A hunting we will go…

It happens sometime in August. You go out one morning and the steady beat of Summer has given way to the restlessness of Autumn. It is an almost imperceptible change. Those of us that have lived and grown up in the countryside feel it. We can almost taste it. Suddenly we are sent tumbling back to childhood , where happy afternoons were spent roaming the hedges for blackberries and picking apples from the orchard in Brickfield. In recent years, however, this change marks the approach of something different for me and my dogs…..

Time is approaching. The giddy excitement of looking forward to darker evenings and shorter days. Standing on the lakeshore or walking a riverbank as the first fingers of sunlight reach across the sky in midwinter. Sitting in a boat as an angry northeast wind pounds your back with sleet and hail or  standing in woodland, alone, with only your faithful dog for company shivering as much in anticipation as from the cold while you both wait for the sound of a hunting horn and the pheasant drive to start. Walking through miles and miles of heavy plough, fingers numb on the barrel of the gun, breath hanging in the air as you pull tired heavy legs from the thick brown clay. All the time just waiting, watching and listening…Time slows down. There is nothing else to think about. It’s just you, your dog and nature.

Then it happens. Just a flutter of wings in undergrowth, the call of a drake as he rises from the rushes or the simple change in the body language of your dog. All tiny clues but because you have learned to watch and wait and be patient, you and your dog have become good at this game….and sometimes, maybe just maybe you’ll get lucky.

Happy hunting everyone!

Chesapeake Training day with professional trainer and handler Mr Norman Onen

It was going to be a lovely day, warm with a light dusting of cloud and the slight chance of rain. Perfect for training dogs. I had heard much in recent months about Norman Onen and his wife Sandra. They had offered a Chesapeake training day in the Spring and judged the working test the following day. Jason, our working test secretary, had organised a competitve training day in July which also got great reviews from all who attended. So it was with much anticipation and excitement that I had been looking forward to this day.

We don’t get opportunities like this in Ireland. Ground to train dogs on is hard to find but ground specifically set up to train gundogs with a professional trainer is even more elusive.

I was impressed when we first drove onto the property. The training grounds are laid out within a small shoot. Fields of beet and game crop with partridge pens flanked either side of the laneway as we drove down to where the other vehicles were parked.

The main training field that was to be used for the day was wide and flat with shortish pasture grass. Enough to make the dogs hunt a little but not too heavy that they might struggle and lose confidence. In the center of the field was a large fenced off square spanning about half an acre. The fence was about mid thigh level and topped with thin wood. Designed to help and teach dogs to jump.

The day was planned to help us work and concentrate on ‘close work’. This is an aspect of training to which I have to admit I am sloppy about. Unfortunatley I have experienced the consequences of it this year when I attended the mock walk up with Bertie in March. I spent that day constantly pulling him back in line and although he picked his retrieves easily he lost easy points due to poor line manners.

It is an area I have worked on throughout the Summer but in truth we do not have to contend with walk ups very often when competing in working tests in Ireland so it is an easy thing to let slide. If Norman could offer me  guidelines to improve Bertie’s ‘creeping’ in line it would be money well spent for the day.

..And so we started. Dogs sat in line and dummies thrown, some with gunshot. Very soon as the excitement level grew various problems began to emerge with each of our dogs. This is exactly what you hope to achieve when you attend a training day. No point in spending the whole day with a perfect dog and nothing to work on.

Most of the problems that cropped up were solvable and most were very simple solutions. Norman was strict on the handlers but extremely fair and patient with the dogs. Solutions were inevitably offered through encouraging our dogs. Areas we worked on went from creeping in line, running in,  slow return, squeaking in line to basic handler error as in where and when to give commands, and when and how to use the whistle.

Small things to help the dog  such as taking a step forward in line after we cast our dog so it’s easier for our dog to spot us from a distance if they need help; guiding our dogs into us when they return to aid their delivery. Never to use the whistle for correction just for direction. My favourite though, as I run male dogs and hope this one is taken on board by judges, is Norman’s theory that if a dog stops to pee for more than three seconds then they’re emptying their bladder and NOT scenting as is commonly believed.

The morning session was intense but I could see improvement in my own dog even in that space of time.The afternoon session was set up to concentrate on problems in and around water. The stretch of water we used was along the river Avon, slow moving and mostly high steep banks, one section had a gradual slope into shallow water which was used to demonstrate how to correct the problem of shaking and dropping coming out of water.

The problem I was hoping he could help me with here was Mossy’s big water entry. They look impressive but I don’t like them and not from the point of view of disturbing game but more that someday he may do himself a serious injury if he lands in water that’s not as deep as he thinks. It was with great relief that again Norman came up trumps and showed us all a very simple way of teaching a dog to enter water with care. By using the steep banks he sat the dog at the edge and rolled the dummy down the bank and into the water..it worked..for the first time in a long time Mossy entered the water by using the bank instead of leaping from it.

The day ended too quickly. Always a sign that it’s been a success. There was a feeling of great camaradarie that we had all achieved something positive with our dogs. The day was run with a sense of fun and good humour which breaks the tension we often experience when trying to teach our dogs. One thing Norman was very clear on was that anger has no place in the training field.

There is one point he still has to convince me on and that is his assumption that dogs are not inelligent creatures and that I do not need a dog that can think for himself. This is something I not only feel I have in my dog but I know is an absolute necessity in the area of dog work I use him for.

Paul Toal of Altiquin Labradors second Summer training session.

