Laddie's First Field Trial

Cullen, Virginia


Today Laddie ran in the Tidewater Owner/Handler Qualifying Stake, the first Field Trial event Laddie or I has ever participated in.  During the day, I tweeted descriptions of each series and summarized the performance of the field in general and Laddie in particular on my Twitter feed @LindsayRidgeway.  This post is an edited version of those tweets, with additional detail added.


Weather today: Temps  were high 30s to low 50s, with the wind making it feel even colder.  That's rather cold for running a dog in water, and the field's performance in Series C and D reflected it.  The sky was overcast in the morning, and it felt like we might have snow, though we didn't. By afternoon, it was mostly cloudy with a little sun.


The trial was run at an excellent property called the Virginia Retriever Benefit Grounds.  It was difficult for me because the ground there is uneven and I'm dealing with a sprained ankle, but I enjoyed the opportunity to run Laddie there.


For this event, mallards were used for all marks and blinds.  Laddie hasn't trained with a duck since last fall, so I anticipated we might have some problems, but except for him spitting his flyer out 10 yards in front of the start line in the first series, and having to be cued to pick it back up to deliver, the birds didn't seem to present much problem.


For those who have followed Laddie's development, you'll know that returns have been a major challenge.  We seem perhaps to be over that phase.


I might mention that Laddie was not the only dog in today's Q to do that.  In his case, the way he was working his mouth seemed to indicate that he was having trouble with loose feathers, but he responded well when I called him to me.  During the rest of the event, I cued "Hold" as he returned on most of the other retrieves — no one else was doing that with their dogs, but I felt it prudent for Laddie — and he didn't drop any other birds.


SERIES A. Land triple


All throws were left-to-right. The first mark was on the right at 150y, and was a retired gun.  The second mark was in the center at 140y.  The third mark, the go-bird, was a flyer at 70y.


The shooters for the flyer were excellent.  Not only didn't they lose a single bird, they also dropped almost all of them in a small patch of high cover as the judges had requested.  Despite the fall in cover, this was a pretty easy mark for most of the dogs including Laddie, but at least one dog had a controlled break — 70y is on the short side for a Field Trial mark — and the owner withdrew rather than let the dog be reinforced for breaking by getting to retrieve the flyer.  That was good discipline by the handler, I thought.  It's not easy to walk away if the judges haven't disqualified you. 


Once the dogs had picked up the go-bird, the series presented the handler with a quandary — whether to run the marks in the exact reverse order thrown, or in the sequence outer-outer-center, often used when the two memory birds are about the same distance.  The field of handlers split about evenly on this.  I've thought about what to do in such situations if I ever ran Laddie in a Field Trial, and decided that my rule is: If the dog really wants a particular mark as the second retrieve, let the dog choose.  If not, run the easier mark first.  If they seem equally difficult, run them in the reverse order thrown.  Since this was our first Field Trial, it was my first chance to try those rules out.  Laddie didn't care which mark to run second, and they looked equally difficult to me, in different ways.  So the last rule applied in this case.


The second mark thrown, and thus for Laddie also the second mark retrieved, was thrown downhill and on an angle back into high cover.  The line to the fall was along the side of a slope, and at least half the dogs veered left to the top of that slope and ran along the crest, toward the gun rather than the fall.  In most cases, they then turned right to run down the hill and pick up the bird, though a few got further left behind the gun and at least one ended up returning to the fall of the first mark and had to be called in without completing the retrieve.  Laddie ran this mark, which I guess most handlers thought was the most difficult of the three, exceptionally well, carrying the slope without veering offline, entering the high cover without hesitation, and "stepping on the bird," as they say.


The last mark for Laddie to retrieve, the retired gun on the right, was challenging for all the dogs because the picture was of a repeating pattern of evenly spaced trees, with lots of open space behind and to the right of the fall.  With few exceptions, dogs ran too far to the right, and of those, the more successful ones winded the bird as they came even with it and hunted it up.  Laddie was one of the dogs who ran it that way, coming even with the fall about 10y to the right, winding it and hunting it up.  I saw one dog nail that mark, maybe one or two others did when I wasn't watching.


Before ending my description of Series A, I might mention that the configuration of the two marks on the left was a "hip-pocket double".  This means that both marks are thrown in the same direction, and the closer mark, thrown from a wider position, looks as though it's being thrown into the hip pocket of the thrower for the longer mark if viewed in two dimensions.  Of course actually the thrower for the longer mark is much further back than the shorter fall.  This can be a confusing picture for a dog, but Laddie has been practicing it periodically since he was a puppy so it didn't seem to be a problem for him.  I'm not sure that in this series, with this field, it was a problem for any of the dogs.


Summary of the field's and Laddie's performance for Series A: Thirty-two dogs were entered in this stake, 28 ran Series A, and 22 were "called back", that is, still in contention and carried to the next series.  Laddie was one of those 22.  He had been called back in his first Field Trial series.  Yay!


SERIES B. Land blind


Series B was a 160y land blind.  I gather it was fairly typical for a Q land blind, crossing a steep valley and running beside underbrush and other suction to the left.  One feature Laddie and I have never seen before, in an event nor in group or club training, was an obstacle making it impossible for the dog to hold a line straight to the blind, in this case a fallen shrub about 15y in front of the start line.  Another feature, much more common but nonetheless challenging, was a keyhole, in this case formed by a narrow gap in a stand of saplings, an unusually close keyhole at 30y.  The combination of the closely spaced obstacle and keyhole was a bit tricky and a couple of dogs did skirt the keyhole and were eliminated.  I'd say Laddie was about middle of the pack in his performance on this blind.


Summary of the field's and Laddie's performance for Series B: Twenty of the 22 dogs that ran Series B were called back for Series C, including Laddie.


SERIES C. Water blind


Series C was a 120y shoreline water blind, with 50 yards of land and a sharply angled water entry thru high reeds at water's edge, plus an on-and-off point mid-way that the judges had said was non-optional.  I think those features alone made it a fairly challenging blind, though not highly unusual for an advanced stake.  However, today's weather conditions — the icy cold water of early spring, and a strong wind blowing off the water onto the shoreline — raised the difficulty level significantly.  In fact, so many dogs went out-of-control behind a stand of reeds on the back of the point without a single dog qualifying that at one point, as I understand it, the judges considered scrapping the test.


However, eventually several dogs did run this blind satisfactorily, perhaps none better than Laddie.  We had the advantage of running late in the rotation in this series (the running order is rotated in a Field Trial), so by the time I ran Laddie, I had watched the problems other dogs had and had made up my mind that no "back" cast would pass my lips.  Living solely by "over", Laddie didn't have much trouble with it.

Summary of the field's and Laddie's performance for Series C: Ten of the 20 dogs that ran Series C were called back for Series D, including Laddie.

SERIES D. Water double

Series D was another hip-pocket double, a tight double with both marks thrown right to left.  The first mark was on the left, 130y with a short, easy land entry and a long, arduous swim in that icy cold water.  The second mark, the go-bird, was on the right, thrown by a winger into the open water of a cove at 40y.

The go-bird presented little challenge except to steadiness for a few dogs, but the line to that mark perhaps established an undesirable precedent for swimming toward the reed-bordered point of land that formed the back shore of that front cove.

The memory-bird was more challenging.  First, the thrower was barely visible on the back shore, appearing just left of the stand of reeds at the end of the point of land midway across.  Second, as mentioned previously, the water was intensely cold, and a strong wind was blowing across the water, so that both wind and waves pushed the dog hard toward that point.  With such a long swim for water that cold, most dogs ran that mark by starting on a line toward the fall, then veering with the wind and waves to the point, and finally running the bank around a second cove not visible from the start line to finally run past the thrower on the far shore and pick up the bird.  At that point, most handlers attempted to whistle the dog into the water for the return with the bird, but I don't know if a single dog took that cast, most or all of them running the bank again in the opposite direction to get around that back cove.

