I guess we are in for a heat wave this week.  We are supposed to have temperatures in the 90’s through Saturday.  Obviously our training will have to be adjusted for this.  Storm is still with the trainer so her training will probably be early in the day and a lot of water.  We train in the evenings so that makes it tough to get much training in for Thunder.  We will see how much we can get in, but for sure he will be spending his days in the air conditioning this week.

Saturday we met with the trainer to have a short session with Storm and Thunder.  This was Storm’s first week back and we had a good report on her week.  The trainer had her doing a 200+ yard water blind (“big dog stuff”).  He said she took 3 casts to get her out there, but 10 to get her to the bumper because her handling at that distance is not strong, but he was still pleased with her performance.  She has not done these kinds of blinds before and with training her handling at that distance will become more crisp.

He also said she was a very happy, bouncy dog this past week.  OK Storm we know you love to train.  We know you love your trainer.  But can’t you act like you miss us just a little bit?

This was the set-up on Saturday:

The purpose of this set-up is to train the dog not to return to the spot of the old blind.  In this example you have piles which are in close right and left (#1).  There are also piles about a 100 yards out right and left (#2).  You pick one side and work both the #1 and #2 piles on the same side, for example we started with the blue side in my diagram.

We used a mat for “the line”.  First Storm was sent to the close pile (#1 blue).

After Storm retrieved a bumper from the close pile (#1 blue), she was sent to the farther pile on the same side (#2 blue).  She had to run past that #1 pile where she had just retrieved a bumper.  Of course most dogs want to go right back to that close pile, but you don’t want that to happen.  So you blow a “sit” whistle and then give the dog a “back” cast to drive them past the closer pile to the pile at the back of the field.

Once you complete both retrieves on one side, you do the same thing on the other side.

Storm had never had this exercise before and she did very well.  Her owner was handling (rather than the trainer), and she took his casts fairly consistently.  We also ran her on a water blind which will be the subject of the next post.  We worked Thunder a bit and that will be another post later in this week.

Can’t close without showing you Storm doing a little mugging for the camera.  As always, thank you for all of the wonderful comments.  Stay cool this week.