It’s been a month since we had our training session with Paul. He finished that session by giving us a set of guidelines to work with and a basic structure that we could apply in our training sessions.

I can only speak from personal experience but I applied what he suggested to the areas I had been struggling with and I have seen vast improvements in Bertie’s and Mossy’s response. In fact, Bertie went on to win an any variety advanced retriever working test following this session.

 

We had agreed at that time that a second session would be of benefit to reinforce what we had been taught and bring forward any problems we would have encountered in training during this time frame.

Last Wednesday evening our small group met for the second time on the shores of Lough Ennell. Although Katherina could not attend due to work committments the Goldies were very ably represented by Stina. We started the session with Paul asking each of us ,in turn, how we had been getting on and any areas which we particularly wanted to focus on in this meeting. Each dog and handler then had an opportunity for some one on one tuition as the rest of us listened and learnt. Small groups allow this unique opportunity that a bigger group may not offer.

We worked on solutions to ‘running in’, teaching and reinforcing hand delivery from water, improving marking and lining for blind work.

What I gained most from both of these sessions is simply that it is okay for both handler and dog to make mistakes in training. I think most novice handlers, myself included, sometimes feel we have to test our dogs in training. This of course leads to the inevitable frustration when what we test for doesn’t work out and our dog loses confidence and interest.By keeping training simple and allowing room for error more progress is made.

 

For example, I have been struggling to get Bertie to take a straight line. He’ll often pull off to the left or right. Although this has improved in the last month since I stopped nagging with the whistle it’s still far from perfect. Yesterday evening I lined him for a blind and typically he pulled left. Paul then suggested I walk him in two or three strides and line again. If he failed again just walk in another three strides recast and repeat until the dog gets it. As he explained you can always lengthen the distance once the dog succeeds but you need to find the dog’s level first. On the first walk in Bertie took off like an arrow straight to the blind. Such a simple solution but something I would never have thought of.

Sadly this is the end of our Summer sessions for this year. I want to thank my training companions Colum, Mariann and of course Elly for making it such a fun Summer along the lake with our dogs. A special thanks to Paul Toal of Altiquin labradors who was brave enough to take on our little group of Any Variety Retrievers.

 

We will be back next year and if anyone wishes to venture into gundog games but is not sure how to get started you’re more than welcome to join us at our little meet along the lakeshore..until next year..Happy Hunting..

 

 

Uisce throws caution to the water…

Two incidents in the last week have made me re-evaluate my approach to Uisce’s training going forward. Both involved water.

My approach to puppy training has always been very organic. Most of what they learn in their first 6-9 months is purely by virtue of the fact that they are running with my adult dogs. Recall is learnt by turning when the older dogs turn. I love to give them a lot of free running as I feel its the best way for them to develop an awareness of their own bodies .

Uisce appears to have inherited more than her fair share of independence genes than any of my previous puppies. She is not a follower of the adult dogs and will quite confidently explore by herself when out walking. Her recall on land is improving. There is still that one or two second delay when called , as much as to say ‘in a minute I’m just smelling something here’. Now in many ways I like to see this in a puppy. It bodes well for hunting that she will persist and stick with a retrieve until found. However I need a reliable recall so I’ve started curtailing her freedom on walks by placing her on lead at intervals. Only letting her off where I can see her and when she’s on her own.

The water episodes really blindsided me. We went to the estuary for a walk last Monday. As usual it was blissfully quiet. I let the dogs out of the trailer and they rollicked around enjoying the freedom. Winnie likes to swim parallel to shore as I’m walking and recently Mossy likes to do the same. They dip in and out as they need to. I was delighted to see Uisce do the same. She was turning out to be a natural in water.

On our way back a slight wind rose making the water in the estuary churn up a little. This seemed to excite Uisce and she swam further into the waves. When she was about one hundred meters from shore I called to her , no reponse..she just kept swimming away from shore. I started to panic. She had been swimming for quite a while at this stage and I knew she was bound to tire as she is still less than five months old. If she tired out there she would drown. The other dogs on the shore and in the water seemed to have the effect of pushing her further out ot sea.  In desperation I put them away and roared her name . She turned. I threw a stone and the splash made her come closer, only for a second though before she headed away from shore again. Once more I filled my lungs and bellowed her name across the waves, again she turned and I repeated the sequence of stone throwing and calling, taking no gap until she came to shore. My heart was pounding. It was a mixture of relief and confusion that I put her back in the car and headed for home. I hoped it was a one off.  I was wrong.

Wednesday evening came and we headed to Lough Ennell for our usual training session. At the end of the evening I took Uisce on her own to  the water , threw in a tennis ball and let her in to retrieve it. She swam straight to it, picked it up and kept swimming. I was quicker to call for her to come back in but she completely ignored me. On and on she swam . Nothing would entice her back. My friend, Marianne, was on shore with me and was as perplexed as I was. I took of my wellingtons and waded into the water until I was thigh deep. I called her name and threw stones between me and the shore. The stone throwing again seemed to break the spell . She started to  come to shore. I was relieved but angry and when she came within reach regrettably I shook her and dragged her back to shore. A very subdued Uisce sat on the shoreline while the humans discussed this connundrum..

After seeking advice from a wide variety of sources in the dog world Uisce will be longlined when near water for the foreseeable future. Land recall will be perfected . Schooling will begin much earlier than I’d anticipated . I can afford to take my time training and working with her but I cannnot afford to lose her.