The owner of the ultimate winner of this stake told me that the dog has a habitual "banana" running pattern which sometimes causes problems, but in this case was beneficial, as the dog safely rounded the point to the left and homed in on the fall without ever going near the thrower.  I didn't see all the dogs run, but I take it that at least two others also swam past that point, though they ended up too far inside and required a little more hunt than the ultimate winner had.

Though it wasn't the best performance of the day on that last mark overall, Laddie's performance on that mark showed courage.  He took a line into the water that gave him a reasonable chance of getting past the point, and then shouldered the wind and waves valiantly, visibly fighting to push left with every stroke.  I heard one of the judges quietly urging him on.  I don't think Laddie ever did give into the cold, but the current was just too strong on this day, and it finally pushed him onto the point.  But listen to this:  Once on land, he didn't run the bank around to the right as the others had once on land, but rather got back into the water to swim across the back cove.  Unfortunately, he was too far to the right, which brought him to shore behind the thrower, but from that landing he ran immediately to the bird and picked it up, ready to complete the retrieve.  I felt it was a brave performance, though not quite good enough for a placement in the final standings.

I'll just mention one last point.  I was perhaps the only handler on Series C or D who did not attempt to whistle my dog into the water on the return.  As far as I know, it in no way hurts your score if the dog runs the bank on the return.  That's not always possible, and I guess many trainers believe that it hurts the dog's understanding of how to perform around water, but for me, it was a way of reinforcing Laddie for a job well done on getting to the bird thru the water in the first place.  "You needed to stay in the water on the way out, Sweetie, but take the faster, warmer, drier route back."  Considering that most dogs insisted on doing that in contradiction to the cues they were receiving anyway, I thought just cueing Laddie to do it from the outset made sense.  I think it could pay off in future performance, removing a disincentive to complete the outrun, then quickly pick up the bird and start back.  Perhaps this is more useful for a 2Q dog than it would be for a traditionally trained dog.

Summary of the field's and Laddie's performance for Series D: All ten of the dogs that ran Series D completed both retrieves, but with enough separation in quality of performance that the judges were able to award placements with little doubt of the outcome once all the dogs had run. The result was placements of First thru Fourth Place, plus a Reserve JAM, plus five JAMs.

The winner of today's Q was a 10-year-old Lab who years ago had become Qualified All-Age, but who had only won a Q that once and so was still eligible to run.  Ten years old!  Very cool.


Laddie was one of the dogs who received a JAM.


A Final Note on Laddie's Performance Today


If you're a retriever, getting past the first series, to say nothing of winning a JAM in your first Q, while not earth-shattering, is pretty cool. In addition, Labradors are historically more successful in Field Trials than other breeds — I've heard that 98% of FC/AFCs are Labs — and Laddie, not yet four years old, was the only Golden receiving a ribbon in this event.


Beyond that, Laddie is not only a retriever but also a 2Q-trained retriever.  That is, he has never been trained with physical aversives such as an ecollar, even for recall.  From that perspective, I believe he was in unchartered territory as soon as he got his first call-back in today's Q.  That was followed by two more call-backs, and finally a JAM.  In other words, Laddie completed every retrieve of his first Field Trial stake without a disqualifying error.  At that point, Laddie was even more steps down a road heretofore unvisited by positive field retrievers.


I believe the general consensus among experienced field trainers would be that a 2Q retriever couldn't do such a thing, so here's to Laddie for showing he could.

Competition tune-up

Since Laddie's going to be running in a Qualifying stake (his first) and Master test in a couple of weeks, I've been looking for ways to get him tuned-up for those.  The best way would be to train with groups of experienced trainers preparing for similar events, but since none of those are available to us, I've tried to come up with reasonable substitutions:

• Train with any field group available, and where possible, modify the set-ups to practice more advanced skills
• Travel to properties where other trainers might be training, and ask whether they'd like to train together
• Hire my friend Dave Altman to shoot flyers and use his knowledge as an AKC Hunt Test judge to help me get Laddie tuned-up
• Daily private practice

Here are some recent tweets (edited) from those kinds of sessions:

• 3-16-2011: Cheltenham. Training with Jean, who trains her Golden for FTs. For the triples, we used Bumper Boys and stickmen, with a human thrower for the long retired marks. Overcast, high 40s. A) Big land/water triple, long gun on left retired. B) Tough Master water blind. C) 200y land blind, keyhole between tree and mound. D) Big water triple. Performance notes on today's work: I couldn't keep Laddie off the points in Series B, but good work, I thought, on everything else. I think we need more work on tough water blinds before our next Master.
• 3-17-2011: Rolling Ridge. Triple land blind 200-230-260y. Later same day: Newcut Road. Humongous cleared construction site, many earthwork hills and embankments, even some small "ponds". Laddie ran several big poorman marks with me using a remote send from my throwing position. Also, two shoreline water blinds and one poorman double. Laddie did a great job on everything.
• 3-18-2011: Cheltenham. Nice early spring morning. Trainer Peter reconvening his group after winter layoff, one other trainer today. Laddie more advanced than other dogs, so I modified the series for him. Here's what he ran: A) Interrupted triple: After all birds thrown, pick up go-bird, run long blind in center, pick up both birds of hip-pocket double.  B) Same as (A) with different start line & retrieve lines. C) Retired delayed land triple plus water blind: Watch long mark on right and mid-distance mark on left thrown, pick up mark on left while right gunner retires, watch short mark on right thrown in line with longer mark previously thrown on right, pick up short mark on right, pick up long retired mark on right, run big water blind requiring entry to pond at 250+y with inviting cheat around the pond available. Performance notes on today's work: Except for trying to run 2nd mark instead of blind and needing to be called back to run the blind first in Series A, Laddie had an excellent day, nailing every mark and handling well on every blind. Lumi also ran, running two singles or a double in each series with her usual dead-aim marking plus excellent pick-ups on every bird, both ducks & pheasants.
• 3-20-3011: Near Warrenton, VA. Sunny, 55 degs. Asked Dave Altman to help tune up Laddie for Master & Qual. A) Walk-up, flyer with gunner at 30y not visible till we reached corner of woods. I blew duck-call, Dave just becoming visible around the corner blew duck-call, Laddie sat without being told to, Dave threw chukar flyer and shot. Laddie steady till sent.  Good boy. B) With Laddie on my right and Dave a few yards farther to my right, I blew duck-call, then Dave blew duck-call, threw chukar flyer and shot. Laddie again steady till sent. Good boy again. C) I put Laddie in sit, cued "just watch", moved five yards to Laddie's right, held Lumi by check cord. I blew duck-call, Dave at 50y blew duck-call, threw & shot chukar flyer to left (in front of Laddie), threw and "shot" dead bird 30y in front of Lumi. With Laddie steady in remote honor, I lined Lumi toward the dead bird but she crossed in front to the flyer. I watched a few secs to make sure Laddie wouldn't break for closer bird, then walked to him, heeled him a few yards, and slipped on his lead. This was Laddie's first remote honor of a flyer. Great job! D) Set-up includes 300+y blind with narrow keyhole at 200+y. Dave fired shotgun and threw bird at 150y, I hand-threw another bird to the side, then ran Laddie on the blind. Not good enough control on blind, would not have passed, but nailed both marks. E) 100y hillside blind, excellent control. Note on the quick casts I use with Laddie: Dave commented on the fact that I don't give Laddie much time to settle down after sitting on a whistle sit, but cast him immediately.  He said this is a common mistake and can lead to auto-casting, where the dog learns to anticipate the cast and releases without the handler's cue.  Letting the dog settle in the sit before casting produces better results for most dogs.  I express thought that without ecollar for negative reinforcement, Laddie's only reinforcement for sitting is the cast, and if I were to generally use a slow cast, as a result of that delayed reinforcement, Laddie might tend to develop a slower and/or weaker response to the whistle sit. Dave reconsiders in that light, agrees.

