Last Saturday we had another hot day for training. Despite the warm temperatures a lot of people showed up to train. There were dogs at every level, from untrained dogs to dogs running the Master level. We were surprised to see some other Chessie owners that we know from our Chessie Club. There was only one gunner so Darrin set up a couple long water singles.
The first single was quite a challenge. The dogs had to cross a small strip of water and then cross some land and then swim a larger pond to the mark.
Thunder had a bit of trouble with this one. He has not had that much experience running these kinds of set ups. At first he wanted to cheat the bank and run to the large pond and start there. He was recalled and resent and he did what most inexperienced dogs do, he kind of squared up to the water. He got out to the mark, but with all of the messing around at the beginning he lost sight of the bumper and had to be handled at the end. The white line is the desired path. The next diagram shows Thunder’s path in orange.
Storm also had trouble with this and she had trouble the entire day. She was in no mood to do long swims. Maybe it was the heat? This mark should have been easy for her because she has had a lot more of these than Thunder has. But Storm was being Storm. 😆 A mark like this is too difficult for the younger dogs that were training that day. They ran this mark from the edge of the large pond and did not add in the extra strip of water.
My pictures are not the best. Truth be told, I was sticking to the shade and it was a bright sunny day so some of the pictures have too much shadow and others are too light. Then my batteries died so I had to go back to the car for fresh ones so I missed some pictures. Oh well.
The next single was about 120 yards with a long swim.
Again this was a challenge for Thunder because he doesn’t have a lot of opportunity to get these super long swims. At one point he got to where there is an opening to the other part of the pond and he winded some ducks. His nose went up and he seemed to be thinking duck? bumper? duck? bumper? He went for the bumper but when he got out of the pond, he over ran the bumper and had to be handled back to it.
As I said, Storm was in no mood for a long swim, but eventually she got the bumper.
No group training this weekend, but we hope to get out on our own and train.
Have a nice weekend!
I expect Thunder and Storm appreciated a dip in the water on that hot day! Great pictures.
Have a great weekend and keep cool!!
Nice! So this might be a silly question but do they ever cancel a training session due to the heat?
Hope you guys stay cool this weekend! Hopefully there will be some relief next week!
Not a stupid question. Yes, training can be cancelled for extreme weather hot or cold. However, usually with hot, we can still get some water work in. It is not a bad idea to train a bit in hot weather so as to condition the dogs. However, you don’t want to overdo.
Hmmm….I wonder what Storm’s deal was? Reminds me of Miss Delilah. I’ll do it, but I do it MY way. LOL Still if it was that hot I would have thought they’d love the idea of the swim.
I think the long and the short of it is that Storm does not love long swims. She is excellent on land, but when she sees a big long swim, she would rather not. Short swim OK, but long-no. It doesn’t matter how hot it is. It is something both the trainer and we have worked with her. I am not sure she will ever love them. But she loves to train overall, so what do you do? Thunder was dragging a bit that day and so were some other dogs. I do think it was partly the heat.
Honestly, in that first couple pictures, I had to laugh when I saw the orange squiggle mark that was Thunders path. Great training pictures though. I think they must have loved the water training on such a hot day. Today is supposed to be one of the hottest days we’ve had yet. Have a great weekend and try to stay cool! 🙂
It was a hot day but at least they got to go in the water 🙂
Who knows what goes on in their heads sometimes….they just like to keep you on your toes. Maybe, like you said, it was the heat that threw Storm off. Glad they at least had a retrieve through the water…they must have enjoyed cooling off.
Hi – I am wondering if I could possibly use one of your pics in my olympics closing ceremony? I’d like to use one of the ones of Thunder training. Can you let me know? Thanks!
Of course you can use the picture Finn. Thanks for asking. 🙂
Great – thanks!
It may have been a long swim but I bet that water felt good to them on such a hot day. Hard choices sometimes huh, but sweet Thunder did good. Hugs and nose kisses
I would think the heat DOES make a difference…though the water might refresh them a bit, we all FEEL a bit off when it gets THAT hot. We finally made it to 80 degrees here….just about perfect. Hope it coold off a few degrees soon – maybe for the weekend on your own training!
80 degrees sounds like heaven. 🙂
Supposed to cool down tonight…. lets hope it stays that way for a while… 🙂 Great post and love the pictures! 🙂
The photos are great I really like the long swim one 🙂
I don’t blame you for sticking in the shade but we still loved the pictures!!! I think the water training is definitely our favorite thing to learn about and watch Storm and Thunder do 🙂 Have a great rest of the weekend!
I loved the illustration of Thunder’s actual route and the ideal route. It makes me think I shouldn’t be so hard on myself when I set off in the wrong direction. After all, we can learn even from mistakes, can’t we?
Thunder is definitely a dog that earns from his mistakes…lol.
Sounds like you guys had a lot of fun, even if you weren’t doing quite what was intended for you to do?! Tee Hee – Did you have your own plans?
Wags to all
Your pal Snoopy 🙂
Sounds like despite the heat you had a good day. Hope your weekend was enjoyable!
The newfs would have really preferred the water if the temps are high, actually all the time but I doubt they would have bothered with the bumper. You always take great pictures, I love to see them work.