Snowbound Kennels

Snowbound Kennels Professional training for retrievers, pointing, flushing and companion dogs.

When throwing marks for a dog a good Matra to keep in mind is, easy to get too hard to find hard to get too easy to find...
09/16/2025

When throwing marks for a dog a good Matra to keep in mind is, easy to get too hard to find hard to get too easy to find.

Without being disrupted on the way to the area of the fall it's OK to make located in the yard project more challenging so the dog learns how to hunt using both its nose and eyes.

In other words if it's relatively easy for the dog to get there no difficult cover concepts or distance the object can be in heavier cover and more difficult to find.

If it's hard to get there, longer distances, difficult concepts or heavy cover, once the dog gets there make it easy to find.

If it's hard to get to don't discourage your dog after he's overcome those difficult concepts along the way and have it hard for him to be successful once he's made it through the difficult part.

I've seen a lot of marks thrown that totally over face dogs because they were hard to get from a conceptual or distance standpoint and then very difficult to locate the object once they got there.

Whistles blowing, arms waving, angry trainers and dogs that are just learning how to fail.

Sure, a lot of dogs progress on a failure base program and some trainers even think dogs have to fail to learn, which is utterly ridiculous, they do not.

Bill Hillman the well-known retriever field trial pro was asked back many years ago why his dog appeared to be such good markers.

I was told he said that he didn't want his dog running to the area of the fall and hunting he wanted his dog running directly to the fall!

Many people at an effort to challenge their dog and perhaps their ego, over face their dog with difficult concepts and distance and are overjoyed if they have a nice hunt in the area of the fall.

If I'm seriously working with a dog that I'm gonna have for some time on its marking I'm not going to over face it with concepts or distance, I want that dog to run directly to the fall. If the dog does not run directly to the fall I have probably over face the dog and it's my fault.

Of course that doesn't mean hunting or in some type of retriever test/trial your dog is gonna go stomp every single Mark but I want to do as much as possible in training to help my dog be successful in such a way it's more likely down the road it will be.

The picture below is Buck. He is the nicest labrador I have ever worked with (many many years ago) in my entire life.

09/16/2025

For something like this I need to find a much heavier dummy for the Versa launcher. Screaming out that fast that far with a light load makes it very challenging for a less experienced dog to accurately mark.

It would work great with those dummies if I was shooting them in towards a duck line to simulate a high flying bird which I will eventually do but for foundation marking drills, this isn't what I want.

I'd be happy to have it go 1/3 that distance but throw it in a more parabolic arc.

Despite that Ronin seems to see it quite well  and does a fine job for his level of experience.

But.

Even for a hunting dog I would really want him to go in an arrow straight line from where I'm sending him to the retrieve.

Why you ask? Here's why.

If you've ever shot a bird in cover you know you have to walk to where it felt like a zombie. If you look down to reload your gun or look away at something else it's always harder to find that object, the same is true with dogs. The straighter they go the easier it is for them.

There's a safety factor too and I'm sure lots of people will say I've never encountered that so I don't need it and I'm glad you have it but that doesn't negate the fact that these issues exist and other people and dogs doing in fact have to deal with them.

What if this was a farm field and the farmer had a barbwire fence running down to the edge of the water? Rather than go straight at the fall Ronin "squares" entering and exiting at a 90° angle to the shoreline which is what untrained dogs do.

So now if the fall happen to be on the left side of the barbed wire fence he's now on the right side of the barbed wire fence and has to navigate that hazard.  I've never seen a dog no matter how clever effectively say, that's low cover over there I can go anywhere I want and I will easily find it or that looks like heavy difficult cover I better go straight this time because it'll make it easier to find it.

Straight is better but much much harder to train.

Most untrained dogs will eventually learn to run the shore running around ponds or down the shore before they enter the water so they would have a shorter swim.

Many people think dogs do this because they're smart but they're just avoiding the water and squaring as dogs typically do when untrained.

But isn't it better especially in cold weather to have the dog run the shore or run around?

