My Duck Dog Training A to ?

Andrew has expressed an interest handling Artemis in a retrieving event. The two of us will be loading Artemis up and heading down to the Working Certificate Test held by the Mountain Valley Retrieving Club near Hamilton.Andrew was out today to run Artemis and Jenni was out with Tucker. They took turns throwing for each other which allowed me to stand at the line with Andrew and near the line (throwing a go bird) with Jenni.

The team of Andrew and Artemis did fine just as long as I was not standing beside Andrew - Artemis will heel in to me out of trained habit if I’m near the line. Andrew did very well with the correct cadence - he did need to be reminded to heel Artemis in to a sit square to the mark about to be thrown. They ran two land marks and two water marks and based on this alone I feel that they will do well together in Hamilton.

Jenni ran Tucker on a land water double. Tucker head swung on her before the go bird was thrown and before she moved on line. We picked up the marks and re-threw the double. Jenni was ready to insist that Tucker remain locked on the first bird down but he did without her intervention. He double was not a tough one - it was more for Jenni than it was for Tucker.

I attempted to have Andrew run Artemis on a down the shore water blind. It did not go well - despite using the proper cadence Artemis was not interested in locking in on a blind for him. I took over and she ran the blind with only one break point requiring attrition to complete the cast. I then set up a land blind for Andrew to run but with similar results. I will wait a few weeks before I attempt to get Andrew to run a blind again - the two of them need to learn to be a team on marks before the leap to blinds.

Jenni ran Tucker on both the land blind and the water blind. Tucker was less than enthusiastic about running the water blind but his attitude came up some for the land blind. Once again I am beginning to think that Tucker would be happier left on the couch.

Fun bumpers were thrown for each dog following the work - both the kids and the dogs enjoy this portion of a training session the most.

I managed to video tape the drills - once I get to a high speed connection I’ll up load it.