g a l o d y

Took both dogs to Barcombe Mills today for some water training.  Adam came too, as dummy-thrower extrordinaire.

Pic from Adam’s perspective, of one of the dogs swimming and me on the bank, with the other dog:

Returned to the dew pond today, for some more blinds across.

I’m not sure we can continue to use the dew pond because it’s getting pretty stinky, not being free-flowing water and there having been so little rain recently.

Anyway, continued with the same exercise from last week.  Slate did this fine.  Grey struggled at first to have the confidence to go across without a shot or a mark.  But with a bit of pressure from me, she did it fine also.

After that, we worked on a retrieve at an oblique angle – a retrieve it would have been much easier to run along the bank for, but which I practised insisting they retrieved from where I was, in a straight line – with no bank-running.  I’m not sure whether the concept has gone in, or the penny dropped.  We will continue to work on it.

The good news is that Grey didn’t drop the dummy once and will now hold it when she gets back to me, until I (in my own time) take it from her.  This is happening consistently and the penny does seem to have dropped on this one.

We were up at the dew pond again today, for more water training.

Last time retrieves in the water and across the water (with dummies just on the opposite bank) were going well with both dogs.  So I decided, this time, to put some retrieves further away on the far bank; so the dogs would have to get out the water and then go some ways up the path on the opposite side, before finding the dummies.  This is much more like the Open water tests Slate faces.

However, because we had been practising, in the same spot, the retrieves just out of the water, it meant the dogs would have to go through a previous area of fall – just out of the water, where they are used to finding the dummies.  I decided to sit them, as soon as they got out the water, and cast Back.

That was the plan, anyway.  This is what happened:

Grey

Grey has developed this quite annoying thing whereby, when sent with my arm out as for a blind, she will instantly dodge right or left when sent and then continue from there – rather than taking a straight line from my arm.  I think this might be her response to pressure; she doesn’t want to look where I am indicating.  She occasionally does this when I’m practising lining drills on land, too:  I am avidly pointing at one dummy and she is insistently looking at another.  No matter what I do to get her attention switched, she keeps looking at the wrong one.  The only way I can solve it is to move up really close to the dummy I want her to get, so it is much closer than the ‘wrong’ one, and then she’ll look where I’m pointing.  But that seems to be only because she can then see it.  She needs to trust me and my directions and not second-guess them.  I need to work on some drills where she lines between 2 white dummies, for an unseen orange one – that will inspire her trust in my lining.

Anyway, this time she got in the water and swam across fine.  She got out the water and I blew the sit whistle.  To my surprise she didn’t sit instantly – I think she was about to, but it was not snappy like it should have been.  (Grey usually has excellent sits to whistle.)  So I yelled at her.  I guess I lost my cool.  She then sat and I praised loads and loads.  I cast her Back, but she was freaked out by my yelling and the pressure, and she threw in the towel on the whole exercise and gave up, getting in the water and swimming part ways back, then getting out and running around the edge back to my side.  She is very soft and doesn’t respond well to pressure.  This is not apparent when you first meet her, as she seems very confident and full of ‘let me at it’ attitude.

Anyway, this was a disaster and I immediately sent her again for a re-try.  I thought about simplifying the exercise, but there just was no way to do that without going back to the exercise they’ve done repeatedly very well (with the dummies just out of the water).  But this time it went like clockwork:  She sat to the whistle first time, she took a great Back cast, and she swam back with the dummy.

Great, I thought, we’ve nailed it now.  After Slate’s turn, I gave Grey another go.  Only for pretty much the same thing to happen again exactly:  The first attempt failing and her giving up (although I put no pressure on her that time and was resolved to be entirely positive and control my frustration) and the second attempt going like clockwork.  Weird.  We will have to persevere.

But her deliveries to hand were, on the whole, great today.  There was one time where she just spat it at me, but the others were great.  I realised that, if I put my hand out for the dummy, it is more likely to be spat at me (because she has been trained to see that as me asking for it), than if I say ‘Hold’ and don’t put my hand out to receive it yet.  So I am now seeing if things work better if I say ‘Hold’ and don’t put my hand out until she is right at me and I am sure I can get it in time when she releases.

I am debating whether to retrain the whole delivery of the clicker retrieve more thoroughly:  If I wanted, I could train her to hold it whilst I tap it, touch it, move it, wiggle it in her mouth – and she should hold whatever happens until I either click or say ‘Give’.  The reason I’m hesitating on this is because it will mean I have to say ‘Give’ at the end of every retrieve, if I’m going to be consistent with this.  And I’m not sure Adam and I are going to remember to do that – and to remember that Grey has a different ‘rule’ about this than Slate does.  And, after literally years of seeing my hand as the cue to give me the dummy, it’s going to be hard to de-train that as the cue to give and to let go.

Slate

Slate is a pain in the arse with her sit-stays.  Especially when wet.  Essentially, she will just stand up.  She doesn’t move anywhere, she just stands there.  If you say ‘SIT!’ at her, she will sit again.  We reward good sit stays with treats throughout, frequently, and this keeps her bum in position – but it’s very difficult to decrease the reward ration any.  And sometimes it’s necessary to move away from her – as when setting up retrieves or doing something with Grey – and I can’t reward as frequently then, and the high reward ratio she needs for this behaviour, she doesn’t get.  Anyway, it really REALLY bugs me that she stands up like this.  But Slate is 6 years old now, and she is a bit of a princess (in that, she doesn’t like her precious butt to get cold and wet by sitting down).  So I don’t really address this much, beyond telling her to sit all the time.  I am probably being slack.

Anyway, Slate also did not sit on the first sit whistle.  But she is much less soft than Grey, so when I yelled ‘SLATE!  SIT!’ after the ignored whistle, it had the desired effect.

Obviously this exercise needs more practice for both dogs…  Casting on the other side of water is obviously not the same to them as on land.