Bad week/ Good week

Olive has been a complete hooligan this week. Not listening to anything, wanting to play all the time... think I will blame it on adolescence !

Have tried numerous times to practise hunting. So frustrating because I know she can do it when she is storming off in the forest on walks, but when I try and do it with her she keeps walking by my side and won't run off! I'm not sure whether this has to do with her being used to walking with Wiley and so when I am trying to get her to hunt and he's not there she isn't as confident to go away from me?! Maybe, will just have to keep practising and see if she grows in confidence.

This was our best attempt this week....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqruU9nIskg&feature=youtube_gdata_player

... and it's pretty bad. After seeing it on a video I am not really even sure what I am doing let alone Olive!! We have a training weekend at the end of the month so I am really hoping there will be lots of hunting training, as clearly we need help !

On retrieves she has also started to act 'dumb', I will say 'Olive back', and she will stare at me like she has no idea what I am talking about even though she has been retrieving now since she was 5 months... very odd... must be adolescence.

Thankfully this week has started better and she has managed to get back in my good books by finding a dead pigeon and retrieving it to me. I then couldn't resist the opportunity to put in some 'holds' and retrieves. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdPhMVe8zl8&feature=youtube_gdata_player

She also came 1st in her HV Junior bitch class at District and Dunstable Open show so at least she's done something right :)

Water Retrieve's at 7am

Up early to fit in some water retrieves, maybe by the end of the week she will be able to do without me saying anything.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfVBG2i3Le4&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Gundog Training at Margaret Roding

I took Olive (above left) to a fairly local Gundog class today, with her sister Dali (above right).

I haven't trained with Olive for a while so we are a bit out of touch, but she still was very good. We did lots of steadiness work to begin with, and then went to a different location to do water work. I haven't practised water retrieves with her since last summer, and she wasn't that great at it then.

We did the water work on a big lake with reeds, Olive was confident at going into the water, swimming, and she retrieved the dummy well. As soon as she got to land I could see that she wanted to shake so I have to really tell her to hold. She dropped the dummy the first time and again after a couple of go's, but did manage a few holds and presents.

So lots of water work will be needed if we ever want to do a Working Test as it's really hit and miss at the moment whether she will bring the dummy to me when out of the water. And if she does its only because I have put in a VERY loud 'HOLD!' which I don't think any judge would take as quiet handling.

We then did retrieve's and Olive failed to watch where her's landed (must remember to get her to 'mark' the dummy better!) so her's became a blind retrieve. Luckily she scented where the dummy was, but the trainer was really encouraging me to start teaching her the 'Hi Lost' command for when she picks up the dummy. I can understand the benefits of it, but am somehow put off that it is two words, I feel like it will be too confusing for a dog to understand, and I don't want to be shouting too many commands at her. I usually tell her 'steady' when I want her to slow down and hunt the ground for the dummy, but perhaps I will start saying it every time she picks up the dummy on a basic retrieve to enforce it more.

Lots of practise needed. Going to make the effort to get up extra early this week and take her out training everyday.

Bang!

Olive's 'play dead' trick. Although she dies much too slowly, but the look on her face when she is rolled over is too cute.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLTIFWH6cp0&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Training day on 25th

Yesterday we went to a Gundog Training day set up by the WCGB in Hampshire. It was a bit of a drive from us, but as we don't go to a regular class I rely on these training days to get experience.

Arrived nice and early and we were in Improvers group one. We had a fairly small group with a nice trainer so we were lucky, not too much waiting around.

We started with a few steadiness exercises which I really liked as something I can never practise at home. We did sit and stays, and then recalling your individual dog from them all in a stay. We also did a great exercise where we all walked in a line with our dogs in off-lead heel and the trainer through dummies over our heads landing in front of the dogs. Exercise was to leave the dummies and stay at heel.

We did some basic retrieves such a memory and a split. Good to do these things around lots of other dogs as I do them so much on my own with her, but never know how she will fair when theres lots of distractions around.