Shoe leather and despair

First, if you're interested in Laddie's training sessions and haven't tried following @LindsayRidgeway on Twitter, you can still see all our tweets here:

http://twitter.com/LindsayRidgeway

For example, here's a compilation of our tweets (edited) this month:

• 3-1-2011: Last few days, have run big, tight blinds and poorman multiples, plus a new configuration we've never used before, poorman remote singles: leaving Laddie in a sit, I walk out in white jacket, fire pistol, throw, and call "Laddie" from my throwing position.  Laddie runs mark, then delivers to me at the throwing position. Then I leave him there and go out to a new throwing position. This is a fast way to run a battery of big, difficult non-retired singles, though one risk is that dog learns to deliver to thrower. Today: Zion Park, 46 deg, sunny, snow all melted. Six big remote poorman singles. Excellent marking by Laddie.
• 3-2-2011: Cheltenham. Sunny, 64 deg. First chance to train with a group in weeks, first water retrieves since fall. A) Land triple, xmas tree config, using Bumper Boy for big mark in center. Laddie nailed first two retrieves, needed handling on long one, which I doubt he saw. B) Triple with one poison-bird blind and one water blind. The long mark also required a short swim. C) Long retired water single, with short throw to side while long gunner retired. Included wide channel crossing plus short ditch crossing. D) Similar to C, but only one water crossing. Laddie's performance today: Some excellent marking, handled well, needed help on BB mark in A (which he didn't see), mark in high grass in B (all the dogs did), and retired mark in D. Most important, never stalled on any return, including returns across ice-cold channels. Yippee!
• 3-5-2011: Remington, VA. Club training day, flyers for the short mark in first series, both series on land. Lumi ran three singles in each series, did fine both directions on all, even on her 200+y final retrieve. Laddie ran a triple plus a land blind in each series, and honored a triple with a flyer on first series. Laddie had good performance all day, including outstanding marking on second series.
• 3-7-2011: Rolling Ridge west. Sunny, 49 deg. An in-line-triple (ILT), all throws in cover, two big blinds, three big poorman remote singles, and one more blind (tight keyhole thru brush). Laddie did great on every retrieve today.
• 3-8-2011: Riggs Road Farm. No obstacles, just distance. Double land blind: A) 310y, intentionally wrong-lined a few degrees to the left to assure opportunity to handle at distance, then whistle sit & hard right cast at 310y. B) 390y.
• 3-9-2011: Riggs Road. Overcast, 42 deg. Black bumpers, pistol. A) Big poorman xmas-tree triple B) Big poorman indent triple
• 3-10-2011: Oaks Area 3. Torrential rain produced areas of standing water. We used them for a dozen skimming retrieves, that is, dog needs to take straight line thru water rather than run the bank. These were poorman marks with pistols, black bumpers.
• 3-12-2011: Mt. Ararat Farm. Laddie & me training with Gaby & Gus, her Senior-level Chessie. We ran the dogs in similar series, modified as appropriate for each dog. Laddie's series: A) Long water blind past points on both sides, with blind in center of a clump of cattails B) Long flower-pot water double, hidden thrower (in retrospect, not appropriate for long marks, since Field Trials never use hidden throwers) C) Long double land blind, featuring one very tight keyhole requiring leap over fallen tree trunk on down-slope after getting thru keyhole D) Long single land blind, very tight diagonal keyhole combined with diagonal road crossing at 100y.
• 3-13-2011: Rolling Ridge. Sunny, 59 deg. A) Water triple, all retrieves requiring 100+y swims. B) Uphill indent land triple. C) Big xmas-tree land triple over rough, hilly terrain, thorny in places. Training alone so all poorman marks. Pistol, black bumpers.

I might add that those tweets are a somewhat incomplete record.  In reality, Laddie and I rarely miss a day of training, even in bad weather.  But since I don't know whether anyone actually has any interest in the tweets, sometimes I don't bother to post them.  Other times, I think that given Laddie's level of performance, especially for a 2Q dog, a record of his training might someday be of interest to someone.

Meanwhile, for any reader interested in what the biggest challenges of field training might be, I'll add a personal note.  My single most difficult challenge turns out to be finding anyone who is willing to train with me.  Granted, I've met a small number of people that I don't want to train with, but those can be counted on one hand (two individuals, I think).  By contrast, at this time, other than club training days, no one seems willing to train with me except on rare occasions.  I have no idea how to fix the problem.  I hope you have never been shunned in this way.  It's crushing.

I watch Laddie's enthusiasm for the sport — his all-out sprints on every retrieve, year after year — and I feel despair that he'll be at such a disadvantage in Field Trial competition. Our first entry is less than three weeks away, and at this time I know of not a single individual, much less group, willing to train with Laddie and me.  I wish that I could give him the kind of experiences he needs to reach his potential, with courses designed by experienced trainers, human throwers, birds, the occasional flyer, and the simulated ambience of an event. Yet no matter how hard I am willing to work, no matter how much I reach out, I cannot give him those things except on those rare occasions.  Poor Laddie, he picked the wrong owner.

Twitter and Dog Training

[This was a post to DogTrek and PositiveGunDogs lists on January 23, 2011]

When Twitter first came out, with eventually millions of people answering the question "What's happening?", I didn't see the point. I tried it for a few days, and couldn't imagine why anyone, even those closest to me, would want to see a running account and/or commentary of my life. As with FaceBook, I used it for a while, then lost interest. I haven't looked at FB in months.

But recently I've come to see Twitter as a valuable resource. I happen to be a news junkie, and I suddenly became aware a few weeks ago that Twitter is a great way to stay on top of news and also on top of news comment. The 140-character limitation is irrelevant, because often the tweet serves as a headline, with a link to the in-depth story. Click the link when you want to read more. Every day I get links to articles in blogs and online newspapers that I'd never have known about if I hadn't seen tweets about them from one of the people I follow. These generally aren't people I know personally. In some cases they're aggregators, in other cases journalists whose stories and posts, which might come out several times a day, I often enjoy reading. Of course often I'll glance at the tweet, decide I'm not that interested, and will ignore the link. If I find I'm not interested in the lion's share of tweets from a particular user, or find particular tweets too annoying, I "unfollow" that user.

Today I was thinking how useful it might be if skillful field trainers used Twitter. Some might write articles in a blog, others might limit themselves entirely to tweets. Some readers might get their tweets on their phones as text messages -- that's how I get most of the tweets I read -- while others might use the twitter.com website, or even some Twitter utility or app.

Let's say that a particular field trainer I was following tweeted: "Too cold for H2O, so today we worked on reverse hip-pockets. Doubles for the young dogs, added a short mark as go-bird for the older ones." Then the next day he tweeted that he worked on something else, but in a week, it was more reverse hip-pockets. How long would it be before I got a sense of the guy's training rhythm, priorities, and methods? "Ah," I might find out, "when you want to turn a reverse hip-pocket double into a triple, a reasonable way to do that is to throw the extra bird last, and have the dog run the RHP as the last two marks." (I'm not saying that's the case. I actually don't know the best way to add a third mark to a reverse hip-pocket double.)

