Koska started back after healing from her eye injury
Kira retrieve in the water
Reva doing some name recognition today. Kira with Tammy, practicing self control watching her
Awesome work Tammy and Kira!
Reva and Koska doing their thing today
#retrievertraining #Kentk9trainingcenter #labradorretriever #labradortraining #huntingdogtraining
Had a great training with Kira and Tammy today. The girls are looking 👌
Reva is 22 months from Jersey x Hank.
Kira is 14 months from Jersey x Riley.
Koska first retrieves in the river last summer
Reva first time doing retrieves in the river last summer
💥💥 Reva 💥💥
Getting it done
Kira and her owner has been putting in the time and learning from us how to train the fetch and delivery to hand for hunt tests. Kira is from our Jan 2023 litter and we are excited to see them hopefully get their Junior Hunter title next spring/summer!
On their birthday Koska and Reva got to work in a session together. Some mistakes made by both but lots of new brain cells formed for these 1 year olds 😊
First drill - teaching name recognition.
We want them to go on their name because when we are using or have multiple dogs at a retrieving line, we don't want them all going on the same command, such as fetch for example. If everyone used one word, it would make it harder for the dogs to know who's turn it was.
We always release the dog who sat the calmest. If both dogs aren't calm, nobody gets the retrieve. Well, I do.
Second drill - a double with 2 dogs.
We let the calmest dog go first. We teach the word "Mark" to look where the bumper fell. Typically used before the bumper is thrown, to teach a dog to scan.
If theyre already looking, we don't have to say it before sending on their name.
Note: A "mark" is a bird or bumper that the dog seen fall.
Doing double or triple retrieves develops memory, but shouldn't be done before dog is ready and committed.
Third drill - I put a pile of bumpers out at the established "back pile" down the field.
They waited in a sit stay while I put 4 bumpers out there.
One at a time, they got 2 retrieves while the other dog waited. (Until Koska broke from the whistle, which was not expected but normal, as it was her first time hearing it in this context)
On a blind retrieve, the words "Dead-bird" are used to cue the dog that this is a blind retrieve.
"Blind" meaning the dog doesn't see it fall. The dog needs to look straight out from the handler. On command BACK, the dog runs straight out until they find the bumper, or in this case, to the back pile, and collects a bumper and delivers it to heel, unless otherwise instructed (like a deliver to a place)
Later, blinds will be used in conjunction with hand signal casting, to find birds that are planted in different places without the dogs knowledge.
Enjoy!
So excited today we got to go out to the Moncton Retriever Club for the first time with the girls
Koska becoming a great retriever!
Wish we had been more consistent with these sisters, they'd be a lot further ahead.
Total training we probably have about 60 training sessions into Koska at this point.
Going to try to stay consistent and train hard to get them into good shape.
Absolutely love working with these girls!
They are only 10 months old, full of drive and work ability!
They are from our Jersey x Hank litter, 100% working/field Labs.
We haven't had much time to put on them, but the foundation is there to build on.
Here we are doing heel work, finishes, and fronts.
We had a few friends over to have a puppy party tonight. We set up obstacles in our training center, and everyone got to keep switching puppies and teaching them how to do each obstacle.
The puppies were exposed to so many new things, built so much confidence, learned to work with different handlers, got to be on a leash, take food from different hands, follow a lure, and much more!
I was shocked how amazingly confident they were, no fear of any obstacle or the noises!
The obstacles we set up were:
1. Tarp
2. Weighing scale
3. Grate
4. Mirror to walk on
5. Cot bed
6. Treadmill
7. Tunnel
8. Plastic large bowl to get into
9. Pans and a box to get front feet onto
10. Ramp onto table
After the training we let them all loose for playtime and zoomies and had a cake!
Theyre 8 weeks tmrw, and will start going to their new homes!
Thanks so much to April Saulnier who came here yesterday to Kent K9 Training Center to evaluate our litter of Labs and do the official temperament testing!
She also gave us her playlist of sounds to play for the pups to acclimate them to different sounds in life. Everything from construction sounds, traffic, sirens, dogs barking and even bears!
These pups are getting a great start!
Thanks again April!
