My inexperience costs us again

Today we ran a Qual in southern Virginia.  Here are my notes:

21 dog entered, of which Laddie was the only Golden and the oldest dog. The field also included a Chessie and 19 Labs, including one owned and handled by the property owner.

Temps in 60s and 70s, cloudy, very windy.

Series A. Land triple

First throw was on the right, thrown RTL at 180y.  Second throw was in the middle, thrown LTR almost straight back into cover at 160y. Third throw was a flyer, thrown RTL all over the place, typically 160y. The first gun retired while the dog was picking up the go-bird flyer. Strong wind toward middle gun.

Laddie's performance: I gave him plenty of time to check out each of the three guns. Although the go-bird was RTL, I ran Laddie on my right to increase odds I could influence him to watch middle bird rather than swinging around to watch flyer after first throw. During the throws, he appeared to get a good look at all three, and he remained steady. I ran the marks in reverse order of the throws, taking a little time to get an accurate lock-in on the two memory birds, and Laddie nailed all three. After he picked up the retired mark, judge behind me said "nice job" and applause came from gallery. Later, after Series A was completed, I happened to walk past the judge airing her dogs and she again said, "Your dog did a nice job."  :0)

Laddie had good pickups, his returns were a bit meandering at times but reasonable, he didn't air on any return, and he delivered all three birds without a drop. His line manners were OK, although he tried to visit the bird rack after he completed the series.

On the strength of Laddie's excellent marking, in a series hard enough that various dogs were picked up on all three marks, I think he had to be in good shape on the scoring for Series A.

After we ran Series A, I realized I had forgotten to wear my white jacket. :0(

19 dogs ran
12 dogs called back

Series B. Land blind

The land blind was run from nearly the same start line, but on a line to the right of the field used for Series A. As a result, we had a strong wind RTL.  The marshal told me we'd be the second dog (we actually ran third), so when the test dog couldn't do the test, I went to get Laddie before watching the test dog finish. From the distance, I saw that they had the test dog run it a second time, something I've never seen before. I ended up seeing only one dog run the blind before it was our turn. This turned out to be a major disadvantage.

In this series, my inexperience both in competition and  training with knowledgeable field trialers, really hurt us (I have to train alone or with my assistants, who know less than I do, 99% of the time). I knew my job was to figure out what the judges considered to be the primary criteria for passing, but I saw the blind as pretty open and therefore figured what they primarily wanted you see was that you put the dog on a good line rather than sending the dog way right and letting her drift back on line with the wind. Accordingly, I ran Laddie straight at the blind. He drifted a bit left, requiring some handling, and he had a couple of slipped whistles, but it looked like a reasonable Qual-level job to me.

As Laddie was coming back, I suddenly realized that a bridge to the left of a road crossing was visible in the picture, and that the judges may have had as a criterion that the dog would stay to the right of the bridge. Until then I hadn't even noticed the bridge! My heart sank as I remembered that Laddie was still left of the line as he crossed the road and no doubt had gone past the bridge on the outside.

If I'd had more experience, or if I'd seen a few more dogs run the blind before it was our turn, I think I would have seen the bridge as the other dogs were running and would have been careful to keep Laddie to the right of it. We challenged the wind, but we weren't on line at that crucial point.

Eight dogs were called back; Laddie was not one of them. A wasted opportunity, since I think Laddie was well positioned after the first series.

I have been told I should always stay to watch an event even after being knocked out, since it's a great way to gain experience seeing competition setups, dog tendencies, handling techniques, judging standards, etc. It does not however take into account how devastating being dropped is, and how much of an outsider you feel under those circumstances. I would love to stay and run Laddie, but I'm already hurting deeply, though this may be difficult for the reader to comprehend. To stay and watch the remaining dogs, while Laddie must remain in his crate, is more than I'm willing to subject my emotions to. I'm so sorry to disappoint those who have given me that excellent advice.

Water marks: a third day of corners

Today, Laddie and our bird-girl and I all returned once again to the closest training property, today running twelve cheat-y water marks.

Laddie cheated the two most difficult ones, which I made the mistake of setting up so that I couldn't see he was cheating until too late, because rather dumbly I wasn't expecting him to cheat. What made them difficult, it turned out, wasn't the angle of entry or anything else about the geometry of the corner of the pond, but the length of the land entry -- in one case over 200y -- before Laddie reached the water entry.

But the good news is that Laddie took water on all the others. We still have work to do, of course, but depending on the particular pictures we run into, he may do well on some of the challenges we'll run into.

Water marks: more corners

Today, Laddie, a bird-girl, and I returned to the closest training property for another training session devoted entirely to difficult water entries. Continuing yesterday's work, we used a different but similar collection of ten water marks, each featuring a longish land entry and a short swim across the corner of a pond to a white bumper thrown, and often visible, on the far side. Visibility of the bumper wasn't an accident. I wanted to be sure that Laddie knew where the fall was and was not cheating land because he thought that the fall was possibly closer to the corner.

The temps weren't bad, low 60s, but we had a brisk breeze to go with on-and-off showers.

Laddie tried to run around the corner on the first mark. I called him back and resent him, and he did great. He then took water the first time on the next seven marks.

I guess the eighth was especially difficult, because he ran around the corner three times. When I sent him the fourth time, I made up my mind I'd whistle and handle him, which I did, but I questioned myself almost immediately because that last time he was just entering the water on a good line. Maybe the handle wasn't necessary or useful that time after all.

Laddie then ran the ninth and tenth marks without a problem. The tenth was a re-run of the eighth that he'd had so much trouble with. If he gets that picture in a trial this weekend, maybe he'll be ready for it.

Water marks: corners and reentries

Yesterday, Laddie and I traveled with a single assistant to the closest training property with technical water. There we made a complete circuit of the property, stopping along the way to run about ten water marks that would challenge Laddie's "water honesty," that is, willingness to swim across a section of water to stay on line to a mark rather than running around the water.