And what if I were following a dozen trainers, and each of them were sending out that same kind of information day after day, week after week, year after year? Then I'd see the areas of consensus, and the individual variances. Wow, what a resource!

Tweets could be used for other material as well. Maybe one guy is a humorist and sometimes just tweets a funny way of saying something. Another tweets when he wants to forward a link (probably first shrinking it with tinyurl.com or bit.ly). Another intersperses his "training journal" tweets with thoughts that he thinks might be interesting to his followers (that's Twitter's name for people who read the tweets being broadcast by a particular user).

Twitter has a few refinements I won't get into here -- for example, re-tweets (RT), mentions, and hashtags. Those sorts of things might turn out to be valuable, too. So far, I haven't figured out how to leverage them effectively.

In any case, I'd going to follow thru here in two ways:

First, if you're someone who's sending out tweets on field training or related topics, I hope you'll send us your Twitter username so I (and possibly others) can try following you. And second, I've added my Twitter username to the bottom of my signature block, for anyone who wants tweets on what I'm up to with my dogs. Since I'm also a blogger, I think I'll tweet brief captions and links to blog entries on my two blogs when I post there as well. That's the way I've seen Twitter used in the area of news and news commentary.

Given my lack of experience, I don't think I have that much to offer by myself, though my dogs have come pretty far by 2Q standards. On the other hand, a broad Twittersphere of field training might be quite useful. Maybe it will become clear to me after awhile that my tweets are a waste, and I'll give it up. For now, I think it's worth a try.

Lindsay, with Lumi & Laddie (Goldens)
Laytonsville, Maryland

Field training blog: http://lumi-laddie-test-series.blogspot.com (see "Archive of Video Blog Entries" in right margin)

Reference blog "The 2Q Retriever" (work in progress): http://2q-retriever.blogspot.com

YouTube playlists:
-- Lumi: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=BC338082E0B890DB
-- Laddie: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=9A44913FB240932A

To further explore the frontiers of dog training, join our DogTrek list at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DogTrek

Twitter: @LindsayRidgeway

Short-in-front-of-long

Mt. Ararat Farm

While Lumi's with my daughter this weekend, Laddie and I trained alone yesterday, and with Gaby and two of her dogs this morning. The series I set up for Laddie yesterday was similar to the two series Gaby and I worked on today.

Temps were in the low 20s, but it was sunny with pretty light wind where we were training, so with long johns and plenty of layers, it wasn't too bad. The ground was a patchwork of snow and bent-over medium cover, making the bumpers almost invisible as they lay on the ground and requiring the dogs to rely primarily on scent to hunt them up.

All marks were WBs. All blinds were OBs. For both series, the thrower wearing a white jacket would fire a pistol and throw each mark, walk to each of the next throwing positions and throw again, and finally walk back to the SL while the dog was running the blind, so all marks were in effect "retired guns".

SERIES A. Interrupted triple

For Series A, the first mark was on the right, thrown right to left at 130 yards. The dog had to run between fence posts and across a dirt road to reach the fall. The second mark was in the center, thrown left to right at 80 yards so that the line to the second mark was only a few degrees to the left of the line to the first mark, essentially in front of the longer mark. The third mark was 90° to the left, thrown right to left at 90 yards.

For Laddie and Gaby's Buster, the dog watched the three marks thrown, then ran a 190-yard blind 90° to the right of the rightmost mark. After the dog returned with the blind, the dog was sent to the marks in reverse order thrown.

Gaby ran her young Chessie, Gus, on a modified version of Series A that fit in well with his training level.

The intended challenges of Series A were as follows:

• The primary challenge of the blind was keeping the dog in control while marks were lying out there waiting to be picked up. I've found with Lumi and Laddie that even if the dog seems to understand that she's not supposed to be picking up one of the marks yet, her responsiveness to handling cues can be significantly reduced because of the distraction of having the marks thrown first.
• The blind included a rather narrow keyhole between two fence posts at 100 yards, with wider-spaced fence posts on either side. Gaby and I agreed that the "judge's blind" would include getting the dog thru that keyhole.
• The go-bird wasn't really a go-bird since the blind was run first, and the fall was on the other side of a crest from the SL, so the dog needed a good line to avoid a hunt.
• A long delay separated watching the short, middle mark thrown from running it, giving the dog plenty of time and distraction to make remembering it difficult. In addition, it was in the middle of the field with no distinguishing land feature within 100 yards, on the patchy terrain that made the bumper invisible from any significant distance. The thrower was no longer present for the dog to judge direction or distance. And perhaps most difficult, the exciting long mark, which had been thrown first and was therefore perhaps more prominent in memory, was on nearly the same line only further back. All of these factors were intended to make the short center mark the most difficult challenge of the series.
• The long mark wasn't a complete gimme, since the dog had to run thru a fence line (the fence itself is down, only the posts still stand) and across a dirt road, then find a bumper nearly invisible until the dog was almost on it.

Notes on Laddie's Performance in Series A

Laddie has run many interrupted series in his life. I give him extra information that he's running a blind before we get to the marks by having him watch the throws from one side of me, then bringing him to my other side to run the blind. Like many trainers, I also say "dead bird" as I'm setting him up on a blind, and send him with "Back" rather than his name when he's running a blind. So he has plenty of information that he's not to veer over to the marks, and these days he maintains excellent responsiveness as well as his patented after-burner exuberance.

In fact, Laddie ran all the retrieves well, except for what has turned out to be an on-going challenge for him: When I sent him for the middle mark after he'd picked up the blind and then the go-bird on the left, he took an excellent line but kept on running, apparently intending to pick up the longest mark. He's made this same mistake the last 3-4 times I've set up a series with short-in-front-of-long. Each time, I've blown WS and a come-in whistle, and each time he's responded well and quickly come in, picked up the mark, and brought it home. He's then run the long mark without difficulty, either nailing it or requiring only a small hunt.

I think it's important that he pick up the short mark first when the lines to two marks are tight. Several reasons might apply, but here's one: the dog might put down the article he's carrying back from the long mark, pick up the new article he's just come upon, and bring that one back first. That's a type of switch, and it's an immediate DQ in both Hunt Tests and Field Trials. Laddie did that once in at a training day, and I haven't forgotten.

Though Laddie has a good angle-in cast if needed, the question for me is how to train Laddie to pick up the short mark first without handling. For now, I'm just going to continue handling him if he overruns and doesn't quickly turn back by himself. Like most retrievers I guess, he'd rather complete the retrieve without handling, so hopefully he'll realize that the best way to obtain that outcome is to pick up the short mark first.

[Gaby's dogs had their own strengths and weaknesses in today's work. I don't feel it's appropriate to discuss other dogs' work in too much detail in this blog, so I only make occasional references.]

SERIES B. Interrupted double

Series B was basically a mirror image of Series A, with these differences:

• The blind was longer, and featured a keyhole between two trees closer to the blind than the fence posts of Series A.
• Because Laddie had run past the short mark on the short-in-front-of-long set-up in Series A, I didn't want to add more delay by having him run a go-bird off to the side in addition to the blind in Series B, so Series B was an interrupted double rather than an interrupted triple. Gaby's dogs had not had trouble with the short bird in Series A, but she was fine running a double-plus-blind on this series as well.
• The long mark for Series B was thrown in the midst of a triangular configuration of trees. Similarly spaced trees grew in a couple of groupings some distance behind the trees where the mark was thrown. Advanced dogs might reasonably expect to run past some of the trees to get to the area of the fall, but in this case, the fall was near the first tree the dog would reach. That turned out to fool Laddie and Gus, who both overran the long mark some distance and then apparently expected to find the mark near one of the further trees.

