To retrieve a Duck….

Duck rising off the Tailings at Shelton

We came to the river again for the Duck Drive, just as the late winter sun dipped below the tree line at the top of the valley.

October 2015 will not be remembered for crisp clear mornings bright with frost , it will be remembered instead for record rainfall and temperatures more akin to late summer than early winter. When November 1st arrived at Shelton, although it stayed dry, the unseasonably mild weather had left all gamekeepers with the unwanted headache of trying to keep birds within boundaries when the hedgerows were still laden with natural feeding.

The first frosts hadn’t come,  leaving the brambles still green and difficult for both us and the dogs to push through. So by the time we took up our spot on the gravel island at the fork in the river most of the dogs were tired from three heavy pheasant drives and the river was not in a gentle kind of mood.

Full from the heavy rains that fell earlier in the week it would be foolhardy to treat the Avoca, that day, with anything but the utmost respect.

I am always cautious with the dogs I work on the river drive. Young dogs come along only when steady and are kept on lead to watch the older dogs work. I learned my lesson many years ago when I foolishly sent Chester in to this very river on a very lightly wounded duck and watched in horror as the current took both him and the duck round the bend and out of sight. Thankfully, it ended well when he got the duck, found the bank down by the prison and made his way back; but I know it could have ended equally as badly.

Today I had Winnie and Bertie, both experienced dogs in relation to waterwork . We watched as the duck came over the tailings and flew up and across the river. Some were caught by the guns at this stage and from that moment until the end of the drive, thirty  minutes later, the dogs were in constant motion.

They  worked well with the current , swimming out and turning into it as the birds came downstream to them and then going with the current until it carried them back into their own depth where they brought the birds back to me. They also pushed through the current and retrieved birds that fell on the far bank; occasionally they had an easy run up the gravel island to pick a bird from the stones.

The horn blew, to signal the end of the drive. We had filled two game carriers in that short period of time but there was one final retrieve I needed and as Bertie was the younger and fitter of the pair the task fell to him.

Halfway across the widest and fastest flowing part of the river a piece of deadwood rose from the water, strung with all sorts of debris that had got caught up in its branches now it held a drake mallard captive. The bird had been carried downriver during the drive while the dogs were working on other retrieves so they had no idea it was there and the bits of debris flapping like flags in the current masked any sign of the bird from the island where we stood.

I cast Bertie on a line above the deadwood, aiming him for the far bank, anticipating the current would pull him in line with the branches by the time he reached mid-river. He entered the water and felt that familiar pull of the river as it gripped him determinedly and pulled him downstream; with each powerful stroke, though, he was moving nearer the branches but also being pulled sideways by the current. Every stroke was  a battle to simply stay on course. Mid river and the current had carried him to where I expected him to be, Bertie was now below the deadwood . I blew hard on my whistle hoping  to get his attention above the roar of the water and asked him to hunt. It worked, he lifted his head clear of the water and searched using both nose and eyes, he caught the scent and  locked onto the flapping debris, pumped those shoulders harder than before to drive into the current and slowly, slowly work his way towards those branches. With one final drive he reached his head forward and pulled the duck from where the branches held it tightly, then he let go of all effort and allowed the current to carry him downriver to where it sweeps past the shallow end of the island. There he found his footing, pulled himself clear of the water and  with bird in mouth he gave  one final shake and made his way back to  where Winnie and I waited…

There are plenty of times my dogs and I mess up during the season and I value these as lessons to be  learned and move on from. However, every once in a while it all comes together, like this day on the river. These are the days to be treasured for times when I can reach my hand down in search of a brown head and rub a pair of soft brown ears as I retell the story, to any willing ear, of Bertie’s blind duck retrieve on a winters day in Shelton..

Hope you had a great season everyone from Me and the Brown Bunch.xx

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Chesapeake : “I think therefore I am” …..more tricky to train, maybe?

