Day 23: HRC Help?

Today Rob and I headed out to the club to enjoy the beautiful whether and get away from LC who is ruling the roost with her big belly at the moment. I have come to grips with the fact that with only a few days until we take a crack at a our first Seasoned test, I have to be honest about where we are. I have realized in the past few weeks that our water handling just isn't there yet. Sure I can put on a whistle clinic and get him through it, but its more of an etch a sketch than anything else.

That being said, today I tried something new. Fred got off of his line while swimming across the pond. It wasn't awful, but he probably drifted two or three yards left while swimming across (i think he fixated on a stump that he saw). Instead of trying to get him to take delicate angle backs, I let him go. When he got four paws on the ground I gave him an over to the blind then called him in. I have posted the video below; but my question for all of you HRC gurus out there is whether or not this would constitute a failure at the Seasoned level?

If it would, I'll plan on hacking him through, but if not; I'll take my chances once he gets to land. Let me know, because I'm clueless on this one!!

Day 22: Trust is a Two Way Street

I didn't write yesterday because it was a fairly uneventful training day. We trained at the farm and stuck to some long bumper boy marks and a few simple blinds. A storm rolled in and cut us short; so this afternoon we picked up where we left off.

Rob, Kevin and I headed to the club and set up some fun situations. We went back to the water double followed by a water blind for our first scenario. The double seemed like it would be pretty straightforward, but when Kevin threw the memory bird and neither I or Fred could see it fall (or so I thought).

Despite a little cheating on the way back from the go bird, Fred did a great job on this. I got ready to send him on the memory bird, and realized that if he got in trouble I wouldn't even be able to handle him from where I was standing. As soon as he sat down and locked in to his far left, I thought he just might have an idea so I sent him....and he nailed it!

As you can see it is difficult to see the fall, but just that little splash was enough for Fred. I was so proud of him, and just like I'm asking him to trust me in the blind work, I am learning to trust him a little bit too.

The blind went moderately well. I knew that I lined him wide right and just let him go. Once he hit the other shore he was about 5 feet off of it so I blew the sit whistle...right as he saw it. Oops. I need to keep at it though, because as hard as my little guy is working to learn for me I need to keep learning for him!

Day 21: Calling the Audible

Today we headed to the club to set up some more test scenarios. Kevin and I beat Rob there, so Kevin headed down to the pond to set up a water double and a water blind. I took Fred down to the "line" and the water double (which I was worried about) went perfectly. After this, I moved him a few yards over to run the blind (which I expected to go perfectly).

As usually happens, the blind did NOT go perfectly. It was about 60 yards across the pond; only it was in an area where just getting off a little bit would tempt him to swim to the shore. I sent him out on what looked like a good line but he slipped and faltered on some rocks offshore and ended up going a bit left towards the bank. I whistle stopped him; only it seemed like more of a whistle pause. I just couldn't get him to pay attention for long enough to take a decent cast. Moreover, while he'd take the right over well, my back casts fell on deaf ears. When he reached the point of confusion and was starting to swim in circles I called him back in.

Rather than send Fred again from that spot with his brief 20 days of water blinds under his belt, I took him to the side of the pond which would make the blind about 30 yards. I lined him up and got him to go back to it and swim back to me. Kevin yelled over from the other side of the pond, "nice job calling the audible"!

I wanted Fred to perform the trickier blind, so I took him back to the rocky shore where I had originally sent him from and had Kevin drop the blind so that he could see it happen. I then sent him and as expected he went straight across and straight back. While I would have liked him to do this the first time around, the way that we changed it up to give him a win was perfect for where we are at.

After working the other dogs we did a walk up followed by a blind with a diversion bird on the way back. Both Fred and I are having fun with this new type of training that involves many of the different elements that we have practiced. I am sure that we will still be doing drills and focusing on one thing or another; but for right now its a blast to throw it all out there and "Call the Audible" to make every experience a learning one!

Day 20: And Now for Something Completely Different

We had a big weekend in South Carolina with the Carolina Boykin Spaniel Retriever Club. This group of people is so wonderful, hospitable and a heck of a lot of fun. Even if we had left with no ribbons, Fred and I would have enjoyed ourselves...however, it ended up slightly better than that. Fred earned his last two Started passes and is now officially an SHR!

I cannot even think about how many hours my on site assistance (Rob Keddie) and my remote trainer and dog therapist (Millie Latimer) have spent with Fred and I getting us to this point. I am happy to say that it wasn't like he just eeked past on these tests, but he sat there steady as a rock and nailed his marks.

So what's next? Well...two weeks from now the High Flyers HRC has a test in Grove City. I guess its time to take some of this blind work and put it all together and try our luck at our first Seasoned test. I reviewed the rules and thought about all of the parts and pieces and figured I have...Water Doubles, Water Blind, Land Doubles, Land Blind, Diversion Birds and Walk ups to get ready for, so despite the whopping three hours of sleep that I had last night, Fred and I headed out to the club with Rob to get training.

We decided to kick it off with a Water Retrieve with a Diversion bird followed by a Water Blind from a slightly different spot. I figured its time to get rid of the security blanket of big white bumpers and move to small orange and black ones. I didn't tape the whole ordeal, but I did manage to flip it on for the blind part. Even though my heart was in my throat, and it was a short blind, Fred took a great line, got on land and got the blind!

After the water work we did a Walk up with a Double Land mark and a Land Blind. Fred did well on all counts; but I'm not getting ahead of myself here. I fully understand that I am not going to have a bombproof dog in two weeks, but I think if I keep after him every day until the test, and the test happens to resemble a situation that he has seen....we might just have a chance slightly better than a snowball in hell!

Day 19: The Next 30 Days

Tonight was another Mommy and Me day for Fred; but instead of hammering on water blinds, we decided to take the bumper boy out and do a bit of practice for the HRC test this weekend. I have to give it to the dog...he can mark! You can't tell from this angle, but the mark actually falls on the other side of two paths so he had to do multiple cover transitions to get to it.

Watching the videos, however; made me realize that our next 30 days ought to be dedicated to running a straight line back to me. I traditionally haven't been using the "here" or whistle, but I tried it to get him not to cut into the paths tonight. Oh well...I guess I'll have to get creative with this one too!

After 12 bumper boy bumpers from various spots around the back field, Fred was all tired out and READY for his water blind. Maybe he'll sleep tonight!

We can't wait to see everyone in South Carolina on Saturday!

Day 18: Mommy and Me

Today I headed back out to the club with the dogs. There was a youth fly fishing lesson going on at the one side; so I decided just to take Fred down for starters. We headed back to the fated corner of the pond. I ran him on a bunch of land marks and blinds first, then tied him up out of sight and set the wheel of bumpers out. This time I opted to move from the white ones to the black and white ones (I don't yet have the confidence for black or orange!). Much to my surprise Fred focused in a lot more and took every line beautifully.

I'm not sure if it was the increased focus on the bumpers since they were harder to see; or if it was the fact that it was just the two of us; but it worked! We didn't have a single mis-step or problem as we ran the exercise one time from each side of the pond.

I'm looking forward to another few days of training, then a trip down to lovely South Carolina for the CBSRC Trial!