Notes on Laddie's Performance in Series B

Laddie again ran an excellent blind. When I then sent him on the line to the short mark, he seemed to have a clear picture of where it was, and did not attempt to veer slightly left onto the line for the long mark. Better still, though he overran the short mark by a few yards, he put on the brakes without any help from me (remember Gaby wasn't out there to help either), spun back, and quickly homed in on the mark. That was the highlight of the day for me.

Unfortunately, his performance was weaker on the long mark. He took a great line, nearly stepping on the bumper as he ran past it, but overran to a similar looking configuration of trees 50 yards further back. That might not have been too bad, since I recognize that Laddie isn't going to nail every mark, but he then "popped" (turned toward me and sat down as if I'd blown a WS). I didn't move a muscle, my normal response to a pop, and he quickly got moving again. But apparently he was soon confused again, and popped a second time. Once he came out of that, he started quartering toward home and quickly found the bumper.

Popping and Reinforcement

I don't seem to have yet developed a successful strategy for ending Laddie's occasional popping. I can only hope that it repairs itself as we work on other things, or that it doesn't cost us too much in competition. I'm trying my best not to reinforce it by interacting with him in any way when he does it, but unfortunately, it may borrow its reinforcement from running blinds, where a WS is rewarded with a cast that brings the dog closer to the bird. It may take some time, or forever, before Laddie realizes that such reinforcement is flat not available when running a mark, that is, when no whistle sounds. We'll see how his learning in this area progresses over time, I guess.

OOO Indent Triple, ILT

Mt. Ararat Farm

Training with Gaby. She ran two of her field dogs, I ran Lumi and Laddie.

Temps in low 30s. Windy at first site, wind mostly calm at second site, making it more comfortable. Ground was covered in a thin layer of fresh, soft snow.

Each series run with one trainer running her/his dogs, while other trainer walked to each throwing position, fired pistol, and threw. All throws were black bumpers.

SERIES A. Out-of-order indent triple

First mark was on the right, thrown LTR at 130 yards. Second mark was in middle, them RTL at 70 yards. Third mark was on the left, thrown RTL at 100 yards. The first two falls were not visible from SL.

SERIES B. In-line triple

First mark was on the right, thrown LTR at 210 yards, with thrower standing in sunlight but fall in shadow near the corner of two lines of trees. Second mark was in the middle, thrown LTR at 140 yards in direction of first throwing position. Third mark was on the left in line with previous two throwing positions, thrown LTR at 80 yards in direction of earlier throwing positions. The center throwing position was midway between the other two.

Lumi nailed all six marks today. Laddie nailed or nearly nailed all but his last retrieve, the long mark on the right in Series B, which required a brief hunt. However, with Gaby as thrower wearing dark clothes, and throwing a black bumper on a relatively low arc with a background of trees and into shadow, Laddie might not have seen the throw, in which case I'd say it was a nice bit of deductive marking, with Laddie making an educated guess where the fall was likely to be, taking a good line, and confidently hunting it down.

Quintuples

Muncaster Mill Farm

For the fourth session in a row, Laddie and I again worked alone, and again worked on poorman land quintuples. That is, with Laddie waiting at the SL, I go out and throw five marks from different locations, then return to the SL and run Laddie on all five of them.

Today I again wore a white jacket, and fired a starter pistol when throwing. I used black bumpers for all throws, and the distances ranged from 80 to 320 yards. Temps were in the low 40s, so the ground was damp and a bit slick from melting snow.

Though I think Laddie would clearly benefit more from training with a group, simulating event conditions as much as possible, I do feel that given the fact that I don't have anyone else to train with right now, running poorman quintuples isn't a bad way to practice:

• The drill is a challenge to his memory, with every mark featuring a "retired gunner". By comparison, remembering all the marks of a triple, more typical in competition, will hopefully seem pretty easy, especially if some or all of the marks feature visible throwers while Laddie is running them.
• At distances like today's, a session of ten marks help keep up his conditioning over the winter, especially at the all-out sprint speeds he brings to every retrieve.
• Laddie generally takes a good line when sent, but occasionally on these drills he veers off line once out in the field, apparently not remembering where the fall is and switching to hunt mode. This gives me an opportunity to blow WS, and switch him into handling mode. I'd rather he run every mark without handling in an event, but if handling does become necessary — for example, to avoid a switch or picking up a hot blind — it's important that he be able to make the transition out of hunt mode and begin to respond to handling instead.
• It's fun for both of us.

Quintuples

Rolling Ridge

Today's series were similar to our previous session, except I again increased distances. Today's 10 marks (two series of five marks each) were 120-220 yards.

Another difference was that our previous session was run on the relatively flat field at Oaks Area 2, whereas today's session was run at Rolling Ridge, with its steep hills and underbrush-filled ditch. Today, the ditch carried a shallow stream from the melting snow.

POORMAN BULLDOGS

After the two quintuples, today's work also featured about a dozen poorman bulldogs as we walked from the second SL back to the van. What I mean by a "poorman bulldog" is that I throw a happy bumper for Laddie, and as he's on his way back with it, I throw another. His job is to complete the return while noting where the new one fell, then race out to get the new one after delivering the first one. On his way back with the new one, I throw yet another one.

A true "bulldog", as I understand it, sometimes occurs in a Master Hunt Test. As the dog is returning with one retrieve, a thrower out in the field throws a mark that the dog is to be sent on after completing the earlier delivery.

Hopefully, the poorman bulldogs provide some learning that Laddie could benefit from if he ever runs a test that includes a true bulldog. But even if we never see a bulldog in an event, the game seems to be great fun for him and great exercise. I also think it benefits his general marking to practice this more difficult version, where he's on the move and carrying out an earlier task rather than sitting still and able to put his full attention on the throw. And I also think it may strengthen his returns, since it adds a pleasant association of excitement to the delivery process.

Quintuples

Oaks Area 2

More quintuples. Today's session was similar to yesterday's, with these differences:

• No pistol, because I felt like I was getting frostbite reloading the pistol yesterday. I called "hey-hey-hey" when throwing today.
• I increased the distances. Today's marks were 70-180 yards each.
• I wore a white jacket.
• I only had Laddie run two series of five marks each.

One reason I reduced the number of series from four to two was because of the increased distances, not wanting to risk injuring Laddie by pushing him too hard.

A second reason was the frigid cold, which didn't appear to be a problem for Laddie but was making me uncomfortable.

A third reason was acute pain in my left knee. I'm not sure what's causing it, possibly my gout. I'm treating it with ibuprofen, and that seems to be helping, but I don't think a lot of walking on uneven ground is good for it, above and beyond the discomfort.

Quintuples

Oaks Area 3

With my friend Gaby on a trip, Laddie and I have no one to train with, and lately we've been sticking with blinds.

For a change today, I ran Laddie on four series of five marks each, run from each of four positions at Oaks Area 3. That field is relatively small --about 100x100 yards, but dotted and crisscrossed with trees, hedgerows with gaps, depressions, and ridges.

Each of the four series was run as follows:

* Place Laddie in a sit/stay next to an LP being used for that SL

* Walk out to the longest planned mark, fire a pistol or call "bang", throw a black bumper to left or right, sometimes so that the arc was behind a tree, always so that the bumper landed in a depression or in cover making it invisible from the SL

* Walk to another position for the next throw and throw again

* Continue zigzagging across the field until every throw was completed. Some of the marks were intended as "wipers", where a shorter, later mark is intended to make an earlier, longer mark on the same line more difficult to remember

* Return to the SL and run Laddie on each of the five marks, handling only if he swerved off line to a different mark than the one I had lined him up on. I generally ran him from shortest to longest, not necessarily in the exact reverse order of the throws, except that the last, shortest mark was always run first and the first, longest mark was always run last.

