happens that today I had only two throwers, so we ran one of the puzzlers mentioned above, a momma-poppa with converging second mark. Laddie was indeed puzzled. He returned after his second retrieve with no idea how to line up for the third and final send out. It looked like an opportunity to test whether my anti-popping strategy has been working. I lined him up and launched him with his name, and he shot out in the direction he was aligned on as expected. But I was pretty sure that he had no idea of what the exact line was — I'd purposely given him only a quick lining indication with my hand — or how far to go, and the thrower was hidden. He had no choice but to use his problem-solving skills as best he could to estimate the area of the fall from the data available to him, and then put on a hunt. I felt it was exactly the situation in which he was likely to pop, and held my breath to see what he would do. Well, he took a line a bit too far to the right, but raced right thru the shorter fall and almost as far as he needed to go. He then hunted the short grass that was in front of the high cover that contained the fall, and finally quartered outward to the fall. I was quite pleased with his demonstration of retriever problem solving, and even more pleased that he never showed the slightest inclination to pop, for example by pausing or starting to look toward the start line.

Additional note on today's training

For completeness, I'll mention that before I picked up the two assistants and went to run Laddie on the momma-poppa triple mentioned above, I brought Laddie out to Cheltenham and ran him on three water blinds.

Land blinds in Vermont

During our two weeks on vacation in Vermont, we had lots of hikes and the dogs got to swim in ponds, lakes, and reservoirs half a dozen times or more. In addition, Laddie ran land blinds almost every day. However, we never did find a location for running water blinds, and we never had a chance to run any marks on land or water.

The land blinds were generally around 200y, plus or minus. It was during this trip that I realized to make a change in my handling (see When to Blow the Whistle). I needed to start blowing the whistle in anticipation of Laddie veering offline, rather than waiting for him to veer off, and also I had to occasionally blow the whistle even when no factors indicated that Laddie was likely to veer off, in order to avoid him beginning to anticipate a whistle when factors are present, which might result in an increase in popping, not only on blinds but also on marks that included similar factors.

Here's a video that Renee took for me using my phone's videocamera, showing me attempting to put those concepts into practice.

When to blow the whistle

Having a fast dog who lines well can apparently develop a type of handling error in blinds that in my case has taken a long time to recognize.

Consider this common scenario: the blind begins with a relatively easy line for some distance, then reaches a factor -- such as a diversion or an obstacle -- that makes it likely the dog will veer off-line, possibly quite suddenly.

It would be nice to let the dog roll to see whether the dog's training keeps the dog on a straight line, and then blow the whistle the moment the dog begins to veer. But if the dog is faster than the handler's reaction time, the result may be that the dog goes an unacceptable distance in the wrong direction. For example, the dog may go around a keyhole or wooden log that the judges expect the dog to go thru or over, and the judges will disqualify the dog if the handler tries to call the dog back. Or the dog may go out of sight behind a mound or over a crest, and thus be considered out of control (ooc) and again be disqualified.

The obvious solution is to blow the whistle as the dog approaches the factor without waiting to see whether the dog will veer off. But that has several arguments against it. One is that extra whistles potentially reduce scoring. Another is that stopping a dog unnecessarily potentially reduces the dog's motivation for running blinds. And a third is that if the dog is always stopped in a particular context, such as just as the dog gets out of the water while crossing a point, the dog may learn to anticipate the whistle and begin popping in that context before the whistle occurs, on blinds and even on marks.

I'll address each of those concerns.

As to the concern about scoring, I've come to the conclusion that the risk of being disqualified for missing a keyhole or going ooc is a greater concern than the risk of losing a little on scoringfor extra whistles. Therefore, if that's the only concern, blow the whistle and give the dog the extra guidance needed to complete the blind without getting knocked out.
With respect to motivation, I think that's a concern that some trainers will take more into consideration than others. For me, it is very real. But for that same reason, many of my training and handling decisions are influenced by an effort to maximize the dog's motivation for the work. That gives me a savings account, so to speak, especially with a dog who has had years of training devoted to maximizing motivation. And I've come to the conclusion that the situation described is an appropriate time to make a withdrawal from that savings account, and blow the whistle even if, in a parallel universe, the dog would have gone straight without it.