Eight of the marks were thrown from a corner of a pond up the shore, so that Laddie needed to take an angle entry into the water and swim across the corner. Two others required Laddie first to swim across a channel, then over a small amount of land to reach a point of reentry into a second section of water and across a corner to the mark. Those two marks were the fifth and tenth of the set Laddie ran.

All were run with a bird-girl in a white jacket firing a pistol and throwing a white bumper. I used setups with the longest land entries I could find, so that Laddie was as far from the influence of my proximity as possible when he reached the water entry.

Of the first seven marks, Laddie ran two correctly the first time. For all the others, he tried to "cheat" around the corner. In each case, I called out "No!" then called him back to heel and sent him again. In four of those five cases, he ran it correctly the second time. For the one that he again started to cheat, which was the sixth mark of the day, I called him back a short way, then used whistle and handling cues to handle him into the water.

The last three marks of the day were as difficult as any of those that had come before, and the last was a diagonal swim across a channel before crossing a point of land and taking a reentry across a corner of water. But Laddie ran all three of those correctly the first time, with no need to call him back or handle.

At last he was running those situations the way he'll need to if we run into one of them in a trial.

Triples with embedded blinds

When I left the house to pick up three assistants for local training on land this afternoon, it was sunny but we were nonetheless having a light snowfall. It was below freezing and with a stiff wind, the wind chill was 20 degrees. Just sayin'.

Anyway, we ran two series that were similar but run in different orientations on the field.

Series A. Land triple with embedded blind.

First throw was on the left, thrown LTR at 220y. Second throw was on the right, thrown RTL at 180y. Third throw was in center, thrown RTL at 110y. Gunner for the third throw was in line with the fall of the second throw, a configuration called a reverse hip-pocket. Blind was at 230y on a line under the arc of the third throw, and I had Laddie run the blind after the first two marks but before picking up the long mark.

Series B. Land triple with embedded blind.

The configuration of the gunners and throws, and the distances of the retrieves, were about the same as for Series A, but the blind was behind (to the left of) the first gun. Also, the line to the second fall was thru a diagonal strip of high cover.

For both series, Laddie's performance was good all day, except that on the last mark of Series B, which he ran after running the blind, he took a line too far to the outside and, about 30y from the mark, which was thrown into cover, he apparently became confused and turned around to sit and face me. This was an unusual pop in that he just sat there staring at me for a long time, even though I never moved a muscle. Typically, when Laddie pops, as with other dogs I've seen, if the handler doesn't move, the dog turns away and starts hunting within a few seconds. But Laddie didn't do that for perhaps 30 seconds. Eventually he finally did, and found the bumper with a short hunt.

I'm not sure why his behavior was unusual on this occasion. These days I usually call "Sit", then walk out to pick Laddie up and rerun him on the mark when he pops, which has become fairly rare, thank goodness. But I'm having considerable pain in one of my legs, so today I followed the more usual protocol I've seen handlers use for a dog popping, which is to just freeze and not give the dog any response at all. The goal of that tactic is to not reinforce the pop in hopes that the behavior will become less probable in the future, though I haven't noticed that effect with Laddie over the years I've tried various things since popping crept into his game. Picking him up seemed to be more effective. Most effective, however, as I've described before, I believe, is to train with fake throws, so that Laddie gets accelerated experience with confusing situations that he can successfully solve without popping.

By the way, another reason for not responding to a pop, besides the fact that it may reinforce it and make future pops more probable, is that, in the case of a marked retrieve in an event, if you just stand there, the dog is graded down only for a pop, but if you handle the dog out of the pop, the retrieve becomes a handled retrieve, more costly to the dog's score.

I'd have preferred to end the day on a mark run where no pop had occurred, but it was a good day of training in difficult weather and I think all the humans were happy to get out of the cold.

Seventh qual JAM for Laddie

Today, in interminttent rain and with temps dropping from the forties into the thirties, Laddie earned his seventh Judges Award of Merit (JAM), a green ribbon that means the dog finished the trial rather than being dropped along the way, but without a score high enough to earn one of the top four placements.

To briefly express my feelings: Of course I'm proud of this achievement in the light of the fact that no other positive-trained dog has ever won even one ribbon in a field trial as far as I know. On the other hand, I am disappointed that we still have not taken a placement in a field trial.

Now I would just like to describe the test and how Laddie did running it.

Series A. Land double with flyer as the go-bird. Memory bird was thrown to the back of a small pond. Then a land blind.

Laddie nailed the flyer. For the memory bird, he ran directly to it without a hunt, but he skirted the water, running between water's edge and the gunner. He ran the blind with a good initial line, three whistles, no refusals, and good carries on every cast.

Series B. Water blind, consisting of a sliver of water, a dike crossing, and a channel swim with land on the left and a flooded corn field on the right. In the last twenty yards or so, the dog needed to cut across the corner of the corn field and then run over a short stretch of lunging-depth water to reach the bird on the far shore. Laddie required a fair number of casts, and vocalized on the first two casts after crossing the dike, but aside from that, his performance appeared to me to be unremarkable.

Series C. Water single. The dog needed to enter the water and drive thru a section of flooded corn, then cross the dike on a sharp angle, reenter the water into another section of flooded corn, and finally come out of the water and run a hundred yards to the bird at the tree line.  Laddie ran this like almost every other dog, lunging through the first section of water, then cheating around the second section of water by running on the dike before turning the corner and running straight to the bird. Some of the dogs did require a hunt at the back of the field but Laddie did not. The two exceptions were the test dog who did enter the second section of water on the way to the bird -- she was a retired FC/AFC -- and a different dog who entered the second section of water in order to hunt for some time in the corn there, finally making his way to the back of the field and the bird after much hunting short, a pop, and a considerable time later.

For the day, on the negative side, Laddie dropped a bird at the line once and took several seconds before he picked it back up again, and he vocalized on his first two casts in water. He also cheated water on two of his marks, an unsurprising weakness given our lack of water work since last fall, but a key training goal in the days to come.