I was pleased to see that Laddie seemed to have a good memory of every mark. He only needed handling for swerving on three of the 20 retrieves.

Land blinds

Rolling Ridge

Triple land blind with OBs, all approx 200 yards down a hillside, across wide dry ditch filled with underbrush, up slope on other side, and past trees and other obstacles. None of the blinds were in line with trees, so Laddie had to take lines toward open areas.

Laddie lined the first blind, then handled well on both of the others.

The photos below show the last 80 yards or so of the line to each blind. The bumpers, in the center of each photo, are too small to be seen beyond the trees.

Land blinds

[Beginning with this post, I'm experimenting with sending posts to this blog from my cell phone. The initial post has rough content, which I'll refine as time permits using the website. The photos are unedited. They would benefit from cropping and addition of lines to show retrieves, but time may not be available for such editing.]

Sundown Road Park

Freezing temps, but sunny.

Triple land blind, all three blinds (OB) at approximately 200 yards. All three bumpers were visible from the SL.

The line to the first blind on the right (photo at far right) crossed two baseball fields, ran a few yards to the left of a white sports pole, went down a depression between a stand of trees on the left and an area of underbrush on the right that the dog crossed thru while out of sight, and back up to the blind, which lay in an open area to the right of a picnic pavilion.

The line to the second blind in the center (photo at left) crossed two baseball fields and a baseball diamond, ran between a baseball fence on the left and a tree on the right, to the blind which was positioned at the base of a small tree in front of the woods.

The line to the third blind on the left (photo at near right) crossed two baseball fields, ran thru a narrow keyhole formed by a tree on the left and a baseball fence on the left, continued past two other trees on the left, to the blind that was planted at the base of a shrub a little inside the woods.

Reverse Hip-pocket Doubles

Mt. Ararat Farm

With light snow on the ground, in freezing temps and cold winds, Gaby and I began working on how to train Laddie not to flare around the short gun when the line to the long gun runs right behind the short gun, a configuration that occurs in a reverse hip-pocket double, especially if the short gun is a real person rather than just a stickman.

We may have made some progress in learning how to train this, I'm not sure yet. We'll continue work on this in future sessions.

Gaby plans to work with her dogs on this, too, but she felt the ground today might be too hard on the joints of her dogs, who are heavier than Laddie, so she didn't run them today.

Land blinds, retired mark

Mt. Ararat Farm

SERIES A. Four land blinds

Series A consisted of four blinds, at 60-90-130-370 yards.

I had Laddie run all four. Next Gaby ran Gus, one of her Chessies (her Lab is having some soreness so Gaby's resting him for a few days, and the other Chessies is recovering from surgery). Finally, I had Lumi run all but the 370-yard blind. I didn't run Lumi on the long blind not only because of the distance, but also because it traversed two corn fields, which I thought might be hard on her sensitive feet and joints.

For Laddie and Gus, our primary interest in Series A was quick responses to whistle sits. Gaby and I were prepared to use Walk Outs if either of our dogs did not sit promptly, but it wasn't necessary. In Laddie's case, that even included a nice whistle sit at the edge of an embankment at 360 yards. Laddie was on a good line, but I wanted to sit him so that I could send him straight back with a final cast down the embankment and out of sight, where he would need to cross a dirt road and run partly up a second embankment to the blind.

As I've mentioned in the past, Lumi is now retired from competition. I run her only to keep up her conditioning, and hopefully to give her some pleasure. She is exempt from any pressure to sit on a whistle, remain steady on marks, or otherwise perform according to event requirements.

SERIES B. Land double with retired mark

For Series B, the first mark was on the right, thrown left to right at 350 yards. The second mark was thrown by the handler to the left side. While the dog was picking up the short mark, the long gunner retired behind a tree.

Before running the dogs, Gaby and I tried throwing both a white and black bumper for the long mark. Even with streamers, the black bumper was invisible in flight from the SL. The white bumper was slightly more visible so we used that.

Challenges of the long mark were as follows:

• The gunner's position was in front of a tree in a diagonal row of trees, so that without being able to see the gunner after the gunner had retired, the dog had to remember which tree the gunner had been throwing from.
• At that distance, the gunshot was relatively faint, giving the dog limited help in finding the correct direction to look in order to mark the throw.
• The ground was covered in patches of white from a light snowfall that morning. In addition, the backdrop for the throw was the speckled pattern of winter tree foliage against grey sky. As a result, the thrower was difficult to spot at that distance, the arc of the throw was barely visible, and the thrown bumper was also barely visible lying on the ground. In addition, the freezing temps reduced the strength of the bumper's scent.

Despite these difficulties, Laddie ran an excellent line, not at the gunner's position but slightly to the right, toward the fall. He passed a few yards inside the fall and overran the distance slightly, suddenly swung around to the fall, scooped up the bumper on the run, and raced home with it.

Retired marks

Rolling Ridge

With limited time but son Eric available to throw for us, I thought this would be a good day for Laddie to get in some more practice with retired marks.

For each of three series, Eric fired and pistol and threw a WB, then I threw a WB to the side. I sent Laddie to pick up the short mark on the side, and while Laddie was coming back, Eric would hide ("retire"). Then I'd send Laddie to pick up the long mark.

Series A: The long mark was 290 yards and thrown into a depression, the arc of the throw crossing in front of a large tree. The line to the fall required Laddie to detour around a pile of debris.

Series B: The long mark was 310 yards and thrown across a large ditch, currently dry but filled with underbrush. The line to the fall crossed the ditch on a sharp diagonal.

Series C: The long mark was 170 yards, thrown into open meadow. The line to the fall again crossed the ditch on a diagonal, though at a different point of crossing.

Land blinds

Muncaster Mill Farm

Triple land blind (Laddie only):

1. 210 yards, including 20 yards thru underbrush at edge of woods that dog could easily veer around
2. 380 yards to open slope
3. 400 yards thru valley, past tree stands on both sides, to open slope in shadow

Xmas-tree triples with middle gun retired, land blinds

Mt. Ararat Farm

Series A was a xmas-tree triple (that is, the longest mark in the center) with the long mark retired. Distances were 190-170-80 yards. Laddie has made excellent progress on retired guns and seemed to have no difficulty remembering the existence of the first mark after nailing the other two, and took a line that arced only slightly toward the original position of the retired gun, and then back on line, when he ran the final mark.

Series B was another xmas-tree triple with the long mark in the middle retired, in a different field. Distances were 280-230-130 yards. Laddie nailed the first mark, needed handling on the second mark since he veered offline toward the center and apparently intended to pick up the middle mark on his second send-out, and nailed the long mark with a remarkable, laser-straight outrun despite the thrower hiding and despite having to traverse a diagonal upslope that crested 60 yards from the fall.

Series C was a triple blind, in a third field. Distances were 130-140-80 yards, with the shortest blind run last. For a straight line to the first blind on the left, the dog had to run a narrow keyhole between two trees thru a small area containing trunks and branches from one or more fallen trees, which the dog could not traverse without leaping over some of the debris, and also had to ignore the middle blind, whose bumpers were visible 20 yards to the right of the blind the dog was being sent to. Laddie was the only dog today to take the path thru the keyhole.

Decoy blinds

Sundown Road Park

A continuation of the advanced "decoy blinds" drill I've been running Laddie on periodically the last few days.

