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 :)