Training started out with Mia and Elettra treeing the neighbor’s cat up the power pole.
Friday’s training began with a bang when Mia, followed by Elettra, treed the neighbor’s cat up the power pole. Once the cat was safely out of the way, they got back to the business of bird hunting and then on to retriever training. Using bird wings taken from this years’ hunting, I duct taped two wings to a bumper. Since all our nice white snow is quickly turning to mud, I worked with the guys early while the ground was still frozen.
I’ve started Mia on doubles and here she retrieves a bumper, 2-16-13.
Honoring points and retrieves are mandatory for Senior Hunt tests, and while Mia seems to do well with honoring points, honoring retrieves are a different story and if I decide to enter her in any Senior Hunt tests, it’s something we’ll have to work on. Although my two little huntresses were rusty with honoring retrieves, it only took a couple of throws for them to catch on and after that they did quite well. Saturday morning I started Mia on doubles.
Dakota honors Sophie’s retrieve
Sophie and Dakota were up next and both did well with honoring, although I had to keep a close eye on Dakota to prevent her from breaking.
Finally it was the boys turn but here we worked on pointing, using one of my wing-wrapped bumpers. Doc did very well on point, and Elvis did a great job of honoring him which was something I hadn’t really expected. With Elvis showing signs of maturing as a hunter, it looks like I’ll be spending more time focusing on his training.
Elvis honors Doc’s point. Bumper is in bottom right corner of photo.
Doc pointing a bumper with bird wings attached to it.
Tags: chocolate labs, honor training, pointer training, retriever training, spinone, spinoni, training bird dogs
February 18, 2013 at 8:10 am |
I’m glad to hear Elvis is doing so well.:) By honoring, do you mean one dog yielding and letting the other do the point or retrieve? Love the photo of the girls treeing the cat too.
February 18, 2013 at 6:55 pm |
Thanks, you always hear about dogs treeing cats but don’t often get a picture to prove it.
But yeah, with pointing it’s called honoring or backing. When one dog goes on point, the other dog will also go on point, but behind the first dog – a lot of times however they can both go on point with the bird between them. If a dog moves ahead of the one on point, it’s called “stealing” the point and is a cardinal sin.
With retrieving, one of the retrievers will stay put while the other makes the retrieve.
There have been a lot of fights and dog fights over the failure to honor!
February 19, 2013 at 7:23 am
Yeah I can see how that would get dangerous for the dogs if they tried to take on each other over a retrieve. I’m glad to hear your dogs are doing well. I can tell how smart and sweet they are just from your photos and blog posts.
February 20, 2013 at 7:08 pm |
What a coincidence. I did a post on honoring and steady yesterday. Darn I could have linked here if I was caught up and knew you posted on it too…lol. Honor is hard for Thunder especially. He doesn’t like not to get a bird. The pictures are great, but poor kitty!
February 22, 2013 at 5:24 am |
Yeah, if I’d have known I could have linked to yours as well! I think Mia does well with backing other dogs, but honoring retrieves is something we’ll have to work on. With them, it’s a game to steal each others’ retrieves – I was working with wing-wrapped bumpers.