Over the weekend we met up with our training group.  As you can see the snow is slowly disappearing from the training field.

The day started out almost warm and almost bright.  Storm has been spending some extra time with the trainer so first he ran her on some pattern blinds.  She is coming along but at times still wants to do her own program.  I guess she figures, “Why should I go over there and look for another pile of bumpers when I know perfectly well there is a big pile straight out!”  But handling is going where the handler sends the dog.  I think she is starting to get it!

Once the group assembled we ran two series of doubles, one long mark  and one short mark with a walk up.  A walk up is where the mark is thrown while the handler and the dog are approaching the line.  This tests the steadiness of the dog as they cannot leave the line until they are released.  The person throwing the long mark also fired poppers, making it more enticing for the dogs.  Both Thunder and Storm were steady at the line.  (Yay!  We did work this all the long winter.)  However, their doubles need work.  They seem to have the most trouble with bumpers that land in the snow.  We aren’t sure if it is a marking problem or just because they are not used to trying to find a white and black bumper in a field of white.  Thunder seemed to do fine when the bumper was thrown on the grass, and he did fine with a very long single.

During the training session the day turned colder and rainy, (mixed with snow of course).  I had to put my camera away before Storm ran the marks so I don’t have any pictures of her running them.  She is most definitely rusty, but that is something that will be worked on.  As the cold rain continued to fall, our training group started to be fewer and fewer, so we wrapped it up a bit early.  That was fine with me because it really was nasty standing out there.  I had every piece of clothing on that I brought with me and I was still cold!

Thanks to daylight savings time, we are now able to train in the evening.  Yesterday we went to a park close to home.  It was raining again which meant that we had the park to ourselves and the rain had washed away all of the snow.  But because it was so wet, I left my camera at home.  First we trained some handling with Thunder.  He seemed to not “feel” like doing it.  Once we worked through that, it is clear that he is really coming along.  Then we threw some marks for him.  One long (memory mark) thrown all  the way across the field, and the second (go mark) was hand thrown.  He did very well on those long memory marks…running right to them.  The only one he did not go straight to was because he veered off to a plastic bottle someone had left on the field.  He spied it on his way by and it looked just like a bumper, (why can’t people pick up their trash?).  After getting a bit closer to it, he saw it wasn’t the bumper and immediately went back to where he “knew” the bumper was laying.  We will still work those long doubles (and add in triples), but I think it may have been the snow which confused him in that other field.  I think if we had been able to train more in the snow, those kinds of marks would have been easier for him.  Eventually we will try to find a field with some cover and practice there and hopefully work in some ducks rather than bumpers.