If your dog goes straight you can always send it around but if it always runs the shore or runs around chances are you can't get it to go straight.

You ever hunt late enough season so there's breakable ice that the dog could possibly encounter if it tried to take a circuitous route to the fall?

Unfortunately retriever drowned every year falling through the ice so I avoid sending them over or letting them make the choice to run over it.

Several years ago a client hunting on lake Champlain shot a duck that landed in the water but quite far down the right hand shoreline.

The dog had lots of experience retrieving out in front of the blind in the decoys where there was a beautiful gradual sand entry.

So the dog runs down the shoreline about 70 yards squares and and jumps into the water to retrieve the duck and properly lands on a jetty of rocks 6 inches under the surface.

I guess the dog screamed bloody murder and came limping back without the duck but suffered no long-term injury.

An angle entry down the shoreline is one of the more difficult concepts but knowing your dog may run the shoreline and encounter danger in doing so, keep that in mind.

I could go on fairly endlessly here about the benefits of having a dog that knows how to go straight to a fall rather than avoid and run around cover. Your dog isn't necessarily smart when it avoids cover and runs down the shore even if it locates the retrieve . It's just taking what it thinks is the path of least resistance and the path of least resistance isn't always the best path to retrieve.

09/16/2025

Really ran Ronin (say that three times fast) up a flagpole today on a 150 yard mark.

He breaks down at hunts short in the decoys and then I launch another when he was definitely going to hunt himself well out out of the area of the fall.

Why may that have happened?

Read the post below this and then you will see that, yes, he hunted short, but I also think he hunted where he last saw the retrieving dummy in the air.

Running some longer marks today and I realize there's stuff that I take for granted which I would've never known if a tr...
09/16/2025

Running some longer marks today and I realize there's stuff that I take for granted which I would've never known if a trainer had not pointed out to me.

This is what I would call a busy background .

If you were throwing a mark from right to left and especially one out of a launcher that is powerful, the object will first be visible against the trees in the close background then probably less visible against the Ridgeline in the distance and then becomes super hard to see as it Goes up in the sky.

Busy background, a lot going on.

Lotta dogs will see the object originate follow it through the near background, the far ridge line and then likely lose it in the sky. A lot of dogs won't see it then come down further to the left through the far Ridge line the near background and ultimately land.

If you think of that right to left arc a lot of dogs will run where they last saw it disappearing into the sky on the Ridgeline and be well under the arc of the fall because they assume it comes down in the line where they last sought going up and don't realize it traveled much further to the left.

Now imagine if the bird boy or launcher was was up against the near background with the dark trees. Probably the throw would be visible through that near background in its entire arc making it much easier for the dog to see the full flight and gauge where the object actually landed.

I've seen a lot of people really mad at a lot of dogs when they were throwing objects against a really busy background and couldn't understand why the dog wasn't going to wear it landed but running under the arc.

Get down on your dogs level and have a throw or a launch and see what it looks like against the background.

Something that would probably help here would be a black-and-white bumper, either purpose made or half of your white bumper wrapped in electricians tape so it gives more contrast against the background. They'll see the white against the near and Ridge background and then hopefully the black in the sky and then transition back to the white through the Ridgeline and near background.

Closer distances frequently have a fairly uniform background but at the longer distance is it can get fairly complex so don't blame your dog if you don't realize the complexity of the question you are asking.

And please don't ask me why talk to text randomly capitalize his words 🤷🏼‍♂️

09/16/2025

A lot of people when they have issues with their dogs try to figure them out from a Training perspective on the fly in a somewhat uncontrollable hunting or training scenario.

I specifically set things up in a training scenario so I can expose the dog in a controlled fashion to what it needs exposure to.

Awesome Dog here but he has jumped in on some non-flying quail in field trials.

Just a set up here where I can leave as little as possible to chance and let him predictably encounter the exact situation he needs work on.

Hobbled chuckar in plain sight, launch a pigeon and then increase the distraction by letting the bird move around.

