So far this hasn’t felt like summer – more like October than July. I think it’s the haze in the air and the humidity seems to be higher than normal. Maybe it’s just that I’m looking forward to hunting season that begins in a month and a half. Elvis turns 5 months old today and I think he’ll be ready for hunting although I haven’t introduced him to guns yet – but he’s gaining confidence in himself, so won’t be long before I do.
The temperatures haven’t been real high, generally in the 80’s, but still too hot to train the dogs in the heat of the day. I’ve been taking them swimming every time I get a break from work and our 4 acres, and yesterday I took Squirt and Elvis with me to visit my parents.
I did some yard work for my parents and stopped at a little pond on the way home. There were a number of ducks and geese where we stopped and Elvis was a lot more interested in feathers and droppings than retrieving. I had a string tied to the bumper and I think the string bothered him, plus he didn’t have his Sophie to swim with.
It didn’t take long to figure out that it wasn’t going to be a productive training session so I loaded them back into the Jeep and called it a day. This morning, however, it was a different story.
I took Dakota to the gravel pit ponds and gave her a good half hour of swimming. I know that consistency is everything when it comes to training, but Dakota is doing much better with not breaking on the bumper so I reward her with allowing her to break on some retrieves. For her this seems to work – if she does it my way, then she gets rewarded with some retrieves her way. I always end the sessions with retrieving my way.
I took Dakota home and returned with Sophie and Elvis. Elvis always needs some wading refresher training, and the first time out needs to be coaxed. Sophie is like the little pup she used to be, and is the best coach that Elvis could have. Her excitement inspires him but she is still calm and patient enough to tolerate him.
They spent about half-an-hour in the water. For Sophie, I tossed the bumper out as far as I could and for Elvis, about 10-20 feet out. Sometimes Elvis retrieved his own bumper, sometimes he swam out and took Sophie’s and several times after taking his bumper, continued swimming out after Sophie so that he could swim back with her.
Spending half-an-hour swimming is great exercise (for both me and the dogs) especially in hot weather, and is going to help them when hunting season begins.