On the positive side, Laddie had no hunts, no cast refusals, no pops, never dawdled on a pick up or return, aired/marked on a return only once, never came close to breaking, never went out of control at the line or in the field, and with the one exception mentioned above, had good deliveries. Of course he ran with with his usual great enthusiasm and athleticism throughout the trial.

I don't know what it will take for us to raise our game high enough for a placement in a stake someday, but we'll get two more tries next weekend. 

Water work

Although we have a trial this morning, and I usually rest Laddie the day before a trial, we finally had a nice day yesterday, sunny with temps reaching the lot 70s. By contrary, today has reverted to this spring's norm, with temps in the 40s and dropping thru the day, as well as continuous rainfall.

To take advantage of the good weather, Laddie and I drove with an assistant to the closest training property with technical water for some brush-up on water skills: taking water entries rather than running the back (cheating) on marks, and control near points of land on blinds. 

Accordingly, we ran four retrieves:

A - Up-the-shore with the bank on the left, also featuring a cheat-y channel crossing near the start line, and on-and-off a point with a tempting cheat to the left at the midpoint.

B - Up-the-shore with the bank on the right, and other features mirroring series A.

C - 160y water blind, with a point of land on the right at midpoint that the dog was to challenge (get near) but not get onto, and another point of land that the dog was to go over (on-and-off) with a difficult (cheat-y) angle entry, across a 20y inlet to a lining pole and the orange bumper.

D - 180y mark across two points of land, the second featuring a difficult angle entry into a longish swim in deep water, then up a hillside to the mark.

Laddie's performance:

A - He tried twice to go around the channel crossing. I called him back each time. He then ran it nicely and crossed the point well, but began veering veering toward the shore on the left. I handled him to the right onto a better line, which he then carried to the mark.

B - Flawless. No hint of cheating, stayed clear of land as he approached the bumper on the shoreline.

C - Took an initial line toward the land on the right rather than the big water on the left, then vocalized when I cast him left. I immediately called him in for vocalizing. Sent him again. He took a better line but still too far right, took the cast with only a soft whimper.  Got tangled briefly in the decoy line just off the first point but stayed close to the land without getting on. Intended to swim around the second point but took my cast onto it. Was a bit too slow stopping when I whistled sit on the second point so I called him back in a couple of yards. I then cast an Over of the point, but he went pretty much straight back instead and straight to the pole. Since he showed no inclination to cheat along the shoreline, iá fine with that.

D - Another excellent mark with no need to handle. Stayed in front of (on a line to the left of) the hunger the whole way, no hint of cheating or breaking down.

Laddie injured, left foot this time

I ran Laddie in the Maryland Gun Dog Championship last Sunday, and had him entered in a Super Singles competition tomorrow, because both events would be opportunities to work on Laddie's steadiness with flyers.

For training this week, I ran Laddie on three singles, all around 300y, on Tuesday, ran him on six blinds of around 180y on Thursday, and also brought him to an excellent training group we're lucky enough to be able to train with, which was meeting this morning.

The first setup today was a tight ABCD drill, plus a 150y+ blind, featuring a hay-bale keyhole and suction to wrap behind a wooded section near the end.

Unfortunately, we never got that far. Laddie raced out on the first single, but began limping badly on his return, and halfway back stopped, sat down, and dropped the bird. I came out and lifted him into my arms, intending to carry him to the van. But halfway there he began struggling, and when I put him down, he did not seem to be limping any more.

I checked his paws for foreign objects at the suggestion of another trainer, and then decided to try him out on another single. Again he raced to the bird, and again he began to limp badly on his return. He limped to an area of shadow behind a hay bale near the second fall and lay down with the bird. I again walked out to him, but rather than picking him up this time, in deference to my recently injured back, I slipped his lead over his head and slowly walked him back to the van.

Luckily, our holistic vet, Carol Lundquist, who lives less than an hour from where we were training, was able to make a few minutes to check Laddie out. First I walked him around outside, expecting to show Carol either that Laddie was not limping, or that he was limping on his chronically injured right foreleg. Instead, he seemed to be limping on his left foreleg, which he's never injured before as far as I can remember.

Carol then examined him in her office, and discovered that two of the toes on his left foot were badly swollen. She told me that it made sense he could run out on his retrieves without seeming to limp but would limp on the way back in. That's because when a dog canters or gallops, if one foot is sore, the dog can lead with the other side and not appear to limp. But trotting back, the dog needs to put weight on both front legs alternately and an injury shows as limping.

Carol gave me guidance such as icing and various pain meds, and no training for at least a week, which will hold us until our scheduled appointment next Saturday for both Lumi and Laddie. Of course Laddie won't be able to run in the event tomorrow either. 

How did the injury occur? Carol mentioned several possibilities, such as a misstep that resulted in a sprain, or banging his foot against a rock or tree root. She said the injury also could have occurred earlier, such as when I aired him, but wasn't painful enough to cause limping till he ran hard on the first, and then the second, send outs.

It's unfortunate we'll have to miss the event tomorrow, but the timing and/or the injury could have been a lot worse.

Laddie receives finalist ribbon in MDWFA 2014 Gun Dog Championship

In this year's MDWFA Gun Dog Championship, held yesterday in Cheltenham, Laddie was one of six dogs (of the 22 entries) to reach the 2014 finals, and received another ribbon for his already overstuffed bulletin board.

I had never seen a Gun Dog competition before, and I expected hunt test-level setups, which I've been planning to avoid since I want to focus on field trial competition for the remainder of Laddie's career now that he has his MH. But when I learned flyers would be used, I decided to enter.

My reason was that, after Laddie broke in his first and so-far only all-age competition last July, I picture in my mind's eye that I saw the instant when he was about to break that day, and possibly could have stopped him by calling "SIT!" at that instant rather than waiting till he had actually launched. He would still have been DQed, but in a much better way from a training point of view than actually getting the bird as he did. But I'm not yet certain my reflexes are fast enough, or that he would have responded, so I thought this competition might be an opportunity to test that theory.

