So that’s where my training is right now, watching the grass grow. The neighbor’s horses had eaten the pasture down to the point that there was no ground cover and the guys were beginning to point by sight rather than scent. So last week I had the neighbors re-pasture their horses for a couple of months to let the cover grow back and if it’s anything like our lawn, it won’t take any time at all.
In the meantime, I bought 4 partridge and 2 more homing pigeons for the guys, although they don’t know it yet. When the grass grows high enough ro provide good cover as well as hold the birds, I’ll put the guys back on them again.
In the meantime, I’m starting to prepare the pasture for line drill by mowing paths through the grass. There are a number of variations on line drills, but they all accomplish essentially the same thing. Bill Tarrant and Mike Gould used 2 rows of bumpers as a guide in what Bill called the “looking glass drill”, and Richard Wolters mowed paths through high cover.
Since I don’t have enough bumpers for the looking glass drill I’ll take Wolters’ approach for now. One advantage I see of the looking glass drill and will incorporate it later on, is that the rows of bumpers act as decoys which will help teach the guys to ignore bumpers on which they’re not marked.
Tags: bird dog trianing, retriever training, retrieving drills
July 25, 2012 at 4:30 am |
Sounds like a good plan. Our dogs hate drills, but we do them anyway because they work. It has been too hot here for drills though.
July 27, 2012 at 5:48 am |
Dakota and do drills all day and never get tired of them, but for the rest of the guys, the challenge is finding ways of putting a new spin on old drills to keep them interesting. I also found out that if drills become too much of a routine, they just go through the motions.