That leaves the third concern: accidentally training the dog to pop by consistently blowing the whistle in certain contexts until the dog begins to anticipate those whistles and turns to look at the handler even if the whistle isn't blown, such as when running a mark.

For a dog who is not a consistently good liner, that might not be a problem, because the dog would not learn that any particular context or contexts are any more likely to trigger a whistle than any other situation. But if the only times the dog generally hears a whistle are a relatively small number of specific situations -- the top of a crest, just past a stand of trees, an angled approach to high cover -- then I think the risk is real that those situations might begin causing pops when marking, or on blinds before the handler wants to blow the whistle.

After much consideration, I have reluctantly reached the conclusion that the only solution to that problem is for the trainer to begin blowing the whistle even more often, including situations that do not include a factor, and even if the dog is not veering off line. Yes, it might result in a lower score. Yes, it might slightly lower the dog's motivation for blinds. But if it allows you to take more control when factors are in play, without the dog learning to pop in those contexts when you don't blow the whistle, especially in marks, that seems a fair price to pay.

So this is the conclusion I've come to: In planning how I'll run Laddie (a fast dog who lines well) on a blind with a factor in the distance, (a) I'll plan to anticipate Laddie's possible reaction to the factor by stopping him before he has a chance to react, so that I can give him extra guidance; and (b) to avoid having Laddie learn that such contexts especially predict a whistle, I'll stop him sometime before he reaches that factor, even if he is on a good line.

I don't know how similar either element of this approach is to more experienced trainers with similar dogs. It would be interesting to know.
LL&L

Water blind and land triples with flyers

I got to have Lumi with me last night, and this morning, I left the house at 5am with Laddie and her to pick up four ducks in Cheltenham.

Since my friend Tony had done such a nice job of having the ducks in a crate ready to be picked up, we had plenty of time for the next leg of our journey. So I asked Tony to suggest a Master water blind, and he pointed out a line to a peninsula with points tight on both sides. Turned out to be too easy. Laddie lined it and didn't even vocalize. Good for confidence anyway.

At 9am we met Dave and two assistants. First Laddie ran an xmas-tree land triple with the flyer as the go-bird. The memory birds were both under the arc of the flyer go-bird (Dave calls that a wipe-out bird), and formed a reverse hip-pocket, with the memory guns hidden behind hay bails. On top of that, the duck calls for the two dead birds thrown first weren't audible, and the pistol shots weren't much louder, so Laddie didn't get too much of a look at them, of course also much more interested in the flyer than the bumpers being thrown for the memory birds.

Yet he was steady for the throws, then nailed the flyer and the left bird, with a short hunt for the center long mark.

One of the assistants then ran Lumi while I honored with Laddie. We had a double made up of the long mark and the flyer, which landed 30y in front of Laddie. To increase difficulty on the honor, I stood on Laddie's left rather than where I usually stand when honoring, on his right, and that meant he was between me and Lumi, potentially reducing my influence compared to having me between them. Perhaps even more challenging, Lumi had to run across Laddie's field of vision, just a few yards away, when released for the flyer. I had cautioned the assistant that Lumi's personality would change when that flyer was thrown, but Lumi still got away from her as soon as the bird was down. Laddie just sat and watched like a good boy.

The second land triple was also an xmas-tree, this time with an out-of-order flyer as the second mark. The #1 and #3 formed a hip- pocket in the opposite direction as the flyer, so Laddie had to look well away from the flyer to watch the first throw, then watch the nearby flyer, then swing nearly 180 degrees to watch the go-bird. However, the assistants did a better job sounding their duck calls, and each fired twice before throwing, plus we used dead birds for those marks. Laddie got a good look at all the marks, remained steady till sent, and nailed all three marks in the reverse order of the throws.

Laddie again remained sitting for the honor, as Lumi watched an out-of-order double and then went straight for the flyer, ignoring the go-bird.

Of course the level of excitement is higher at an event, but I think we've fine a reasonable job of preparing Laddie to be steady at our Master test next Friday. We'll see.

LL&L