In the afternoon we made them jump a countryside fence which was interesting. Olive jumped over without much fuss one side, but couldn't get back across from the other side as the ground was a lot lower. She tried and fell backwards on her back which I thought might have knocked her confidence, but luckily it didn't.

The trainer had a dummy that made a bang like a cap gun when he pulled the toggle. This was a good one for Olive, and she wasn't scared of the bang at all. In fact I think she was excited by it. She can be bad at marking retrieves, which results in a lot of directing from me to get her to find them and the bang really helps her pay attention to where the dummy falls. We also tried her with a dummy launcher which was really loud and fired incredibly far. She loved this one and retrieved it fine with no problems.

Lastly we did some hunting which I was pleased about as this is our real problem area, through lack of practise on my behalf. The trainer got us to hunt them up the field, stopping them to the whistle when he asked us to, and then sending them out left/right to get them on further. Good exercise and she did so well with directions considering she has only just cracked them this past week. I also finally learn't what 'back-casting' is, something I read about and never get. When I am walking along the field and she is hunting up the field, as she gets to the edge and turns I need to push her forward and tell her to get on, as if I stand still she sometimes will back-cast and turn into the ground towards me. Probably just made no sense with all of that but I understand it in my head!

Overall she was great all day and I was so chuffed with her. Her retrieves are good, and she never drops the dummy anymore, her stop whistle is 100% and her directions are good...just got to keep going with those til she really knows them well. Now it's warmer better start on the water retrieves too. Getting her too hold the dummy out of water has always been a hard one!

We had some lovely comments from our trainer and she got a rosette for being best in her class which was nice :)

Hopefully get her to some more training soon.

Too much training

Olive and I have had a really busy week, with far too much training.

Started off the week with some gundog stuff thrown in on walks. I am always doing retrieves back or out to either side, but for some time have been working up to changing directions - ready for blind retrieves in novice tests. From what I hear I will need to be able to direct her to a marker where the dummy has been put in these, so that's what I have been trying to do when out.

I get Daniel to distract her and I then run off to either side and throw a dummy out. Then continue down the path with her and when we have got to a reasonable distance I set her up and send her back. Then stop her, and tell her to change direction and hope she finds the dummy! Generally when we are walking her stop whistle is brilliant, but when she is rushing off back for a retrieve and I try and stop her I notice she can be fairly slow to stop. I guess because she has all this momentum to find the dummy and takes her awhile to snap out of it and stop. So this needs abit of work. Changing direction she has finally got this week. When I said 'out' and hand gestured either side she actually knew which direction to go!! So chuffed with that. When they finally get something you have been working on it is sooo great :)

Here she is doing the first one I did with her http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jss4fNCbF-0&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Not sure how well you can see her stop and then change direction on the video. We did a few more, and then the next day too at a different location. I was an idiot most of the time and managed to judge distances wrong and stop her in the wrong place. But then I guess this just makes us have to work even harder to find the dummy by directing her with more steps. Sending her back further, then stopping her again, then out left or whatever. Every time we always got to the dummy eventually which is the most important thing, as I know when they don't end up finding it, it does nothing for their confidence. She was so exhausted after doing this, the most I have ever seen her. I think she really must have to concentrate hard on what is being asked with my hand signals. Quite a buzz to think you are directing and communicating with your dog at a distance though.

I am still working on the 'steady' command for holding her in one area. I haven't done any hunting practise with her at all, which is just naff from me as this is what the trainer said I needed to work on :( that will have to come next week.

Gundog training aside, I have now gone into panic mode that I have barely 3 weeks left til Crufts and I haven't made any attempt to take Olive to Ringcraft or do any practise with her. I don't expect her to do well or win, but I do want her to relax and enjoy herself in the ring and not get stressed and hunch up. Olive can do a beautiful stand with me at home, but when other dogs/people/noise are around it's not so good. Cruft's will be the third show she's been too, and I'm sure the most noisiest of them all so I've had to bite the bullet and find a Ringcraft class.