In fact, we had not one but a total of three flyers during the competition (one as the go-bird in the first series double, and two in the third-series double), but Laddie was rock steady on all three, so I didn't get to try that experiment. However, I've entered Laddie in another competition next weekend that also will also use flyers — a Super Singles event — so maybe we'll see then.

In terms of my overarching goal of finding out how far I can take a field receiver using positive training methods, I don't think this ribbon tells us much. On the one hand, some of the dogs in the competition were all-age competitors, including at least one field champion with a Second in an Open this fall, so Laddie prevailed over some good dogs. On the other hand, the scoring system was so quirky — based mostly on number of whistles — that Laddie survived a first series blind he would never have survived in a trial.

On the positive side, besides the ribbon and the steadiness, Laddie marked well throughout the event. In the second series triple, he nailed all three marks and lined the blind. He showed no aversion to the cold water, which figured prominently in the third series, leaping into the water on every entry on the way out. Note: Laddie doesn't leap into the water during returns, with an article in his mouth. He used to when he was a puppy, but I think he must have hurt himself doing that once, and it took a year — a year! — to re-train him even to enter the water carrying an article. Now he does so without hesitation, but he alligators in, rather than using the big-air entries he makes when he's not carrying anything.

As another good sign, all of Laddies returns, both land and water, were satisfactory. He did drop the bird at the line a few times, which is not cool, but not something that seems to matter much in scoring at trials, as long as he then picks it back up for delivery to hand.

Also, Laddie never vocalized on any of his retrieves, including the water blind with a point in the picture in the third series, which is, I think, an important improvement from the summer and hopefully shows that my decision not to compete this fall, and instead concentrate on devocalization, is paying off, and perhaps shows that the approach I used does seem to have the ability to address that difficult, possibly genetic, tendency. However, he did bark twice when I was lining him up to run the blind he ended up lining. Anthropomorphizing, it felt like he was saying, "Let me go, I know where it is, it's frustrating that you won't just send me," but of course I can't really know why he barked, other than, I guess, some kind of stress. To be honest, while I understand that vocalizing is a fault, it remains thrilling to work with such a highly motivated competitor.

In every series yesterday, at least one dog never saw the go-bird thrown. One more positive for us was that Laddie saw every throw.

As for negatives from the competition, I found that despite my best efforts in training to prepare Laddie for running blinds with difficult factors (including two 300+ yard blinds at a training session last week), I still cannot control him if the suction in a competitive blind is too strong. In the case of the third series yesterday, the gunners threw two flyers right-to-left, and then the dog had to pick up a water blind in front of the left downed flyer. It was one thing to pull Laddie off the go-bird flyer on the right. It was something else to deny him both flyers, something we've never seen before at any level of competition. Besides that suction to the right, the point of land and adjacent running-depth water also provided additional major suction to the right, and the stiff wind blowing LTR didn't help, since no dog likes to take a cast into the wind. Anyway, after Laddie picked up the left flyer, eliminating him from any chance of winning the event, the judges permitted me to rerun Laddie on the blind, and this time he three-whistled it. That was better than the dog who won the event, though of course that dog did it with both flyers still on the ground, so it proves nothing other than that Laddie can run a difficult blind well if a flyer isn't lying nearby.

The other negative is that Laddie scraped up his nose in the first series. It looks painful, but it doesn't seem to be bothering him. I'm afraid it will scar, but he already has other scars on his pretty puppy nose, so this is just one more.

In summary, Laddie was steady on all three flyers (as well as a 25-yard dead bird as go-bird in the second series), had good returns, saw every throw, marked well, didn't vocalize running a difficult and frustrating water blind with a point (or running any other blind), lined one of the blinds, had a perfect score in one series, and added a Finalist ribbon to his bulletin board. I guess that's a good day.

Entries, re- entries, and a mound

For the last several sessions, I've brought along an assistant for Laddie's training, and made most of his retrieves marks rather than blinds. We are still working predominantly on technical ponds over and around points of land, but we've raised the reinforcement value of the retrieves by use of gunshots and giving Laddie the opportunity to see the bumper thrown rather than having to depend entirely on handling instructions from me.

Here, for example, are the retrieves that Laddie ran in today's session:

- LWLWL mark with cheating entry on first water. Laddie required handling when we ran this identical mark in our previous session, but did not need handling when we ran it today.

- LWLWL mark with cheating entry on first water. Laddie required handling when we ran this identical mark in our previous session, and retired handling again today.

- LWLWL mark with cheating re-entry (on second water). Laddie has never run this mark before, and did not require handling.

- LWLWL mark with cheating re-entry. Laddie has never run this mark before, and it was too difficult for him. Not only did he attempt to cheat around the second choice, but he barked when I attempted to call him back toward me and then cast him off the point. As soon as he vocalized, I immediately called him in, which was a long swim. When I attempted to run him on the mark again, his performance was identical to the first time, including barking and being called back in. Since I saw no way in that location to make it easier, I just decided to move to a new location for our continued training.

- LWLWL mark with cheating re-entry. Laddie has never run this mark before, but he required no handling.

- LWLWL mark with cheating re-entry. Laddie has never run this mark before, and he chose to run it by taking the point of land wide and then cutting back to the fall. Since I consider that an acceptable way to deal with a mark across the tip of a point, even though it takes Laddie a little offline, again Laddie required no handling on this mark.

- Land blind over a mound at midpoint. I was able to handle him over the mound when he tried to skirt it, and he did not vocalize as he had the last time we ran a blind over a mound, several months ago. I felt that was a good sign, showing that the work we had done with devocalizing on water blinds had also carried over to devocalizing on land blinds.

Like our other recent sessions, today's session was challenging yet low in stress and high in reinforcement value. It seems like a good way to take advantage of the little time we have left for training in water this season.

