It has been a while since I posted about a training session.  Last week Storm joined some other dogs at our trainer’s place for a session.  I guess she was making up for not being there for a few weeks, because it turned into a marathon training session for Storm.  Thunder came along for the ride, and we let him put his feet in the pond, but no training for him.

Since it was a hot day, we started with blind work on water.  Piles of white bumpers were set out at three locations around the pond.

However before we could begin the blind work, Storm was sent to pick up two bumpers which were left over from working on marks with a puppy.  She had not seen the marks fall so she was sent on a “back”.  Simple enough, she picked up each of them.

Once the bumpers were picked up, she was sent to pile #1.  This pile was visible from the line.  Storm has done this pile many times, so it was a piece of cake for her.

Somehow Storm found all of the grass growing in the pond and decided to bring it back with her bumpers.

Pile #2 was on the island but was not visible from the line.  Remember that Storm had just been sent to pick up two bumpers floating in front of that island.  She headed out to where she had found the floating bumpers and of course there were no more bumpers there so she was handled up onto the island and back to the bumpers.  Sending a dog over the area where it had just picked up bumpers can pose a problem because sometimes they are reluctant to bypass the old area.  Also in order to get to this blind, it required Storm to be sent on some “left” over casts, (and we know how obliging she can be with those :)).  All and all she did very well on this one.  She required a few casts, and had a bit of problem once she got onto the island (most of the dogs had trouble finding the pile for whatever reason), but she did a fine job and brought back her bumper.

Next Up Pile #3.  This pile was visible from the line, but it was a long way away.  Pile #3 gave Storm some problem.  She had to swim past the side of the island where she just picked up a bumper, (and where she knew there was still a big pile).  She also had to take a bunch of “left” over casts.  Plus it was a long blind for her.  The training was to get her to give up the idea of going back to Pile #2, take the casts so that she could get to Pile #3.  She spent a lot of time ping-ponging between the island and the edge of the pond where the bumpers were set.  At one point she just refused to take any casts so the trainer actually had to walk around to that side of the pond to shorten it up.  He gave her some casts and the light bulb seemed to go on. “There are the bumpers!”

Storm repeated these three blinds after all of the other dogs ran them, (depending on the level of training, some dogs did all three piles, and some dogs just did Pile #1 and #2).  The second time around Storm ran much cleaner.

But that wasn’t the end of the marathon training…next she did poison birds and marks.  That will be another post.