We went to a 2 hour class on Thursday evening and luckily this was a friendly club and I got a lot of help. Olive was so nervous when we walked into the hall, I don't think I had realised how much of a nervous dog she can be til I saw how she behaved there. If anyone came up to talk to us she would hide between my legs and didn't want to be stroked. The man running the club tried to feed her biscuits and mini Cheddar's but she wouldn't take from his hand. He gave them to me and she ate them straight away. She didn't want to play with any of the other dogs and she tried to hide away from them. Now, I am sure she wouldn't behave like this outdoors, I walk her with a friend every morning, who owns her litter sister and another dog, and she goes up to them all wagging and isn't nervous.

We practised standing the dogs all in a line and I got shown how to hold her and place her feet. Then we practised triangles and up and down etc etc. Loads of great practise that we both needed. Gradually she relaxed and she stood really well and she wasn't too fussed at all about being felt over. By the end of the class I was really pleased with how much she had relaxed, and how much we had learnt. She let a few people stroke her and was fine with standing close to every body.

I am a little concerned after his though that maybe she does need a little more socialisation with people in a confined area, like a hall. It's never been a problem, in fact the opposite, as she never runs off to people or dogs on walks, and if people jog/cycle/walk past us she just trots past and doesn't even look at them. This is great compared to Wiley, who for the first year would run at people wagging and spinning and probably jump all over them and knock them flying.

I do not want her to be a fearful dog though, and I don't want this to turn into an issue in the future so I think I will try and work on abit of clicker training with meeting new people and having lots of positive experiences (not that she has had any bad experiences that I can think of to have made her nervous).

The next day coincidentally was her Vets appointment for her booster vaccination so I tried to do a bit of work there with praising her meeting the vet and being checked over.

This week I also got this book... http://www.amazon.co.uk/101-Dog-Tricks-Step---step/dp/1592533256/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1330110683&sr=8-1

just because on the odd day I don't have time to take them for an afternoon walk I do a little training session with them, but our routine has got a little repetitive and boring now, so I wanted some ideas on what else I could teach them. Its a fun book with loads of tricks in and I was a little excited after flicking through so immediately started trying to teach them some... I will have to wait til next time to post a video as they are still perfecting the ones they are learning.

Tomorrow Olive has got a full day of Gundog training, I keep telling her she needs to get an early night as she doesn't know what she's in for tomorrow!!

Confidence Building

At the 1-1 we also talked about encouraging Olive to build confidence in things like jumping, water entries, and swimming. The trainer said they all have the ability to do these things well, but you just need to encourage them all the time to become more and more confident. I haven't taken Olive swimming in ages, I guess thats something we will have to get working on when the weather improves. I have been trying to get her to jump over logs and things in the wood saying 'over', she can be very agile when she wants to be. She easily jumps over a single style, but I have never been able to get her over a double style, so today I encouraged her over it step by step and when she realised she could do it she thought it was great fun!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKZINeYMR30&feature=youtube_gdata_player

1-1 Lesson

We had a 1-1 training lesson today in Westerham, Kent.
This was our first gundog lesson since Olive was 5 months old with a new trainer I had never met before. Overall I was pleased with the lesson. The trainer said Olive's heel, sit, stay, steadiness, stop to whistle, retrieves, were all really good and didn't even need any work. What we need to concentrate on is her quartering and getting her out more. She hunts well and uses the wind, but I still dont know how to send her into the wind properly ( I am such a dummy with this ). She hunts better through woodland and gets out further than she does on a field. I dont ever practise the hunting with her, for fear of doing it wrong so now I feel I know abit more and have something to work on. I need to just practise walking in the quartering pattern with her into the wind so she is turning into the wind each time, Olive looks to me alot for direction all the time so I need to ignore her abit and just encourage her to get out and hunt further.
We did marked retrieves and memory retrieves and she did them all brilliantly so I was really chuffed with this and so was the trainer. Now I need to be teaching her to hunt in undergrowth for things. So we practised hiding rabbit dummies in thick undergrowth and then I send her out for a retrieve, stop her on the area, and then indicate for her to hunt low to the ground in this area. This is something I have never done before and she didnt really understand at first, me shouting where is it?! where is it?! and she was just looking at me like what are you on about now mum. In the end we found that saying 'steady', 'steady' and a hand signal circling the ground worked for her and got her doing it, which she found really fun in the end. This is definitely something I want to work on now and build up with her. Eventually I will be able to use this comand to hunt low in blind retrieves to hold her in certain areas. When we have got this sussed the trainer did show me how to get them to look high too. She put a dummy on a tree branch and then directed her lab towards it and then asked her to 'look high', the lab jumped up and grabbed the dummy and it was pretty impressive.
We did some steadiness exercises where we left Olive and her lab in sit stays next to each other, and then practised holding our own dogs in place and the other person recalling and giving commands to the other. The trainer was really pleased with Olive on this as she didn't move once unless I called her or gave her a command. I thought she was going to be running off with the lab as soon as the trainer called it, so I was suprised with how good her steadiness was!
So we have lots to get working on in the week now!!

