[hotel4dogs]

I know I'm a day early here, but I was afraid I wouldn't get to it tomorrow.
So welcome back to the hunt/field specific plans! What's up with everyone?

We've got a major "snow event" going on right now, so I know we won't get to any field training this week until MAYBE thursday. Hoping to get to Dan's on Thursday if the weather moderates a bit. Didn't get there yesterday, it was 6 degrees out and windy...NO THANKS!!!

Oh Anney, is the guest bedroom ready???

 

[K9-Design]

YES! Did I tell you the great news? My parents are moving OUT! WHOOPEE!!!! They found a house in Dunedin and are leaving in 2 weeks. So the guest room is officially back!

Jacksonville Retriever Club (my home club) has their fun/picnic trial tomorrow, I have Fisher in the Open and Qual and Slater in the Qual. I have no idea what to expect. Should be fun. Our annual banquet is tomorrow night as well. Will give a full report Sunday!

 

[Kmullen]

I want dibs!!!!! Haha!

 

[Kmullen]

YES! Did I tell you the great news? My parents are moving OUT! WHOOPEE!!!! They found a house in Dunedin and are leaving in 2 weeks. So the guest room is officially back!

Jacksonville Retriever Club (my home club) has their fun/picnic trial tomorrow, I have Fisher in the Open and Qual and Slater in the Qual. I have no idea what to expect. Should be fun. Our annual banquet is tomorrow night as well. Will give a full report Sunday!

Good luck anney!

 

[Swampcollie]

Got a club meeting tomorrow afternoon to set the plans for the weekly training schedule for the 2012 club year. The young dog group is usually pretty straight forward. Teaching basic OB, introduction to birds and guns, Hold, Fetch, Walking Fetch, Stick Fetch, FTP, singles in the field, steady the dog, intro to doubles, then get them running Junior. Usually the Newbies are finishing up Junior Titles by the end of the training season.


The planning for the advanced dogs gets more complicated because they aren't all at the same point in their training. Some are just learning basic casting, others are QAA finished master dogs. In the past we've done a tough master test setup each week. While this is nice for keeping a master dog sharp, it really hasn't helped dogs and handlers progress through senior to master. We really need to add concept drills to help people make progress with their dogs. Coming up with a strategy that is acceptable for most is going to be a challange.

 

[K9-Design]

The planning for the advanced dogs gets more complicated because they aren't all at the same point in their training. Some are just learning basic casting, others are QAA finished master dogs. In the past we've done a tough master test setup each week. While this is nice for keeping a master dog sharp, it really hasn't helped dogs and handlers progress through senior to master. We really need to add concept drills to help people make progress with their dogs. Coming up with a strategy that is acceptable for most is going to be a challange.

Here's an idea because we struggle with this in our own training group, mainly because we have three master dogs, Slater in senior and a few junior dogs.
We set up that hard Master test. Juniors can run the marks as singles, no problem, and adjust the line as needed.
For Slater at senior, I can take out a mark, or do the memory birds as singles before running a triple or hard double. His blinds I can run FIRST before any marks, then re-run them after doing the marks.
Singles and blinds first before putting it together is a nice way to transition those senior dogs into doing master work in a group setting. They get more line time (two trips) but in the end it saves everyone time because they aren't out there taking forever helping their dog through the complete setup. The hard part is getting their owners to admit they are not ready to run it cold!!!
I agree though, there are lots of drills or isolated concepts that the dogs need to go through for master. I.e. shoreline blinds, under the arc, poison birds, etc, no good way to teach those in a group setup situation. Maybe each week introduce a drill/concept for one particular thing, and I bet everyone even the master dogs would appreciate it.
Sounds like a nice club!!!

 

[Swampcollie]

We're fortunate that we have the facilities to run the dogs in two groups. Young dogs are in a group by themselves (Usually around 20 - 25 dogs)

Our advanced dog group is a little smaller (10 -15 dogs), and that's what we're trying to change. We need to help those 10 dogs we seem to lose each year hang around and become more successful in advancing to the next level.

 

[GoldenSail]

Well it's early for this thread...but we did a modified t drill today which went smoothly.