Your eyes meet across the small pond, both minds set on the challenge ahead, both thinking exactly the same thing but wanting very different outcomes …..Is the Chessie going to come back with his retrieve through the water on this warm summer day as his handler wishes? Or Is he going to mentally assess a more energy saving option and take the land bridge home???

Which would you choose??

I have found myself, as a handler in this predicament on many occasions.Watched as Labrador after Labrador diligently took the same line back as they took going out without a flicker of questioning but knowing that even before I cast my dog across the water he is already reading the landscape with his eyes and doing mental calculus on how to get home better.

The Chesapeake is a thinking dog. Their survival as a breed often working in life threatening weather conditions out of sight of their handler meant that the ability to read a situation was imperative to getting both them and their quarry home safely. They needed to know they had options, however, it is this very ability to think through every life scenario that often mistakenly lands them with clichés and stereotypical labels such as, “difficult to train”, “hardheaded” and “not good enough to Field trial”….

In most cases, if you’re lucky, you will get fair warning of  this ability of the Chesapeake to think ahead and weigh up His options. It will be evident from the moment He opens his  eyes and totters about the whelping box checking out the perimeter. He will lift his tiny muzzle above the lowest point in the box where Mum skips in and out. Rather than wait patiently for her return he learns very quickly that there is another option….He  can simply follow that wonderful smell of milk and fill his belly quicker. These are the Chessie babies that, because their need to figure things out comes early in their development, will train you as a handler and an owner to walk slowly and take your time through training.

….oh but then there is the other type of Chessie puppy….

So there you are all fuzzy and warm, basking in the glow of the newness and excitement of having your new Chessie puppy.

He or she  no doubt is smart,( smart as in human terms,learning things quickly that please you ), and pretty soon you are proudly able to list off all their accomplishments of how they have mastered sit, wait, stay, heel and come all  within a week of ownership. You will talk about how friendly and sociable they are around other dogs, how they love all dogs large and small. In fact I can pretty much guarantee that doubts will even cross into your mind about whether the warnings and cautions your puppy’s breeder gave you about taking your time in training, about the importance of socialising your Chesapeake puppy properly are really true at all….

Time passes, and buoyed with the confidence of how easily and eagerly your young dog took to basic training you decide to increase the pressure and you again are pleasantly surprised how easily he starts to  run lines, obey some whistle work, maybe taking a left and right  cast AND still only 9 months old !!!.

Then, just when you think you have trained the beast, when you can sit back and give yourself a giant pat on the back for a job well done everything starts to unravel …..he starts to push ahead when he should be doing impeccable heelwork, he ignores all direction and acts like he has never heard a whistle before let alone the sit command, a scent trail is more fun to follow than coming back to you when you call him, he squares up to other young males when out walking despite your admonishments to ‘play nicely’…

What happened ?? Where did it all go wrong you may wonder ?? Where in god’s name has that wonderful puppy that you worked so hard to mould and train gone to and how do you get him back?

And the answer is simply your Chessie just realised he has options other than what you ask him to do. His maturing mind, the one needed to help him survive the brutal foreshore currents in times past, has kicked into gear in readiness for his future role as a working widldfowling dog.

This is the hardest stage, I think, in Chesapeake development for both Dog and Owner. It is the stage that I ,as a breeder, am prepared to get the most calls about and hope that in the long conversations that follow I can offer some insight into what can seem like a neverending episode of ‘ dog behaving badly’.

So, as a breeder I will tell you that this is the time your young dog needs your guidance most,( even though He thinks He doesn’t). Tease out the strands of his training, allow him to think through each small aspect of what you ask him to do by shortening your sessions and breaking them down more. Allow him to question and think things through so he can understand. And when that doesn’t work guide him some more.

You will always have a thinking Dog, it is in their DNA but I believe when a Chesapeake fully understands what is being asked of Him or Her they give their very best performances.

Sometimes though all  the cajoling in the world will not win out over a Chessie mind that knows the shortest and safest route home with a retrieve is by land when your eyes lock across a small pond in Summer…..but that’s another story.

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..