Nice Retrieve :)

Nice long retrieve from Olive. I dropped both of the dummies while we were walking and she wasn't looking, so blind for her. Goes a good way back to find the second dummy, pleased with that! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAclFzF3Mkc&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Olive has become a lady

Over Chrsitmas Olive has become a lady, she is in her first season.

It's not much fun being in season, although she isn't coping too badly so far. Have been taking her out early in the middle of the woods where no one is around, and then doing training with her in the afternoon. We managed to find a new route on our walking this morning which is great, always exciting when you find a new walk you haven't done before!

Olive definitely seems more lethargic, I think she is just worn out from all the cleaning she is having to do at the moment - cleaning of herself, cleaning of her bedding, cleaning of her pants, cleaning of the floor. She is a busy little girl.

We have a show on the 22nd January so we have been doing a little bit of 'standing' practice. Although I really need to do lots more ringcraft with her. She is looking much more mature now in her body and head.

I have been doing training with her in an enclosed court yard area where there isn't any other dogs, which has worked out quite well so far as the training wears her out nicely for the rest of the day. She got 2 new dummies for Christmas, a pink and purple one off her grandparents. You can never have too many dummies!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQnH4o0ILVg&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Bit of a break to try something different

We have had a abit of a break from gundog training for a couple of months, mainly because I have been so busy with work, and also because I have tried to briefly do some showing with Olive. I have given her the odd retrieve on a walk to make sure she doesn't forget but I haven't really had time to do some proper sessions with her.

I wanted to try showing, just out of interest really. We haven't bothered with Ringcraft classes as our local one is too late in the evening, so I tried to do some reading up about it on the internet and find some pictures of 'stacking' to copy!

I did practise standing Olive when she was a young puppy and I think this has been abit of a benefit to us now, as she remember how to stand still and let me hold her.

I first took her to an 'Open' show which wasn't too far from us and I am pleased to announce she did very well for her first time. We came back with 2 first places and one fourth place. More importantly, she coped well with the day, with lots of dogs barking and walking past, and people, noises etc,. She didn't stand aswell as she would at home, but she didn't do too bad. After this first experience I realised what I needed to work on was getting her to relax and stand in noisey, busy surroundings. She does try to put her tail between her legs and hump her back to begin with, but gradually she is getting better at learning to relax, and be more confident. Even though I don't plan to seriously show her, I have found this a nice little exercise to practise as it teaches both Olive, and myself, to stay clam in different situations and Olive to trust me to handle her and hold her whilst there is alot going on around.

I have since taken her to a Championship Show (Midland Counties) and she qualifed for Crufts in her Puppy Bitch breed class. She stood better at this show and we had a really nice day out. All of the people I met there were very friendly, welcoming, and helpful.

I have entered her in a few more over the next couple of months, so will keep you updated if I make it to them!

I now want to start getting back into the gundog training, we had a good session this morning and was pleased she is still quite sharp with everything. I really need to now start progressing with her, as we have been 'standing still' in where we are at with the training for awhile. As I am a complete amatuer I guess what I really need to do is get her to classes, so I plan to start taking her in the coming weeks.