 

[Sunrise]

One of the things my club did (after separating the younger/less experienced dogs to another group) was a sign-up and a running & worker schedule that each member receives a day or two ahead of time. I do know that many years back before they started the running and working orders, I was one of the folks who quit - I'd hang around and/or work all day and not get to run my dogs. Now we know what group we are in, where we are training (multiple spots within the advanced or beginner groups) and when we work. And everything really runs much better

The more advanced group can run their marks or blinds as singles, doubles etc and can also simplify as needed by walking up. each session has a few concepts in mind as well.

The club has had a few articles in the GR News (SBGRC) outlining the changes that are turning our sessions into a great time and learning experience for everyone from the newbies to the field trialers.

We're fortunate that we have the facilities to run the dogs in two groups. Young dogs are in a group by themselves (Usually around 20 - 25 dogs)

Our advanced dog group is a little smaller (10 -15 dogs), and that's what we're trying to change. We need to help those 10 dogs we seem to lose each year hang around and become more successful in advancing to the next level.

 

[GoldenSail]

Worked on the modified t again today. She was doing really well but over time started to break down a little and I pushed her through it. I had a couple cast refusals which I promptly followed with a sit*nick*sit and if that didn't work an ear pinch to the correct pile. There was improvement after that.

So I am starting to wonder if that is my problem. When we went through single t and double t while I had bugging and popping problems I never had to work through a cast refusal. Hence when I get to cold blinds and I have freezing and/or wrong casts I have nothing to enforce or fall back on. So it hopefully be good to go back to the yard and work on modified t, and maybe even t and really push her harder so that I can correct those things there. When I was at Pete's it wasn't until the third blind when things started to get sloppy...the first was beautiful and it made him think we were ready to move on. The second was good. Third was yucky. Thoughts? (I may be off base here, but this is my current thoughts).

 

[hotel4dogs]

Maybe someone here can explain this better than I can, Lisa, but we never do a sit-nick-sit for a cast refusal.
Again, all trainers are different, but you might want to ask Pete about this. The proper correction for a refusal to move, according to Dan, is a moving correction (here-nick-here or heel-nick-heel, depending on where the dog is). The proper correction for moving when you are not supposed to is sit-nick-sit.
Dan says you don't correct a dog for not going by making them sit.
I'm not doing a very good job with this. Anyone else???

 

[GoldenSail]

I am going to call him on Monday and ask about it. That is what he was having me do (sit*nick*sit) when she didn't cast over. I thought that was indirect pressure?

 

[hotel4dogs]

I know I'm not explaining this very well. It's still indirect pressure, but Dan says you don't correct a "dynamic" mistake with a "static" command, and vice versa. It makes sense to me the way he explains it.

 

[GoldenSail]

Ok, I understand what you are saying. But...is that standard or does that vary by trainer? I am just reading this from Pat Nolan

To correct for cast refusal using indirect pressure, whistle sit your dog. If needed, call in to reposition, whistle sit, tap, tap, tap, tap, on sit, and whistle sit again. Then recast.
This works on three levels to improve casting response. First, the dog is unsuccessful in his choice of response. Dogs will eventually eliminate behavior that does not bring reward. Second, the e-collar tap on sit is an unpleasant result of the inappropriate response. Dogs will eventually eliminate behavior that results in discomfort. Finally, dogs generalize information; improvement in the dog’s performance on the sit command carries over to other commands.

 

[Jige]

This whole week is going to be dedicated to getting BaWaaJige to heel off leash every place. We are starting tomorrow in Walker. I hope it isnt as cold as today was at training. it was -4 but the wind was like -15 or so. Walker is right on the lake so it is even colder.

Everyone at training today said they thought Jige could pass the upland test if he will walk off leash. He does everything else perfectly. ( I hope to have pictures by the end of the week).

 

[K9-Design]

I think you guys (Hotel and Sail) are using the term CAST REFUSAL incorrectly.
Although it's a bit of a misnomer a "Cast refusal" is when a dog is given a cast, and begins to move, but in the wrong direction. He is refusing your correct cast. So if you cast back and he goes over that's a cast refusal.
Refusing to move when given a cast is something different and really doesn't have a good name that everyone uses, but freezing is a good one.
So with that in mind, cast refusals ARE commonly treated with indirect pressure via sit-nick-sit (or attrition). Using a sit-nick-sit on a dog who is freezing on a cast in my opinion doesn't work very well. The dog tries HARDER to SIT and thus, moves less!
So having said all that, Lise do you mean she is freezing when you are giving casts or is she giving you lots of cast refusals (taking bad casts)?

