After a summer of competing and performances not being good enough, one thing I realised is I don’t practice marking enough. Simply put, our marking was poor.
The tricky stuff we do in tests is often made up in some way of a mark and a blind… the mark being the distraction or at least the second bird/dummy picked. This leads us to train the dog to disregard the mark and take on the blind. Then when it’s time for the mark, more often than not we handle the dog onto it. (TBH I’ve spent longer getting myself better at marking than getting the dogs good at marking.)
Marking ability is a highly prized quality in a working/competition dog - and I’ve certainly realised I need to do more of it.
In competition I really think there’s a need - and a movement - back to more quality ‘dog-work’. Beautiful handling is one thing but in robotic control, we really lose something special.
Keep thinking, keep training - there’s work to be done.
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Home International at the Gamefair 2024.
What an incredible experience to represent England alongside a team of legends - I am hugely grateful for the opportunity to be there and amongst them. Our Captain was exemplary - I can’t say enough about him.
The level of competition in a really tight, technical heavily covered course was outstanding.
Harley gave me everything as is his way - what a dog he’s been for me. So lucky to be able to stand next to him every day. 105/120 was a solid performance but still not good enough - out of all the decisions made over the 20 min run and 6 retrieves - on reflection, 2 were poor. This cost us.
@skinnersfieldandtrial were incredible with their sponsorship and support of our sport.
Thanks also again to @leadsandlanyards and @acme_whistles for their generous support.
Congratulations to Team Ireland on the win and an incredible run by Roddy Forbes to win top retriever. Outstanding performance.
Had some great chats to old friends and new ones. What a great sport to be involved in.
Now moving onto the trials - there’s work to be done.
Best wishes to you all for this season. 🙏
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First Novice Test for Ace. Beet walk-up.
Delighted with him - handled the day really well. Here he’s on a blind. Straight out, stop, handle, hunt and pick. We do ask a lot.
Saw some really nice novice dogs - congrats to the winner and my pal @kanzanglaze_labradors for 3rd with a nice young dog.
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Ace ♠️
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So very proud of Helen and Dennis.
They’ve been coming for sessions for a while now and he was a wild man at the start!
But they have worked hard, done fantastic homework and now we’re starting to see a gundog. More importantly and impressive is we are now seeing a real handler… with confidence, understanding and timing. Fabulous. These guys have been my greatest success. 🏆🏆
Here they are working on a split like you’d see in a test - and smashing it.
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🔥🔥🔥
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Two lovely young Open GSP bitches owned by previous HPR Championship winner and consummate dog man Jim Bird.
2yr old Isla working a back wind and 3.5 yr old Heidi pointing and working a moving bird.
Working the hills of Rothimurchus, Highlands for grouse, it doesn’t get much better than this. Beautiful to watch .
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Interesting this… and shows a big hole in my training with these two. (Not surprising as they don’t see many hills, but a huge opportunity nonetheless )
They both take super lines to the base of the hill/bank - and would have been perfect to pick half way up if they hadn’t faltered at the hill - they gave in to it, and chose to face the factor head on. We’ll be practicing this in minute detail so they face and complete the obstacle at the angle they approach it. They must.
So much to this game... Plenty can train a dog not many who can finish a dog.
Harley #thegreatwhite
Scotish Gamefair Scone Palace 2024 Home International
Team England 🏴
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“Train for momentum and perfection will arrive. Train for perfection and momentum will depart.”
——————————-
@mallardrun
@campbells_hillside_kennels
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Working with a young dog (9months) to build skills and mental elasticity.
This may look simple but there’s a lot going on if you break it down…
He’s focussed on the thrown dummy but gives me some steadiness - but then takes a cast away from that temptation.
He comes home with the sent-for retrieve but ignores the first.
Then he’s walked away, sits on whistle and stays while I walk away from him.
If he has remembered the thrown dummy, I call him away from it and then stop on whistle. Then a send back.
There’s a lot going on and it’s quite a challenge when you look at it like this. These dogs are incredible.
Have your dog trained at @meare_castle_dogs
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A bit more of the technical work from last night. Quinn is at the stage of knowing quite a bit but he’s still making decisions for himself on how to get from A to B.
I break away from ‘showing exactly’ to a test, only occasionally… and this test showed up that imperfection. I’ll go back and drill A to B to A in detail and small increments to try to further polish this part of his game.
Under battle conditions you’d work around the swerves they give you, but in this training I’m trying for perfection.
(You never get it, but certainly try 💪)
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Really tricky getting a line through these bunkers… cut paths and changes of ground…and then keep the line coming home. Bit of a battle and it took a number of attempts with it getting simpler and shorter to achieve something way less than perfect. (It was a memory) I’ll be going back tomorrow to break it down even further.
Keep getting better - there’s work to be done.
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Great to hear from a client on Copper’s progress 🙏
“First time on the launcher across the pond (first time across the pond to be fair) and a tiny bit rangey but stopped when asked and managed to find it and returned straight back.
Would not have been able to do this without you instilling some manners and the foundations with him, so thank you! After Goose -gate I’m really hammering his training and really enjoying his company!”
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Young fella first time introducing directional work. He’s young but doing well naturally so I thought I’d just see if he’d give me any steadiness on the training field.
It went nicely but this is purely from natural ability/temperament and the connection we’ve got.
Delighted with this as a sign of what he might give.
I’ve made mistakes in the past of thinking something is trained when actually you’ve got a clever dog who’s doing it for you without embedding it. If it’s not truly trained this will come back to bite you later.
I’ll gently continue with this once a week as we go forward - very little pressure.
Lovely pup to train - I’m grateful to his owner letting me have him. 🙏
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Running the big dogs is cool, but building these pups from the ground up is something else…and this is a real nice one 👌
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‘Never settle for second best.’ Graham Slater. This isn’t good enough.
“Don’t ever settle for second best..”
Graham Slater
Not happy with this… dog was determined to cheat my line. Must get better.
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Training with people better than me.
FTW Halorros Milkyway of MeareCastle first time on the moor.
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