Devocalization, proofing with double blinds

During our last few sessions, Laddie and I have gotten well into the proofing stage for running blinds without vocalizing. For now, we are not working with the distractions of other dogs or trainers.

In addition, I am not requiring absolute silence at this time. Laddie still sometimes vocalizes quietly while swimming, and also occasionally barks once when being cast off a point. I'm torn about how to address these. The risk of allowing them to continue without calling him back is that I'm sending a confusing message, which could increase stress and which also might lead to the behavior gradually deteriorating again. But the risk of calling him back is that that results in a reduced rate of reinforcement (ROR) for the session, which is unpleasant and stressful for both of us. In addition, every time I can him back in order to discourage vocalizing, I'm at risk of also discouraging the correct response, such as taking the cast, that he was also offering at the same time. Maybe I should be more absolute and consistent, but for now I'm treating it as a judgment call.

As an example of one of our proofing sessions, today Laddie ran three double blinds, a total of six retrieves. Each double blind consisted of a short water blind with about 70y of swimming and a long water blind with about 150y of swimming. Every blind had one or more points of land in the picture, and I tried to provide a balanced mix of required behavior.

I didn't need to call Laddie back a single time for any of these: 

Series A, short blind: over a point on the left

Series A, long blind: past a point on the left, then between two points

Series B, short blind: over a point on the right

Series B, long blind: past a point on the right, then over a point on the right

Series C, short blind: over a point on the left, then past a point on the left

Series C, long blind: over a point on the right, then past a point on the right

Devocalization, proofing phase

For the last few weeks, Laddie and I have had very little opportunity to work on marking. Half my assistants have gone away to college, and another one has moved, but I could probably still get together enough for local land triples, and maybe will do so at some point. The trouble is that at best, that would be preparation for the land triple at a Quad. It wouldn't help us with water, and I doubt it would help us much with all-age preparation. But I haven't been able to train with any all-age trainers in several weeks.

So instead, Laddie and I have been primarily working on blinds.

For land blinds, I usually take us somewhere near home and work on long blinds that have one or more factors as far from the start line as possible. Typical factors include keyholes, entries into cover when an easy cheat is available, diversions such as slightly offline lining pole with ribbon at top and large white bumper at base, diagonal slopes, mounds, and stands of trees to run past without wrapping around them.

I recognize that all-age blinds typically include water, and we aren't practicing long, difficult land/water blinds at this time.  But hopefully Laddie is still benefitting from practicing with the factors that I am incorporating.

Meanwhile, we now run virtually all of our water blinds at the closest training property, which is anywhere from two to four hours of driving roundtrip depending on traffic. Today was fairly typical, a two-hour training session sandwiched between two 2-hour drives.

I am no longer setting up many beginner or intermediate drills for Laddie to work on his vocalizing. Instead, he is running mostly Qual-level water blinds, with one primary rule: if he vocalizes at any time during the blind, I call Here or No, Here, and he has to come back and start over. I've experimented with calling back only partially, but it tends to create confusion and I don't think the lesson is as clear.

Today was typical of these devocalization sessions. When I arrived, I mentally pictured an area where Laddie and I would set up five start lines, and then I placed five 2" orange bumpers at placements that would require a substantial swim and crossing a point in the middle. Some points would be on the right, some on the left. Then I drove us over to the other side of the ponds and channels I was using and one by one, had Laddie run each of the blinds.

I interspersed poorman marks among the blinds, each mark characterized by a line that passed near a point but not over it. The goal of the marks was twofold: to make the session more enjoyable for Laddie, who much prefers marks to blinds, and to reinforce his long-standing tendency to stay off any point he comes near, even swimming around it if necessary in order to avoid climbing onto it. I'm counting on qual and all-age judges not penalizing Laddie too much if he does that on a competition mark.

After Laddie completed those five blinds, I set up another five blinds from a different set of start lines, and drove Laddie around to the other side to run those.

First the bad news: Laddie vocalized at least once on each of the first five blinds, during either the first water entry, or the first cast needed on the way to the point, or the cast off the point into the second cove. Of those, by far the most incidents were on the first cast after Laddie was in the water. I could speculate, but I don't really know why Laddie was so likely to vocalize in that situation today.

Now the good news:  Laddie did not vocalize a single time on the final five blinds, though I tried to make them just as challenging as the first set.

This time I didn't intersperse marks because other trainers had begun working on another pond a bit too nearby and I wanted to move away from them as soon as possible. But after the blinds, we moved to another part of the property and ran several poorman water marks, again featuring swims close to but not onto points of land. I used high throws,  gunshots, and remote sends to try to make this final work of the day as exciting for Laddie as possible.

With respect to the two batches of five water blinds, it makes sense that Laddie would gradually improve during the session, assuming that the approach I'm using does have the intended result of building reinforcement history for running blinds without vocalizing. But the sharp demarcation in performance between the two groups of  blinds doesn't really make sense to me. Why vocalize on every blind in the first group, and none in the second?

In any case, if you've been reading these devocalization posts from the beginning, I hope you're not getting too discouraged that this is taking so long. I admit that I feel discouraged at times myself.

But at the beginning, we didn't even know if it would be possible to get anywhere on this problem without breaking something else, much less how to accomplish it or how long it would take. Now today, Laddie was able to run five reasonably long and difficult water blinds that included on-and-off points in a row without vocalizing a single time, whereas at the beginning of our work on this problem, he had reached the point of almost invariably vocalizing even for a simple cast into a pond from ten yards away.

I still don't know whether Laddie knows that he sometimes vocalizes. But somehow he's been able to sort out to some extent which behaviors enable him to continue toward the prize, and which get him picked up, however it is he understands the difference between those two classes of behavior. He may not understand the difference as a matter of vocalizing. Maybe for him it:s a psychological state, such as feeling more or less tense, which only externally happens to manifest as vocalizing without Laddie realizing it.