Olive is 11 months now, a year very soon, and she is holding the 1lb dummy alot more comfortabley than before. Her heel is still good, and so is her stop whistle, She retrieves to hand 100% of the time if I say 'hold' as she is approaching. If I don't say 'hold' then she will ocassionally drop the dummy if she has been doing alot of running and panting. I guess this is something I will have to just keep working on and repeating. I want to get her alot more solid on directions when retrieving too. At the moment I put her in a sit stay, face her, and throw a dummy out left and right. I then send her to different sides using 'out' and a hand gesture to the side. She does this well, but then if i try to mix her up abit she gets ahead of herself and doesn't concentrate. This morning I threw a dummy left then right, sent her for the left dummy, she retrieved it, I put her back in a sit stay and threw the dummy back out to the left. I tried to send her left and she went right. I thought she would do this, as Olive can sometimes get ahead of herself and try and predict what I am going to tell her to do, rather than concentrate. So stopped her and sent right again. She got there in the end. Think I will have to keep practising the directions and throwing different combinations in to keep her thinking.

Tomorrow I have got a rabbit to try abit of cold game training with her. So excited about this, as been using the rabbit/pheasant dummies for awhile, and now so eager to try the real thing.

Did abit of pointing and then sitting when the bird flies off (to flush?) this afternoon...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNSGpGNFzI8&feature=youtube_gdata_player

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54o2Y6uLf2Y&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Pheasant Pelt

I ordered a pheasant pelt from http://www.sportingsaint.co.uk/ to see what Olive would do with it.

It's like a pheasant skin with feathers that you can either buy already attached to a dummy, or separately. I bought it separate as I already have a few dummies, but probably would have been better to have got the attached version. I wrapped it around a 1lb dummy and put a few elastic bands around it to hold it in place. The dogs were VERY excited when I got it out, and were sniffing it like crazy. I thought it best not to throw it as could see it all falling apart, so just placed it down on a memory retrieve.

Olive has a habit of running full speed at dummy once sent and sort of pouncing on it when she gets there, never really worried about it as thought her enthusiam was good!... but when she pounced on the pheasant pelt a few feathers came out so had to re-think how I was going to do the retrieves with it. I decided to do blind ones so she didn't know where it was and therefore was sniffing around for it and not running full speed. This worked fine and no pouncing.

I was really pleased she picked it up straight away and retrieved as normal. The 1lb dummy is big for her anyway, and with this skin wrapped around I wasnt sure she would hold it, but she found a way. She delivered to hand and didn't drop it so all good. Although she was alot more reluctant to let go of it than usual and as I was trying to take it away kept trying to mouth it.

She loves retrieving anyway, but this pheasant pelt definitely made it super exciting for her. She was alot quicker on the blind retrieves too, I guess because the skin smells.

Once the skin is on, you can't really see the dummy, but Olive had no issues with knowing what to do, she knew it was for retrieving as normal, so thats great.

I think this is will be brillant training aid for progressing to cold game. I am pretty sure now if I put a bird down for her to retrieve she would know what to do with it.

Training Session

I got to take Olive out for a training session by herself today, which I don't get to do often. We usually take Olive and Wiley out together and take turns to train them, so I thought I would make the most of our 1-1 training session.
I bought a new dummy for her, which has ended up being really too big for her. But then it is good practise for her to get used to holding something alot bigger so I let her train with it. I did some more practise of dropping the dummy without her seeing, walking on, and then sending her back for it. I am doing this with one dummy dropped really far back, and one nearer. She gets the nearer dummy, comes back. Then I send her again and she needs abit more encouragement this time as she thinks she has already got the retrieve, and it is alot further back. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhf-hzengH4&feature=youtube_gdata_player

I then made her sit and stay while I hid the dummy in the woods, and sent her for it. She rushes off looking, and I let her hunt around abit and use her nose, and then she will find it and bring it back. I just want her to use her nose to find it with this exercise. I know that when we learn to do proper blind retrieves I will need to be stopping her and directing her to the retrieve as opposed to her just hunting around like this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhhJGXjZ73c&feature=youtube_gdata_player

