Photo taking session to practise 'stay'

Not been able to get much done

I was away at the weekend with the dogs in Norfolk so wasn't able to get any training done. Then it has been very hot Sunday and Monday, and very stormy today. I was only able to attempt 1 or 2 retrieves on the hot days, but we did get some swimming practice in.

I did some 'back' command practice http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsyTPSteLhg which she is good at, I tried sending her back without any dummy to find, sort of as a 'send away' exercise and she went running off looking for a dummy, I then stopped her to whistle and recalled her.

I have some free time in the morning tomorrow so will try and get some progress done.

We have a Water Training day coming up on the 10th July which I am looking forward to. Olive is a strong, fast swimmer already. She will retrieve in the water, but always drops dummy as soon as she comes out of the water, so I will need to work on this more.

This weeks training

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewuD79AeY1U

--Exercise I saw in new book I bought 'Hunt, Point, Retrieve Dogs for Work and Showing' by Nigel Dear. I really like this exercise as is working on her retrieve, recall, stop whistle, and back command.

Also tried to start teaching a split retrieve this week. Very basic at the moment - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3kHRXJ10Gk

but she is getting the idea :)

How we are doing so far...

I took Olive out to practise lots of Gundog Training today and took some videos so I can see how we are doing and where we need to improve. I take her to lots of different locations so she learns to concentrate in different places with different smells. I sometimes bring my other Vizsla, Wiley along, so it is him you will here whining in the background for his turn! He also provides a distraction of other dogs for Olive.

So here is what we are working on at the moment...

Retrieves - Olive has improved alot on these lately and delivers to hand 90% of the time. I will still need to work on making the delivery perfect though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEGLr4OP4-k

Hidden retrieve - I use rabbit dummy for these as I think it might smell more?!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhUBHrld-XY

Retrieve with stop whistle

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLszvBn0YsY

Water retrieve - she swims well, but only with a shallow entry at the moment, I need to work more on getting her to dive in!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGdS0uLfhdw

Stop Whistle - I haven't taught her to sit, or go down- she sometimes chooses to go down herself, which is fine so long as she stops.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7NO_qWz6Sw

We also do 'heel' and 'stays' when I remember to do them. So Olive is tired out now after a day of mostly training.

Meet Olive...

Olive is a Hungarian Vizsla. She is now 6months old. She is my 2nd Vizsla, but my first dog I have wanted to do more with than just own as a pet. I would like to show Olive and work her, but I am a novice at all these things!

I started some very basic Gundog training with her around 5 months. The more I learn about Gundog Training the more I realise how hard it is going to be to get her to a good standard, but we have definitely got the bug for it. At this point we have been to a couple of classes with a club, and 2 training days at Ashdown Forest. We still have lots to learn.