At the minimum, I feel we can conclude that reasoning has little if anything to do with the process. Laddie's behavior to me seems often too illogical to fit a reason-based model of his learning process.

We had some good work in today's session. I feel it shows that while we're hardly at the end of our journey, we're a good way down the road.

Technical water work: cold blinds and remote singles

In the sessions since my last post, Laddie and I, training alone, have begun to generalize his new-found ability to run cold blinds involving on-and-off points without vocalizing. To do this, we run mixture of such blinds with poorman sand remote singles, repeating a particular retrieve only if Laddie needs to be called back, for example for barking on a cast or running the bank on a re-entry.

I've been gradually increasing distance and difficulty. As a result, some of today's blinds, and some of the marks, were more difficult than many of the water blinds and marks we've had in Quals, though of course we rarely see singles in Quals.

By the way, by "poorman" marks, I mean that I leave Laddie in a sit at the start line, go out and their the mark or marks, and then return to Laddie's side to send him.

By "remote" marks, I mean that I call out his name to send him, from either the position I threw from or a position as I'm walking back to him. He then delivers to wherever I wait for him.

Now that we are working on generalizing rather than training Laddie's new skill (taking casts without vocalizing), Laddie's success rate, which corresponds to Rate of Reinforcement (ROR), is higher than it usually has been for the last month since we started devocalization training, and I think it subtly shows in Laddie's lighthearted demeanor. These sessions are less frustrating for me as well, and seeing the quality of Laddie's work on some of these challenging setups is highly rewarding.

Devocalization, schooled and cold blinds with on-and-off point

Yesterday Laddie and I trained with a friend and his dog. The dogs ran a difficult delayed water triple that included an almost straight back water bridge, and a moderately difficult blind.

Today's session began with some vocalizing for on-and-off points even though we also used rehearsals as described in previous post.

However, the session ended with seven retrieves in a row all without vocalizing: a 90y on-and-off point schooled blind; the same retrieve but a little wider as an unhandled mark past the point; a 120y on-and-off point cold blind on a course Laddie never ran before; the same retrieve but a little wider as an unhandled mark past the point; two 70y on-and-off point schooled blinds; and the same retrieve but a little wider as an unhandled mark past the point.

Those retrieves represented a new high water mark in our devocalization training.

Devocalization, whistle sit, no lining pole, rehearsals

I've missed posting some sessions, but including today's session, I've developed some principles:

- Rehearse the on-and-off version with one or more half-versions. That is, put the dog in a sit at the point, walk to the start line, and cast from there. I also blow a whistle sit before casting, but I don't know if that matters.

- Randomly vary which side the point is on.

- For every two or so retrieves on-and-off the point, run a mark on a line near the point and expect the dog to swim past the point without handling. If you have an assistant, have the assistant throw the mark with a gunshot. Otherwise, improvise as best you can.

- Zero tolerance for barking or loud whining. I'm not sure what the correct rule is for quiet vocalizing.

- Increase difficulty gradually. In terms of minimizing probability of Laddie vocalizing: A verbal "sit" is easier than a whistle sit. A silent cast is easier than one with a verbal "over" or "back". A cast to a lining pole is easier than without one. A cast to a visible target (bumper or bird) is easier than if the target is hidden. A quiet environment is easier than one with distractions. A familiar line is easier than one that the dog has not run before, or has not run often. 

Putting those principles to work, today's last handling retrieve was with no lining pole, to a bumper not visible till Laddie was up on the far shore, using whistle sits, with a silent over-cast onto the point, and a verbal back-cast off it. That combination represented the farthest milestone we've so far reached on our devocalization journey.

It was followed by a thrown mark that Laddie swam near the point, staying off the point without the need for handling, some exuberant play, some toweling off,  and the long drive home to dinner.

Devocalization, sight blinds on-and-off point

Today we trained with a field trial group, during which Laddie ran two triples, modified to improve their value for training. When the other trainers were done, I stayed to use one of the ponds for continues work on Laddie's devocalization training.

The course I decided on was 70y of swimming, with a point at about halfway across. I had Laddie swim it seven times in one direction, with the point on the right, then six times in the other, with the point on the left.

In each case, most of the swims were run as sight blinds to a lining pole with a ribbon at the top and a pile of white and orange 2" bumpers at the base. The others were run without handling, and sent with Laddie's name as on a mark, from a wider angle so that the line was next to the point instead of across it. For those, Laddie never vocalized and never attempted to get into the point. That shows, I think, Laddie's strong preference for staying in the water while swimming in the proximity of a point and is related in some way, I believe, to his vocalizing, though I'm not sure of the exact explanation.

My reasons for mixing swims in with the sight blinds, in which I handle Laddie onto and then off of the point, is first, to keep up Laddie's enjoyment of the training, and second to reinforce his inclination to stay of a nearby point, which I consider beneficial for running marks.

I used verbal cues rather than my whistle for both "sit" and come in, and almost all silent casts. I immediately called Laddie back to the start line for any incident of barking or loud, plaintive whining, but did not interrupt occasional quiet whines.

On the first couple of sight blinds, I came around the shore so that I could handle Laddie onto the point with an over and then off the point with an angle back. After that, I started at the start line for all handling.

Laddie did not vocalize today on any verbal "sit" cues nor any silent "over" cues onto the point, which was a new milestone. He did bark on the silent back or angle-back cue used to send him from the point into the second cove often, and each time I called him back, usually all the way to the start line. I tried calling him toward me back onto the point and resending him, but he found that too confusing so I stopped doing that.

On the thirteenth retrieve of this drill, the sixth with the point on the left, Laddie finally ran the sight blind without a sound, and after a long day, I decided to end the session, except for happy bumpers on both land and water, games of tug, and towel drying, the usual relaxation elements of all our water sessions.

I felt that the last sight blind was a significant milestone in our work, since it didn't require a call-back for vocalizing. Instead, Laddie ran it noiselessly on his first try. Except for the verbal "sit" cues, fairly short distance, minimal factors and excitement, and visible lining pole, it was our closest approximation yet to a true competition water blind over a point.

