Autumn Gundog Training day – Bawdsey shoot
July Gundog Training day – Bawdsey shoot
We came back from 2 weeks holiday a day early to attend this training, we have been to this shoot before but this time we went to a different area and worked over different ground, whilst we had been away we did some water work, to try to stop Autumn squeaking every time she went in the water, also I have been working hard on Autumn’s heel work, she has a habit of shooting forward to find the next best thing, which is not comfortable when you are walking a long way, plus we are going to enter into a competition day at the end of August and walking to heel is looked at in the competition (not that I’m competitive or anything haha).
The day started off with some obedience on a stubble field, this was great for me, because it allowed for me to try the Clicker training with Autumn for heel, I used the clicker early on in here training and as things have moved on I have not needed to use it as much, but I wanted to try it again with her to see if I could get her to understand the value of walking beside me, this worked well, we then did a sit stay followed by a short retrieve, one thing I had noticed on holiday was that Autumn pre-empted me taking the dummy and would let go as soon as my hand came out to take it, so I have been using the hold command to make sure this did not happen until I was ready for the dummy to be released, this retrieve gave me the prefect opportunity to continue to use this technique.
After elevenses, we moved onto long retrieves from the dummy launcher, this retrieve was the longest one we have ever done, she marked it fairly well, she was in the right area and air scented the dummy with a slight direction from me, returned the dummy to hand, without any messing around or spitting the dummy out too early, very pleased with this retrieve as she worked it primarily on her own.
We then moved into the sugarbeet field to simulate hunting and retrieves for the labs, the sugar beet was up to my knees, so for the cockers it was very high as you can imagine, however Autumn worked well to begin with, she stopped on the shot/stop whistle the first few times, which was very good as we have not practised this a lot, however there was one shot where she saw the dummy launch and followed it, so a little bit of a Benny Hill moment ensued where I had to chase her down and correct her, but this was only to be expected and have given me some areas to work on in my 1 2 1 lessons, stop and recall whistle over the next few months
Normally when I hunt with Autumn she needs very little direction but because we were in very long sugarbeet, I was using my arms to direct her, it seemed I was keeping them a little too straight like a directional and therefore she was sweeping wider than she should have been, this was pointed out by another chap on the training so at the end of the session I took Autumn once more in the beet and worked her using my arms much closer, it is funny how quickly you forget something so simple can have this much of an affect.
In the afternoon we went to the lakes on the shoot and did some water retrieves, this was going to be interesting for me, firstly as there were house martins flying around, Swans on the water along with Ducks, Autumn has a fascination with birds of all sorts, but it seemed as soon as we turned up and she saw water she completely forgot the birds, not even noticing the house martins flying past her nose.
Autumn’s first retrieve was a difficult one, a lab of about the same age as Autumn had been sent for a dummy, but he could not find it, so a second one was put into the water, he found this one but then saw the second dummy and wanted to get both, I was asked to send Autumn as we have been working on distractions of others working around her and also making sure she does not ‘steal’ of another dog, whilst sending her a third dog was released, Autumn first went for the dummy already in the mouth of the lab, I instructed her to leave it, which she did, but she could not see the second dummy, so I recalled her from the water, sat her up again and re-sent her, this time she found it, caught it and returned it to hand, this was really good because there was lot’s going on, but she kept her focus and did the job she was asked to do.
Later in the session we had an easier but longer retrieve, Autumn went out straight to the dummy, as she got to it, it was a little big for her mouth and she went under the water, but she did get the dummy, as she returned to the bank she was squeaking, this was the first time during the session so I have managed to lessen the squeaking but I think the going under water was a little frightening for her.
Overall the day was great and Autumn’s ability amazes me every time I work her, she seems to switch on when in the field and has this natural ability to know what she needs to do, we have done things which normally maybe would not be done with such a young dog, but these training days show me where we are at, what I need to work on (stop whistle, recall whistle) and a good guide of how Autumn is going to be working on a shoot and if she is going to be ready to be introduced to the shoot this season or not.
