Sophie:
Wednesday evening I used three bumpers for Sophie’s long distance casting drills; until now, I have used either one or two bumpers. She retrieves the first two very well however she has trouble with the third bumper. Rather than going straight to it as she does with the first two, she acts as though she does not know what she is looking for. I had to recall her a couple of times and start over. Other than that, I have her going out a couple hundred feet for retrieves.
Dakota:
As I suspected, whatever I start Dakota out with in our training session is all that she will retrieve. I tied three wings together to make it more substantial, rather than using a single wing. I was not sure how she would accept the wings so I did what might be called long distance wing-on-a-string training.
I started her out with a couple of tosses with the wings on the string and she retrieved to-hand perfectly. Then I set her with the “stay” command – still a small challenge in spite of putting her through a strenuous game of Frisbee. With the wings still tied to the string, I walked out and set the wings, figuring that if she balked at retrieving them, I would begin pulling them in. This always triggers her predatory instinct and once she has the wings in her mouth, retrieves them.
Not to worry. I started her out with wings and every retrieve was to-hand.
Tags: bird dog training, casting drills, double retrieve, hunting dog training, retriever training problems, wing on a string