Whether it can be repeated consistently, or will always be mixed with other attempts that include vocalizing, is one question yet to be answered. The others are whether we can switch to a whistle "sit", add distance, add diversion factors and the inevitable  elevated excitement level of an event, and remove the lining pole, converting this to a schooled blind (where the dog has run the same line before) and eventually a normal cold blind on new lines each time. Perhaps any of those requirements will be impossible to accomplish reliably without vocalization.

Yet it feels as though at least  we have already come a long way in these last three weeks, considering that Laddie had reached the point where he couldn't consistently noiselessly take a simple, silent "over" cast while sitting directly in front of me by the time we began this effort at devocalization.

Devocalization, on-and-off point to pile, moving handler

For the last couple of afternoons, I've made the 2-hour drive in rush hour to our closest training property, Wednesday alone and Thursday with an assistant.

We used four courses: 30y with point on right, 70y with point on left, 90y with point on left, and 90y with point on right. For the first course, I threw each bumper across a channel before running Laddie to it. For the others, I placed a lining pole with white and orange 2" bumpers at its base.

In all cases, I ran Laddie from the start line. Although I experimented with using a whistle sit, he was least likely to vocalize if I used a verbal sit cue. Similarly, I used silent casts in most cases, both to cast Laddie over and onto the point, and to cast him on an angle back off the point and to the lining pole and bumper.

For every one or two sight blinds run in this way, a total of about five on each course, I ran the same course as a mark, that is, without handling. For the first two courses on Wednesday, that meant moving our start line so the point was clearly off line and then sending Laddie with his name instead of saying "dead bird, back". On Thursday, I also moved the start line, and then had my assistant throw a 3" white bumper to the lining pole with a gunshot. 

Laddie seemed very comfortable with the marks, never vocalizing, never hesitating, never attempting to cheat the water entry, never even glancing at the point as he swam past it on his way straight to the bumper.

On the blinds, at first I did not stop Laddie if he made a whining sound as he swam across the first cove of each course, attempting to swim wide of the point. But during the forth series, I began to gently call him back at the instant he whined. I had to do this six times in a row the first time I tried it, and wondered if he'd start to no-go. But he never did, and on the seventh try, he continued across the cove without vocalizing.

Oddly, he made another change at the same time: He took a line closer to the point than he had been doing, resulting in a shorter "over" onto the point. I have no idea why, but of course that was a nice bonus. From now on I'll always call him back if he starts to whine.

The most important innovation for all of these courses was that s Laddie swam across the first cove, I walked around on the bank toward the point, and handled him from there rather than from the start line. This had no effect on his performance, because he always took the casts. But for some reason using me closer to him seemed to relieve some stress, and he was much less likely to vocalize on the casts. As I have been for weeks, I always called Laddie back if he vocalized, either restarting the blind from the start line or picking up in the middle from where he had vocalized. But with me positioned along the shore of the first cove, vocalizing on the "over" or the "back" casts (both silent) were much less likely.

This success was rewarding, because it's easy to imagine that with time, I can gradually reduce how much I need to move off the start line and along the shore, until eventually Laddie will take the casts noiselessly when I cast from the start line itself. How long it will take us to get to that point, however, is anyone's guess.

Devocalization, on-and-off a point to a known but hidden bumper

Since Saturday Laddie and I have had a couple of rest days and a couple of sessions practicing quiet handling at the local pond. Work that was hard a week ago was easier. Today we went to a training property with a technical pond to try for another increment of training.

First we practiced a similar setup to Saturday's. When I realized that continuously handling Laddie to a point meant I was at risk of untraining his ability to swim past a point on a mark, I also threw some open water marks and let him swim to them without handling him to a point as he swam past.  For points on either side, he took a confident, straight line without veering to land, which was good to see.

We then moved to a pond with a W-shaped shoreline. First I had Laddie watch a throw into open water from the center point, and then leaving him in a sit, I went to an end point and cast him to the bumper. After three of those, I let him watch as before, but then brought him with me to the end point and handled him on and off the point to the bumper. That was the same process we had accomplished on Saturday and at the previous location today.

Next I threw the bumper against the shoreline, which was a small step further along in difficultly. And finally I threw the bumper up into the cover on the end point, which was a major step further, since Laddie has always been most likely to vocalize if he could not see his target when being cast. Since I alternated between having him wait on the middle point versus having him come to the end point with me to be sent, and since we reversed directions several times, I guess Laddie ran more than a dozen retrieves in this process.

At last he was able to let me handle him onto the point with a silent "over", and from there to take a silent "back" into the far cove, all without vocalizing.

Again we ended with a couple of open water marks past a point without handling, to hopefully restore balance against all the times I had handled him onto the point.

Two weeks ago I didn't know whether Laddie would ever be able to take casts like today's without vocalizing. He is making real progress.

Club training day and devocalization, real points

I've missed posting about a couple of sessions, including a valuable afternoon session planned with a friend and his all-age dog. But any devocalization progress was minimal.

Today we attended a club training day, and stayed afterwards to take advantage of one of the the technical  ponds to attempt the next step in our progression, a sight blind that required stopping Laddie when he reached a point and then casting him off the point.

As for the training itself, it included a technical water triple, a moderately difficult Master water blind, a land triple with one easy water crossing, and two  land blinds intended for the Master dogs in the group. Taking the later land work first, Laddie picked up the marks with little or no hunting, needed one or two whistles on one of the blinds, which he handled on without vocalizing,  and lined the other land blind.

