Rebecca and Aster (10 months old) video 3:
This is an add on to the first and second video, but in this part of the exercise Aster is being sent to the area where she picked the tennis ball but now being redirected away from the original area to another area but to the right this time to pick ☺️
Rebecca and Aster (10 months old) video 2:
This is an add on to the first video, but in this part of the exercise Aster is being sent to the area where she picked the tennis ball but now being redirected away from the original area to another area to the left to pick ☺️
Rebecca and Aster again (10 months old) Video 1:
In this video they are teaching stop and hunt an area. There are 2 other videos to this exercise ☺️
Rebecca with 10 month old Aster.
This is the first time doing this exercise on this piece of ground.
This is the first training situation she has ever crossed a ditch and into a piece of wood or gone through a hedge before.
There are bits to tidy up in the training but at this age and stage we are just building confidence and teaching her the process and exercise while creating the passion and desire to do the job.
She is a talented little dog with lots of style and drive and fearless when it comes to attacking cover! Exactly what we want to see from a Gundog at this age.
Lovely 🥰
We were still out working dogs this morning!
This springer spaniel bitch is normally a very fast, hard hunting little dog, but in these conditions she was a bit unsure. It is her first time working in these conditions so it was great experience for her to get used to. She was much better once she had a couple of contact flushes on game and it got her back into normal form.
It goes to show how important it is to work our dogs in different conditions when we get the opportunity, because that is what we get on a shoot day and potentially a field trial for those that compete with their dogs.
Well done Paul and his little dog for their dedication and hard work, it will pay off.
We were pleased to all get back in the warm though for a well earned cup of tea and the dog back in the warm and dry ☺️
Great weekend back south!
Rough shooting day on the Saturday where the handlers and dogs had plenty of good work and some fantastic experiences for them on very natural and challenging ground.
Then a training day on the Sunday on some fantastic ground with woodland work and an added bonus of a clay shoot happening on a neighbouring estate.
Fabulous weekend with a great group of people
“Brave” having some fun on a mark across the water on the water training day. This was his first time at this water and out with the group all day 😊
Having a bit of fun obedience with “Odin” puppy on the lawn 😊
Brave, training.
A bit of walked up. Mark distraction to a changed angle on a memory and back for the mark!
He was getting a bit tired as big distances for a youngster.
Didn’t need many retrieves in this training session 😊
The Sugar beat is looking good for our training days in it this year!
Lots to play in with some nice hedgerows and hilly parts. Happy days 😃
Day 2 of our weekend training. Following on from yesterday we did a walked up morning and water in the afternoon.
Today showed us that again if we haven’t got our basics, particularly good heelwork we struggled and could easily be out of the competition before we get a retrieve due to poor heelwork. This was highlighted when we turned for a bird behind the line. This emphasised just how important the basics and particularly heelwork are. Also if we have to concentrate so much on our dogs at heel it stops us as handlers marking the retrieve. This means we have no idea where the mark is to help the dog if needed.
If our heelwork is good it gives us as handlers the confidence to concentrate on everything else and not worry about our dogs giving us the ability to mark the retrieve well.
Then once the dog is out working if we need to help our dogs the importance of a good stop whistle and directions is absolutely paramount.
Without these simple basics we cannot help our dogs if we need to.
We also did down the line retrieves on blinds and changing ends of the line. Changing ends of the line on a mark requires us to mark well, good heelwork when walking to the other end of the line and a dog that can remember the area of the retrieve once changed angles well. This is a situation that happens if the dogs up the other end of the line are crossing the line to retrieve infront of the dogs at the other end. If they fail to find then the dogs from the other end will be taken to where they were sent from to potentially “eye wipe” the other dogs that tried and failed. This is why it’s good to practice.
The water retrieve was quite complex in that the dogs had to jump a fence go over the ditch then run open ground to go over a large pond and up a bank to then pick out of another pond and return to hander the same way the dog came from without shaking or dropping the dummy.
Lots of basic elements to train to achieve this retrieve well.
So the clear message and traini