 

[K9-Design]

Today was our club trial -- an okay day! Highs and lows for us.
Started out with Fisher in the "open" and frankly it sucked. It was a big double, retired memory bird and flyer for the go-bird. Pick up flyer, run a blind deep of and through the flyer AOF, then pick up memory bird. It was like Fisher looked out there and said "Crap you're not really going to make me run that far are you?" He jogged out there, got his flyer, came back, took a great line for the blind and COMPLETELY broke down in the flyer AOF, I had to call him in. I moved way up and sent him again to the blind which he did without any fanfare. OF course by then he completely forgot the memory bird, we just had the guy re-throw it. Fisher was like ugg, spare me.

So we hastily retreat to the car and drive over the "qual." Which really was just a big open master setup with white coats. Triple with long punch bird retired, flyer as the go bird, then a double blind outside the marks.

I ran Slater first, you had the option of the memory bird retiring or not. Being that he's done about 5 triples in his whole life I had him stay out. Well Slater did awesome. Just ran right to the falls and hunted them up. He also did lovely on the blinds which was great! I felt really good about that.
Then later on, Fisher's turn, it was like he did a sigh of relief that this was much more do-able. He pretty much did the triple with his eyes closed (even crept a little on the flyer -- go Fishie) and one-whistled both blinds. All in a day's work. I didn't go back for the water marks in the Open, enough was enough.
Well
I only ran Slater in the water, they had a triple but I had them just throw two marks as a double. We are having some really weird stuff with water. UGG I will say that Slater does understand clearly he must leave and get in the water. However his confidence is low at this point. Because of that I haven't done any decheating with him. This sucks. The go-bird was straight across the water probably 100 yards, when I sent him he sorta crept out a few feet and did a head-fake toward the water, never did turn around, pop, come back, whatever, but a few stutter-steps, then cheated around a good portion of the pond, swam through the narrow channel at the end, got out ran around and got his bird. Memory bird was basically on that same line across the channel so no swimming there either. The only good news was he did the water blind really well. My goal the next two weeks are to do the most successful water singles ever and just get his attitude up.
So anyways, there you have it!

 

[GoldenSail]

She's done both and yes I was using the term incorrectly--froze two times before I went to the pro this past Monday. One time was my fault (I sat her almost immediately after taking a wrong cast--so I think she wanted to quit trying). Not sure about the second. It wasn't until Monday when we ran three blinds and got to the last blind and had some freezing and cast refusal (bad casts--going where she wanted to go).

So, I never had that problem in basic handling. Is it better to have freezing and cast refusals in the yard with basic handling to work through it? What is generally done for freezing?

EDIT: The details are hazy to me. Maybe the sit*nick*sit was for cast refusal and not freezing.

 

[GoldenSail]

Anney have you forced Slater on water and if you haven't will you? While Scout loves swimming (and is very good at it) her water entries can be iffy and she's not always super confident about it.

 

[K9-Design]

Yes he has had water force both from my side when we had issues last year (which were resolved) and remote during swim-by.
That is the only positive from what he did today, was clearly he didn't want to go but knew he had to. When he's not going through a weird phase he has really strong water entry and a good swimmer. My job to figure out why or at least, to get him rolling again.

I have had problems with Fisher freezing on casts, ongoing for a long time. What really worked --sounded crazy at first -- but when he freezes and refuses to move on a cast, I walk all the way out there to him, get him pointed in the general direction of the blind, and do a big heel-burn-heel and send. Took doing that about 3 times before FIsher would take off when I took one step toward him.
However I will say that I still get this occasionally, I can get him to move with a verbal cast which I follow up immediately with force (so back-nick-back essentially). Nicking while they are sitting still doesn't work. Some people do a here-nick-here to get them up and moving, not sure if I've tried that.