Today's series was four blinds run from the same SL, all in the range of 170-220 yards, and all featuring keyholes with lines between narrowly spaced trees. The first and last were to blinds at the foot of LPs. The middle two were what I call "decoy blinds": The blinds themselves are unmarked, but the dog is required to ignore LPs nearly the same distance as the blinds and within a short distance of the blinds (in this case, within 20 yards), sometimes on the left, sometimes on the right.

The reason for also running the dog on one or more blinds marked with an LP in the same series is to prevent the dog from becoming overbalanced and coming to believe that the blind is never marked with an LP. The goal is for him to rely on instructions from the handler, rather than trying to guess whether the blind is, or is not, at a particular landmark.

Decoy blinds, ILT, big land blind

[Today and at times in the future, I'll submit a very brief post, in hopes of maintaining a record of Laddie's training even in situations where my time is too limited for a complete description or commentary.]

TUE at Mt A with Gaby:

Quadruple blind. LPs as decoys on 1st three, then last one to an LP at 170 yards. Laddie did well on all the blinds, was only one of four dogs to line the last blind. Lumi didn't run these.

ILT with middle gun retired. Lumi couldn't remember the middle gun so I brought the thrower out for her to see him. Laddie (and all of Gaby's dogs) were able to run the middle gun correctly without apparent difficulty.

420-yard land blind. Though I like running Laddie on big blinds, this wasn't a great set-up on my part, because with the wind, the whistles were apparently nearly inaudible to the dogs. Nonetheless, Laddie took an excellent line much of the distance, including across a cornfield. He overshot and went out of sight for several seconds, but when he came back and became visible, he took a nice WSC to the blind.

Retired Guns, Land Blind

Mt. Ararat Farm

Today was another training day at Gaby's dairy farm fairly typical of our winter sessions. Gaby provided gunners for us in the form of her sons and their friends, enabling us to have throwers for land triples in two series. We also ran the dogs on one blind.

The temps were just over freezing with a 10 mph NW wind, but the day was bright and sunny and not too uncomfortable for those of us (the adults) who dressed warmly.

Gaby ran Buster, her yellow Lab, and her two Chessies, Wes and Gus. I ran Laddie on all three series, and Lumi on a pared down version of the session.

Per plans we had made the last time together, today we ran fairly short xmas-tree (pyramid) triples with the middle gun retired.

SERIES A. Land triple with retired gun

For Series A, the first mark (WB) was in the center, thrown left to right at 170 yards. The second mark (WB) was on the left, thrown left to right at 130 yards. A tape was positioned as a target so that the fall for the second mark was within 10 yards of the line to the first, longer mark, creating a hip-pocket double configuration for those two marks. The third mark (black bumper) was on the right, thrown left to right at 90 yards. As the dog was returning from that last mark (the go-bird), the thrower for the first mark retired, so that the dog could no longer see a white coat at that station while running the second mark and finally the long mark.

Intended challenges:

• The first and second marks were not only tight and thrown in the same direction, but they were both thrown in the shadow of woods with the thrower next to the treeline, which angled toward the SL. The idea was for the two throws to be as similar as possible, making the longer one with the retired gun that much more difficult for the dog to remember.
• The long mark was also thrown into the middle of a corn field, creating a terrain barrier that might push the dog off course.

Lumi ran as the second dog, running only the two shorter marks as a double, since I didn't think that a run thru a cornfield would be a good mark for Lumi to run. Lumi's leaping-in-the-air enthusiasm as she came to the line, and her turbo-charged outruns, were a joy to behold. However, as she has been doing recently, she stalled on the way back during all of her returns today, requiring me to come out to meet her and walk her back to the SL for the next retrieve, or to the van after the last retrieve of each series.

Laddie ran as the fourth dog and nailed all three marks. In contrast to his work a few weeks ago, where he had some difficulty with xmas-tree triples featuring a retired center gun, Laddie's performance in this session and the previous one, and perhaps other recent sessions, has greatly improved. It appears that he is now able to memorize the position of even long falls without having to rely on the gunner staying visible.

SERIES B. Land blind

Series B was a 170-yard land blind (OB). Though not particularly long or arduous, it was extremely tight, requiring the dog to cover 120 yards of low cover, then navigate diagonally thru an equestrian ring and a small skateboard park before avoiding an opening in the hedgerow to the left of the line, which seemed to act as suction for most of the dogs, and instead picking up the bumper in deep shadow in front of the hedgerow itself.

When I set Series B up, I was afraid the unusual obstacle course might be too difficult at those distances, and I decided not to even try Lumi on it. Laddie, however, did a great job, responding to whistles on reasonably tight sits keeping him within a narrow corridor, and taking high quality casts that he carried well.

SERIES C. Land triple with retired gun

As I often do in setting up courses for our sessions, I tried to emphasize a particular lesson for the dogs by setting up our second set of marks as a mirror image of the first one, though on a different part of the field. For Series C, the first mark (black bumper) was in the center, thrown right to left at 140 yards. The second mark (WB) was on the right, thrown right to left at 120 yards. The third mark (WB) was on the left, thrown right to left at 90 yards. As the dog was returning from the third mark (the go-bird), the thrower for the long mark in the center retired behind a large tree. Series C had no significant terrain changes, and was run entirely on low, frozen cover.

Though some of the dogs arced a bit offline running the second mark, the primary challenge of Series C was the retired long gun in the center. Besides the difficulty of the thrower retiring, the original throw was a bit difficult to see because it was a black bumper thrown against the background of tree branches, and the bumper was also a bit difficult to spot as it lay on the ground after the throw. As in Series A, the configuration of Series C featured a hip-pocket double for the first and second marks, which the dog did not begin until after picking up the shorter and wider go-bird. And as in Series A, the landscape features for both of the first two marks were strikingly similar, in this case because the thrower threw from a position a little to the left and in front of a prominent tree in both cases.

Lumi again ran second, and I decided to run her on the full series. However, after Lumi easily picked up the two shorter, outside marks, it appeared to me that she had no idea where the long mark in the center was. I got on the radio and asked the thrower to return to his throwing position, and unbidden he also faked a throw. Lumi then easily nailed the last mark. In Series C as in Series A, her outruns were as enthusiastic as they were accurate, while her returns were painfully slow.

Laddie again ran fourth, and again nailed all three marks, making even the center mark with the retired gun look easy.

Retired Guns

Mt. Ararat Farm

I'll begin with some notes about our current approach to training, and then describe today's session.

LADDIE'S TRAINING

After using BBs extensively for private training with Laddie, I learned from Alice that for some skills, such as running long marks, I might actually be doing more harm to Laddie's marking than good. Since then, I've limited use of BBs and stickmen to the go-bird on multiples, when no thrower was available. I may also use BBs as hidden guns on short series if we practice Hunt Test set-ups, but I don't plan on using BBs, even with stickmen, to simulate stations other than a short go-bird for Field Trial set-ups.

As a result, our practice sessions now fall into two categories: private training, where we work only on blinds; or training with at least one other trainer, where we work on a variety of set-ups. In most cases recently, the other trainer is my good friend Gaby, who also trains her yellow Lab and her two Chessies in various combinations in different sessions. Today, for example, we trained at Gaby's dairy farm, and Gaby worked with the Lab and one of the Chessies.

LUMI'S TRAINING

Although I don't plan to compete Lumi again in the future, I often bring her with Laddie and me to training sessions and run her on some of the marks. My primary goal for this is to keep up her conditioning. Because blinds, difficult terrain, really long marks, and challenging elements such as retired guns don't seem enjoyable to Lumi, I don't run her on those. She enjoys multiples, so I modify the set-up to run her on those when possible. Other times, I limit her turn to running singles, and don't have her run those that I don't think would be enjoyable to her, for example a single that required running across a corn field.