I then tried to do a hunting exercise with her, we don't do hunting anywhere near enough. This is probably because I don't fully understand it.
I hid the dummy in the woods, not very far up, as wanted to start off easy. I then told her to 'seek' and sent her off in a direction (not the direction of the dummy). She went off really fast, alot faster than she usually goes when she hunts. I think this must have been because she was aware I had walked off and hid something in there. She went so fast I'm sure she missed out loads of ground at the start. But then she started to fall in a quartering pattern. She very quickly found the dummy and I could tell she really enjoyed the exercise. I think I will have to keep at this, but somehow set it up differently so I ask her to hunt, but she isnt aware there is something to find.
Then I tried to work with her on pointing (again something never work with her on) She points alot on walks. I took her on a big open field, and she started to come on point. I tried to creep up to her side and tell her to be 'steady', I got right up to stand alongside her and stroke her back. I read this is what we would be doing in Field Trials. She held the point. I notice when I do this she keeps looking back to me and then at the point. I think this is good, as she is trying to indictate to me? I then encouraged her to come forward, she shoots forward so I gave a 'steady' command and she calms down abit. We practised her flushing the bird and then stopping once it has flown off, as opposed to chasing. When I am walking her she points and then chases and I call her and she doesn't react fast to commands, she is in the zone chasing! I noticed she was much better at paying attention to me when I crept up to the 'point' with her, and she starts looking at me. I felt like we really made progress her. With pointing, and also general control when she is really excited. It felt like we were hunting together :)

Improving water retrieves

I have tried to take Olive out to practise water retrieves everyday this week in an attempt to improve them. She waits really steady when I throw the dummy, swims out great, gets the dummy, comes back and immediately drops the dummy and shakes when she emerges from the water. I have had to use a really firm 'HOLD!' to get her to keep on to the dummy, and have gradually increased length I am away from waters edge. To begin with we started out with me saying hold as soon as she got near the waters edge until she got to me http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okfk6r1JWgI&feature=youtube_gdata_player

then after a few I was able to do some not saying hold at all. I think I will have to keep these sessions up for quite awhile before I am able to do just send her for a water retrieve and know that she will never drop the dummy. Still, I was pleased with the distance we got from the waters edge at the moment
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LoxCxHhWKA&feature=youtube_gdata_player
I have been continuing the 'out' command training by stopping Olive to whistle and then throwing a dummy out to either side and sending her for it, which is going well. I think I will continue with this slowly to make sure she really understands this command as she is still young.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMvBrZsEvE4&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Still doing the blind retrieves too, I think I enjoy these the most. I just drop the dummy whilst walking, and then recall her and send her back for them. I have started doing 2 retrieves now, so I will drop one dummy, walk on, drop another, walk on. and then recall her and send her back - she will find one, and then I send her back for another which she doesn't expect so she has to work harder. Here she is doing two blinds - on the 2nd one I sent her off in wrong direction so it was my fault she goes off round the corner looking for the retrieve. I need to concontrate more where my arm is pointing when I send her!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oAIZifEXPg&feature=youtube_gdata_player

She will be 9 months at weekend and still coming along nicely :)

Split Retrieve and 'Out' command

I haven't practised split retrieves with Olive in ages, so wanted to have another go and see if I can start progressing to teaching her directions when doing a retrieve. I haven't done directional work with her at all so this is something completely new. To begin with I just want her to concentrate on going in the direction she has been sent by my hand.

I started off with some VERY basic split retrieves...

2 dummies and going to the last one thrown first (in the books it says this is the easiest option for puppies) http://www.youtube.com/watchv=TCE_84FkG8U&feature=youtube_gdata_player

2 dummies and going to the first one thrown (I told her to leave the one I didn't want her to go back too, not sure if this worth doing or not?!) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2UltuFVyqk&feature=youtube_gdata_player

3 dummies and going to the first one thrown. Happy with this as she is always following where I am directing her. Put a rabbit dummy in there to make it a bit more tempting as she loves that dummy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRuHG0DkPNM&feature=youtube_gdata_player

I was happy with this so thought I would try facing her and starting a left and right direction to see if she would get it. I used the command 'out' for both sides with an exaggerated hand gesture in each direction. I am not entirely sure if this is right as I haven't been to a group class in so long, I am just training her from books at the min!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2S_DTN8qy8&feature=youtube_gdata_player

I left it at that as it had been a good session and wanted to end on a high note.