I'm always trying to make the dogs successful. I'm not a trainer that believes in setting the dog up for failure so you can get a "correction."

No verbal commands or silent collar enforcement through this entire training scenario.

09/16/2025

Ronin.

The first time I fired it I got a double launch and was quite surprised after he delivered the first one that he looked out and clearly knew there was another for him to retrieve.

I literally didn't know he knew how to do that!

09/16/2025

10 month old Sunny and a versa trainer launch.

09/16/2025

Tried that new Versa launcher today and although I'm not a really big fan of remote launchers it actually is pretty cool.

Using brown ram set blanks, about the lowest power level, it still launches the canvas dummies a long long way.

A lot of dogs could be apprehensive with those dummies because they smell like gunpowder but test dog Ronin and then later Sunny did a great job and deliver them to hand without a problem.

09/13/2025

Some clients had asked me about the versa launcher for training their dogs at home so I picked one up to see what they were like.

Actually, pretty darn cool. It's an extremely versatile mounting device for retriever trainers the old handheld dummy launching devices.

It could be configured from one to eight launchers and they fire in sequence using a single receiver/transmitter.

The launchers are adjustable individually for angle and direction so you could shoot virtually around the clock from one location if you desired.

The advantages:

Your dog learns to look out not to you to see something thrown. This is imperative for all dogs so they understand the out there concept.

you can also shoot up to eight bumpers with a complete set up and not have to reload after every retrieve if you're using something like a slingshot winger.

Obviously winger can throw dead pen raised birds and the versa trainer cannot.

Hunt test and field trial dogs won't have a problem because typically some sort of "attention getting device" and frequently a blank shotgun, is used before the bird boy throws.

The downside of this sort of device for a hunter is that if you hunt in proximity to other hunters your dog is going to be quite keen on shots fired from other places thinking that's where it should go to make a retrieve.

Certainly problematic if you're hunting in a crowded public area and your dog has been trained to complete long marks!

Of course your dog can learn that your shots matter not those at a distance but it does complicate things for novice dogs.

I'm using Dogtra remote electronics which have either a tone or quacking feature that can be used to draw the dogs attention to the area of the launcher before the launch if desired.

09/12/2025

Whoever I lent my black strap Tri Tronics electric dog collar to this summer, please return it.

And this is why it's hard for me to lend out training equipment because I lose track of who I have tried to help out and I've had a lot of expensive training equipment loaned out to nice people trying to help them out over the years and never seen that equipment again.

Anyway, whoever has it please let me know and bring it back!

09/12/2025

Kenny, stop and style up to single shot. No reinforcement.

09/12/2025

Training timeline and the obsession with progress.

Universally I see books, YouTube channels, DVDs I'll talk about training timelines and the age of the dog and what should be started or accomplished by when.

A quick analogy. I was 6 feet tall when I was 11 years old. Do you think I ever climbed that rope in gym class? I could do a little more than reach up in the air and pull my feet off the ground. If you had decided then that I would never be any sort of athlete based on that performance you would've been terribly terribly mistaken.

Every dog is an individual and needs to be treated as such and thoughtful training begins as soon as you get your puppy home and progresses at a speed dictated to you by the dog not some timeline in a book, what your previous dog did, what you want this dog to do or what some pro, including me, or amateur tells you.

They are individuals and need to be treated as such. It's gotten really trendy for people to say train the dog at your side and I have a hard copy of Vermont outdoors magazine where 25 years ago in my dog training column I wrote a piece about treating the dog at your side.

Case in point.

Oakley in this video and Cash seen in my comment below we're both on a crazy plateau trying to advance their understanding of the whoa command. I went at least two weeks if not longer with almost no progress. Trying a lot of different things with both of them from my 30+ Year of tricks in a bag, they both were really plateaued.

Just knowing that things like this are super common and will eventually work out here they are today, I think they have it figured out now!

Don't look at the calendar, don't look at the clock don't freak out if you're on a plateau or even regress in performance, all dogs train at different speeds and just know that some dogs will progress, or not, through certain aspects of a training program very differently.

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