Does Lumi enjoy our training sessions? Well, Lumi usually doesn't share Laddie's enthusiasm about getting in the van to leave home when I say "Want to TRAIN?", and she's sometimes excruciatingly slow coming back from a retrieve. But she's always excited coming to the SL and seems highly motivated on her outruns. I think she enjoys them when we're out there though she may not always look forward to them in advance, and I also think that keeping up her conditioning will improve her quality of life long-term as well as in the present.

GABY'S DOGS

As a matter of policy, I avoid using this blog as a training journal for other people's dogs, but of course Gaby has her own training objectives for her dogs, and modifies the set-ups as appropriate. For example, the Chessie she was running today has developed a head-swinging problem, so Gaby ran the series as singles with the dog running the long marks first. Gaby's Lab, Buster, is a little more advanced than Laddie thanks to months of almost daily training with a pro last summer, and they usually run the same series in our practices. But sometimes Gaby modifies the series for Buster. Today, for example, she had Buster run the long mark in Series B as a single before having him run the entire series as a triple.

TODAY'S SESSION

Today, we were fortunate to have Gaby's two sons, and two of their friends, available as throwers, allowing us to man gun stations for two triples. Since Laddie and Gaby's dogs run plenty of blinds when each of us trains alone, and since blinds are typically not combined with marks in Qualifying Stakes, we decided that to save time today, we'd just have Laddie and Buster (Gaby's Lab) just run the triples.

Lumi and Gus (one of Gaby's Chessies) ran some of the same marks, but modified according to their levels. For example, Lumi ran all the marks of Series A as singles, and the two shorter marks of Series B as a double.

The weather has been subfreezing for several of our recent sessions with Gaby, including today's. But it was mostly sunny with a north wind at 6 mph, so conditions weren't too bad.

SERIES A. Land triple with retired gun

For Series A, the first mark (WB) was in the center, thrown left to right at 180 yards, with the gunner retiring to the woods behind the gun station while the dog was running the go-bird. The second mark (black bumper) was on the left, thrown left to right at 70 yards. The third mark (WB) was on the right, thrown left to right at 260 yards. The dogs were sent to the marks in the reverse order of the throws.

The intended challenges of this series were as follows:

• Such a long go-bird is unusual, especially combined with such a short memory-bird thrown immediately beforehand. Aside from that, the go-bird was on the long side but with the thrower remaining visible, none of the dogs had any difficulty with it.
• FT dogs sometimes have difficulty with short marks, and in Series A, the second mark was not only short but was a black bumper thrown onto the downslope behind a small crest in the terrain, making it invisible from the SL and on most of the outrun. I thought that Buster or Laddie, running the series as a triple, might overrun the short mark, but both seemed to have a clear memory of it, taking laser lines and pouncing directly on it once they cleared the crest.
• The final memory bird, the retired gun in the center, had a number of challenges: First, from the SL, the thrower appeared to be standing to the left of two horse-jump standards, with the throw arcing over the standards. But actually, the standards were only half the distance of the thrower and fall from the SL, so the dog would have to push past the standards. Second, if the dog flared the right standard, that would put the dog line offline to the right. Third, the first mark combined with the short second one made up hip-pocket double. That is to say, they were tight and thrown in the same direction, with the short throw seeming from the SL to land just behind the long thrower, though actually the long thrower was actually another 110 yards further back. With the long gun retired, and after running two other marks first, that can make it difficult for the dog to remember that the long mark even exists, and some dogs will flare too wide to avoid running too close to the line of a previous mark.

Laddie did an excellent job on all three marks. He nailed the first two retrieves on a laser. For the retired gun, he took an initial line too far to the left, toward the still-visible short gun, but at 50 yards out he corrected his line, raced just to the right of the right jump standard, and from there straight to the fall.

SERIES B. Land triple with retired gun

For Series B, the first mark (WB) was in the center, thrown right to left at 350 yards, with the gunner retiring to a mound behind the gun station while the dog was running the go-bird. The second mark (black bumper) was on the left, thrown right to left at 170 yards. The third mark (WB) was on the right, thrown left to right at 90 yards.

The intended challenges of Series B were as follows:

• The go-bird presented no challenges for dogs at the level of our dogs.
• The memory-bird on the left was a black bumper, so the dog had to remember the fall without being able to see the bumper. A snow field was behind the thrower, and the sun, fairly low in the sky, was also behind the thrower, both of which made visibility of the thrower, even in his white jacket, somewhat difficult.
• The long memory-bird in the center was difficult for several reasons: First, the thrower and the throw were both difficult to see against the background, and at that distance, the gunshot was faint. Second, the thrower stood in front of one of several visible mounds in that direction, increasing the difficulty of remembering the throw after the gunner retired. Third, the long mark was fairly tight to the second mark, and both were thrown in the same direction, with the potential making the longer retired mark even more difficult to remember. Fourth, the line to the long mark was across a corn field. Fifth, the area of the fall had several possible diversions, including the snow field on the left (a basin for a future pond), woods behind the fall on the left, the mounds behind the fall, and a barn to the right of the fall. And sixth, just the considerable distance. My estimate of 350 yards is conservative; it may have been more than 400 yards.

For Series B, Laddie was unable to spot the long gunner until I called for motion and a hey-hey. He seemed to get a good look at the throw, however, despite the difficulty of seeing both the thrower and the bumper. Once the other marks were down, he again nailed the first two retrieves. When I sent him on the long mark, he again veered toward the tight gun on the left at first, but again corrected his line and raced past the gunner. However, he popped twice, once just before entering the corn field, and again just after coming out of it, both times well over 200 yards from the SL, where he sometimes loses confidence that he's supposed to be that far out and is most likely to pop. As always, I just continued looking at him when he popped without moving a muscle, and he quickly spun back around and resumed his exuberant outrun. Once he reached the correct distance, he hunted for several seconds, but never left the area of the fall. I thought it was an excellent mark and excellent series, considering the challenges.

I don't always have time to describe our training sessions, but today's was fairly typical of our recent sessions with Gaby and her dogs these days.

Skimming Drill, Inline Triples

Today Laddie and I went out twice for training. In the morning we went to one location on worked on skimming high cover. In the afternoon, we went back out and worked on inline triples.

Fairhill

For our morning drill, I used an LP with tape waving at the top to mark where I planted an OB, then ran Laddie from the other side of a curved section of high cover. Laddie could easily see the LP from our SL, and could reach it by veering slightly off line to avoid the high cover. I ran him repeatedly from a variety of distances, always calling him back if he tried to veer around the cover, or if he dove too deeply into the cover.

For that first part of the session, Laddie was always entering the cover on his right. After he seemed to have mastered retrieves in that direction, I moved the LP to the other side of the cover and also switched our SL, running a similar series of retrieves while giving Laddie an opportunity to practice entering the cover on his left.

Muncaster Mill Farm

For our afternoon session, we drove to the huge hayfields off Muncaster Mill Road, which I was told by a hunter were once private cornfields but are now owned by Maryland state.

I set up the stations for an inline triple (ILT) with three stickmen spaced 40 yards apart, two with BBs and one with an RL. I had Laddie ran three ILTs from various locations 80 yards from the shortest mark and with all the throws angling back, to either left or right depending on where the SL was.

For the first two ILTs, I left all the stickmen up. For the third ILT, I brought Laddie to the SL while all three stickmen were up, then went to the middle station and removed that stickman, then returned to the SL to run Laddie.

Laddie nailed every mark on every series.

At the end, I also ran Laddie on a long blind.