For the earlier water marks, two of them went as follows: he started to cheat around the difficult water entries, I called him back and just sent him again without any extra alignment, and he ran them correctly and without difficulty the second time. By that time the bird for the long mark had drifted far from its original fall and the mark had essentially turned into a blind. For both that blind and the immediately following water blind, Laddie's performance was pretty discouraging. First, he was noisier than ever, vocalizing both as he swam on his original send out and when handled, bringing into question whether any amount of training could ever repair that kind of stress and/or excitement-induced vocalizing. And secondly, he was less responsive on his whistle sits than normal, as though our daily training has actually caused some deterioration in his handling performance when transferred to a competition-like setting. Hopefully this does not foreshadow an eventual conclusion that his vocalization in events cannot be solved, but it was temporarily, at least, discouraging. Someone asked me later why I seemed unhappy while working the line on the land setup, and I just said I was dealing with depression, but really all that noise in the earlier water work was weighing on my mind.

Of course it's way to soon to give up. This may take months, and we've only been working on the problem a couple of weeks, during which we've made steady progress. Today just showed us that we still have one important step that we may or may not be able to accomplish -- transferring that progress working alone to a training day or competition setting. It's too soon for that in any case.

So returning to solo training after we had the pond to ourselves, I attempted a setup that required Laddie to stop on a point where the white puppy bumper was visible on the far shoreline. Laddie took a perfect line to the point and clearly wanted to simply run across the point and continue on to the bumper without handling. He took the whistle sit on the point without difficulty, but vocalized when I gave a gentle, silent "back" cast with a raised arm.

I called him back and tried it again several times, and he could never do it without vocalizing.  After a few tried, he also stopped taking good initial lines, requiring additional handling before he got to the point, with occasional vocalizing at that stage and so immediate calling back. I tried moving our start line much closer to the point, but that many that I was sending Laddie in the wrong direction for the visible bumpers, and after repeated tries saw that I could not obtain that version of the drill, either, without vocalizing.

Laddie had now attempted this simple water blind over a dozen times without success, hardly the 70-80% success rate I normally try to use in training to maintain a high rate of reinforcement. For this session so far, Laddie's rate of reinforcement was zero. Thank goodness I have a dog who maintains his drive and enthusiasm even under such circumstances. But clearly i needed a different setup or it was time to quit for the day. Quitting was a tempting prospect. I had already had a long, trying day given a bit of turmoil in the club training that has nothing to do with Laddie s well as given his noisy performance in the water series.

But Laddie was still fresh. So I mentally stepped back and asked myself how to breakdown this next incremental step so that Laddie could be successful, without going back to a version of the work we had already been successful.

And once I looked at it that way, I quickly came up with a new approach, as follows.

First I moved us to a peninsula and sat Laddie at the end point. Saying "leave it", I tossed a bumper into the water over Laddie's shoulder. I then left him there, walked to the entry of the peninsula and over to the side, and silently cast him straight back to the bumper. He spun around, leapt into water, and can to the bumper without a sound. Yay!

I repeated the identical drill five times, and Laddie never made a sound.

Then I set up the sixth time exactly the same way, except that as I walked back toward the shore, I invited Laddie out of his sit to join me. Calling him to heel, I informally lined him up toward the point and sent him with a quiet "back". Then I stopped him on the point and, moment of truth, cast him with a silent back cast to the bumper. This was the identical cast he had just taken five times without a sound, and this time, though preceded by a swim, he was again able to take it without any hint of vocalizIng.

Relieved that we had found a way to train a true on-and-off the point without vocalizing, and frankly exhausted, I headed for the van for the long drive home, pleased we had ended our session on a positive note after all.

I'm now uncertain whether we have any way to make further progress without technical ponds where we can practice similar drills. That means a lot of driving for us over the next few sessions at least.

Devocalization, more casting of a point

Today I again took Laddie to the local oval-shaped pond for a short devocalization session.

We used only one start line, but we used it about 15 times. At the beginning, I put Laddie in a sit at the start line and walked along the curved shoreline about 60y, and as he watched, I threw two bumpers. One rolled into the water and was then hidden from Laddie behind a plant. The other remained visible, though small, on the bank.

I then walked back to Laddie, and on the way tossed another bumper into the water near shore, in front of some plants and about 20y from the start line.

I then established the only pattern we would use today: I sent Laddie to the short bumper, stopped him with a whistle sit just before he got to the bumper, cast him toward the center of the pond with a silent "over" cast, and watched. If he carried straight, as he did a couple of times, I stopped him again after a few yards and cast him with a silent "back" toward the long bumper. If he bent around toward the long bumper on his own, I didn't stop him.

If Laddie barked or howled on any of the casts, I immediately said, "no, here," then lined him up and ran him again. I did not, however, call him back for quiet vocalizing while swimming. I'm still not sure whether judges would mind that.

After a successful retrieve, when Laddie got back to me with the long bumper, I sent him to the short bumper, which he excitedly retrieved.

After either of his deliveries, I sometimes also threw the bumper far out toward the center of the pond, among a large flock of geese that were swimming there. They dissipated as Laddie swan out to the bumper.

Here's how the session went: Although Laddie had run two similar series at the end of yesterday's session without vocalizing, apparently it was not yet easy for him, and he vocalized the first several times I tried the silent "over" cast in today's setup. But his enthusiasm never flagged, and eventually he took that cast without vocalizing. He also took the silent "back" cast without a sound, and so finally completed the retrieve of the long bumper, plus of course the short one, and maybe a happy throw into the middle of the pond.

I then put him in a sit and went out to again throw the long and short bumpers to the same approximate locations, then returned to run him again. We ran the setup three more times, and he never vocalized again.

Finally, I re-threw the short bumper, without needing to throw a long bumper because the one that had rolled into the water was still there. And then I ran him again. He seemed a bit confused when I sent him away from the short bumper, but he took the cast without a sound, and then bent around as if I had cast him "back", even though he might not have remembered the throw from a half hour earlier, and may have just been following our earlier pattern. And eventually he spotted the bumper in the water near the far shore, swan to it, picked it up, and ran back to me with it.

I guess today's work would be called a "schooled" blind. I felt it strengthened yesterday's learning and brought us one more step on our devocalization program.