Saturday was a beautiful day. It was sunny and warm. OK it was also a bit windy, but that is typical for April.
We are determined to make good use of our training membership and get Freighter out to that property to train 2-3 times a week, so we loaded him up and off we went to meet up with a Saturday morning training group. When we arrived they already had water blinds set up and were working them.
Blind retrieves (or “blinds”) are where bumpers or birds are set out in the field and the dog does not see them fall or know where they are in the field. The dog’s handler uses arm signals (called casts) to direct the dog to the bumper or bird. If the dog must enter the water to get to them, it is a water blind.
The first water blind cut the corner of the pond and the second was a down the shoreline water blind.
The challenge with both of these blinds is that you want the dog to get into the water and stay in the water the entire way going and coming back. I noted the preferred routes in orange and the unacceptable routes in light green.
The dogs ran both of these blinds from on top of a hill so there was quite a long entry before they got to the pond. This offered more temptation for them to cheat and run around the bank.
Blind #1
Freighter took a nice line down and into the water. He did not attempt to cheat around on the land. I think he had one handle in the water to keep him on line.
Freighter needed to come back through the water the same way he went to the blind, but he decided to try to cheat by coming back on land.
Hubby tried to cast him back into the water but he was not getting back in, so what you can do is walk the dog, (while the dog is still holding the bumper) back to the other side of the pond and sit the dog at the bank.
Once the handler is back at the original line, he calls the dog and hopefully the dog gets back in the water to swim back. If this doesn’t work which of course for Freighter it did not, then you get a helper to stand on land and block the dog’s path on land. The helper points at the water and encourages the dog to get in while the dog’s handler is calling or whistling for the dog.
Eventually Freighter remembered he is supposed to get into the water to come back. He knows this and was taught this, but I guess he forgot.
Freighter repeated this blind to try to solidify that he is not supposed to cheat on the return. He thought about cheating but saw the helper standing in his path and jumped back into the water.
Blind #2
The second water blind was difficult because the dog had to stay in the water as it swam parallel to the shore (often referred to as a shoreline blind). Remember the dog does not know where the bumpers are so as far as the dog knows, they could be anywhere along the shore.
This blind was run from a different spot than the first blind, but also at the top of a hill which meant the dog had a long way to run on land before ever getting to the water. Long entries to water blinds make them more difficult because there is a lot of opportunity for the dog to try to avoid the water.
Freighter had no trouble following a nice straight line to the water.
Hubby made sure to stop Freighter any time he turned toward the bank of the pond. He did pretty well until he got to a small point of land that stuck out into the water. Freighter wanted to get on that point in the worst way and hubby did not want him to get on that point.
Freighter had many many casts to get him past that point and to the blind. We have not been able to train in ponds with points like this very often so this was really good training for him.
Freighter was a good boy and swam all the way back without trying to get out of the pond too soon.
After all of the group finished running these two blinds, the dogs ran one more long water blind which I will post about tomorrow. Once that one was done, the group wrapped up so we went off on our own to work on a few problem areas with Freighter. Now that we have access to these ponds, we plan to really work on water marks and blinds because we know Freighter needs more training on these.
LOL! Freighter, we love you! Independent thinking keeps the humans on their toes!
It was great to read how much things you have to do Freighter… it’s amazing to see how smart dogs can be and that we can do so much more than to walk them on a leash :o)
Those water blinds are interesting…especially what is considered “cheating”. Since you didn’t have access to these ponds I would say Freighter did pretty good even though he did want to cheat once or twice. I can only imagine how hard those types of runs (swims) are when the dog doesn’t actually know where it is going. Freighter is looking good and strong!
We had a notorious bank runner! But we never trained extensively either.
True confession. Chessies think they know the shortest route. With access to water, certainly, Freighter will create his own wakes, he is a powerful boy!
The water blinds are cool!
ღ husky hugz ღ frum our pack at Love is being owned by a husky!
Good job Freighter – that’s a ton of exercise – hope you had a nice warm dinner!
I’m curious. Is this an exercise that directly translates to an actual hunting experience, or is it something that reinforces the dog/handler relationship and helps them to work together?
I would say it is to develop the dog/handler relationship. The purpose of these kinds of training scenarios is to hopefully have to use many whistles so that the dog practices handling. However, these kinds of set-ups are not uncommon at Master level tests and our dogs have always been weak in them due to lack of access to technical water. I recall one test that both Thunder and Storm failed on a shoreline blind. They hammered the land triple/double blind which was as close to a hunting scenario as I have seen at a test, hammered the water triple, but lost it on the shoreline blind.
When I showed in obedience, some of the higher level exercises were the same way. They built a good working relationship between handler and dog, but they didn’t completely and utterly apply to real life. They were good mental stimulation for the dogs, but didn’t have totally practical application. Years before I first started training, dogs had to bark on command as an exercise in Novice.
Barking on command would be interesting to teach to a dog like Thunder who rarely barks.
That was a part of the reason they dropped it. And what would a Basenji do?
Might be tough.
We work on our dogs to be quiet. Retrievers should be quiet. Can’t have loudness or barking in the hunting blind but I guess on command would be OK.
I imagine the more you do it, the better you get?
For Delilah the trick would be keeping her out of the water. She sees water and she loses her mind.
LOL that can be a problem as well.
Wow, we think we’d try to cheat by going on the bank, too. Just saying. 😉
LOL you are cats…is expected. 🙂
When the bumpers are that close to the water cheating becomes the easiest way. Or on a day to be stubborn the only way! With the Newfs it would be no problem getting them in the water. However getting them out for the blind, near to impossible;)
Wow, that looks like a great water training spot. And great exercise!
It’s nice that you have access to those ponds for training. What does technical water mean?
Technical water is a pond with a bunch of points and inlets and maybe an island. So many ponds are oval or rectangular, that is not what we need to train some of this stuff.
I agree with Jodi, if Sheba saw water she’d want to be in it no matter what! Our Lab mix Maggie was the same way. It probably depends what’s on their mind, and with Freighter it must be finding that bumper the easiest way possible!
What great exercise, mental and physical, for Freighter, sounds like a great day of practice for him and everyone.
Yes they are looking to retrieve and not just to swim.
hard work, and very cheaty, nice job Freighter.
Hi Y’all!
Y’all are lookin’ good for so early in the season.
Y’all come on by,
Hawk aka BrownDog