From here I think I will try stopping her to whistle. Throwing a dummy left/right and directing her 'out'.

Went to the beach this weekend so mostly concentrated on having fun!

Taking it up a notch

I am trying to really push Olive and perfect everything now, as we are planning to do Working Test next month. Had a great session with her today doing different types of retrieves, trying to incorprate stay, sit to whistle, recall away from dummy, back command, into the the retrieves so we are perpared for whatever comes up in a test. She is doing well, if she's hot and tired she will concentrate a little less but generally I am so pleased with her retrieving at the mo.

Today I tried setting her off running, and then dropping the dummy down when she wasnt looking. I would then continue walking for a while, stopp her to whistle, recall her and send her back. She was super at knowing she is meant to be going off to look for something, and really eager. She found the dummy everytime and good delivery too. Very pleased :) :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aClhg2JA2Q&feature=youtube_gdata_player

I am hoping this is the start of her learning blind retrieves.

I also tried putting her in a stay, walking off and putting dummy down in woods, returning to her and sending her. Again she did super. I was really impressed as I tried this when she was a little younger and she struggled to concentrate on using her nose to find the dummy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3LLRG0X79w&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Next water retrieves!!

Break through

I bought some new dummies at the CLA game fair at the weekend. I nice light puppy dummy and a rabbit one. I played about with Olive in the house with the puppy dummy, getting her excited about it and holding it, and then following me holding it. This worked really well and when I was throwing it out for her to get she was bringing it back presenting :)

YAY

So I took her out on the field later and practised a proper retrieve with her and when she was on the way back with the dummy I started running away and calling her and playing as we were doing in the house, i then asked her to sit and she did a nice present.

Think it's all starting to come together!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldJzehIaCT0&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Vizsla Fun

Today Olive had a fun day out walking with her brother, our friend's Vizsla, Ruby, and a Vizsla they are looking after for the weekend called Chester. Chester is related to Olive and Wiley and comes from the same breeder. I also had a Yorkie called Dolly staying for the weekend, so she came too.

We went to the Queen Elizabeth Hunting Lodge in Epping Forest. They dogs had a great time running around together, hunting, and playing. We practised a few stop whistles, which went well, and did lots of 'stay' for photos.

Update

We've had a break from training for a bit as I have been busy working a lot recently.
I managed to get Olive out to do some today, need to get back into practising every day to sharpen her up again. She is still delivering to hand 80% of the time but I am not worrying about catching the dummy off her anymore as I am continuing to teach the 'hold' and plan to incorporate this into the retrieve.

I did a long retrieve with her http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4tO95cRA-o&feature=youtube_gdata_player which was good she is still eager to run off and get dummy and return.
Good back retrieve http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJ93AQkITns&feature=youtube_gdata_player
And hold still looking good http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nP-kXK6fmDk&feature=youtube_gdata_player

So Olive is still coming along ok, and I know we are going to eventually get there with a solid delivery to hand and present. Need to work on hunting and water retrieves still though when I can find time!

Hold progress already!

Really pleased Olive has made progress so fast with this... and just in one day !

We started off at this - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mWEDQD5H78&feature=youtube_gdata_player

which I was chuffed with!

and then added a heel http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eo-K93a-BnM&feature=youtube_gdata_player

really pleased she got this, as heel and hold bit confusing for her at the same time, when I am saying two commands!

and then this (trying to mimic a present) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjueWmALDgs&feature=youtube_gdata_player
again she is slow with the recall but this was the first time I tried it, and I could see she wasnt sure what to do, as she wasn't concentrating on holding.