We are joining Heart Like A Dog and co-host Dogs N Pawz for the Follow-up Friday blog hop.
It’s the the blog hop that lets you wrap up your week and leads you right into the weekend.
Monday Mischief–Bumper, Bumper, Where Is The Bumper?
Dogs are scored on “Perseverance/courage/hunting” during a hunt test. For a Junior level dog many judges like to see the dog hunt the area of the fall. Something they do not like to see, is the dog return to its handler without the bird or go to an area of an old fall. Freighter is pretty good about staying in the area of the fall, even if he might be right in front of his nose. 😉
Thunder Takes On A Challenge
A couple more things about the quad we ran: there was gun fire for the marks out in the field (#1 and #3). One reason Thunder may have been fixed on those marks could have been due to the gun fire. He is a hunting dog and a Chessie, in his mind if there is no gun fire, it probably isn’t worth him noticing!
Many of the dogs we train with made this set up look easy. I just love watching them work. It is why I drag myself out to a cold field on Saturdays.
Emmadog wrote:
Mom just looks and says what great, well-behaved dogs. Yes, we are basically good dogs too, but my sister and I are challenging breeds that don’t like to be told what to do, so this kind of thing would never work with us. Every dog breed has its own thing.
Many might say that about Chessies. 😆 They are notorious for wanting to do things their own way. It can make training challenging, especially for a dog like Thunder that came to hunt test training later in life. He was 4 and really 5 before he learned handling. By then he was pretty set in his ways.
Jodi wrote:
Good job on Thunder and his handler’s parts! Is this something typically found in hunt tests or have you just encountered this? Will you school Freighter in this fashion to prepare him for the more complex challenges?
This is a set-up you might see at a Master level test. I have never seen it, but my experience is very limited. However as our trainer explained, a truly finished dog should be able to take a set up like this and roll with it. It is not something that you want to work on all of the time, just show it to the dog/handler once in a while during training so if it pops up at a test it doesn’t throw you for a loop.
Eventually Freighter will run these. Right now he is working hard on his handling and only ran single marks last Saturday. He will be getting more complex marks younger than Thunder and Storm did for sure. For one thing, he is with a pro at a younger age and back when we were training Thunder and Storm, we did not know how to introduce more complex marks. We basically threw simple singles and doubles. After working with Darrin for a couple of years and thanks to him, we have a much better idea what kinds of set-ups will further the dogs’ training.
Doggy’s Style wrote:
Silly question:
You ever let the dogs play with the bumper? Or is it just for training?
Not silly at all. Yes, we will sometimes play fetch with them in the way that you might throw a ball or a stick. If the dog has had a difficult time with some point of training, it is a good way to put some fun back in. If we were going to just exercise the dogs, we might throw a bumper instead of a stick or a ball. Once the dogs know what a bumper represents, they can get pretty excited when they see them.
Wordless Wednesday-Pounce!
The only problem with a pouncing Thunder is that every time he does it, we hold ours breath hoping that he doesn’t re-injure his front leg. So far it seems to be fine.
This ‘N That Thursday
Thank you to everyone who stopped by and/or entered your link. I hope to get next week’s post with the code up earlier. Bear with me while I work out the kinks and remember This ‘N That Thursday can be about anything so please join us.
The marks Storm ran last week were really short, maybe 20 yards. She didn’t care. She just likes to train. She also did a few lining drills this week, but that is probably it until the puppies come. From now on it will be walks.
FleaByte asked:
What the heck is the gestation period for a dog? That seems so quick!
63 days or so. I am not sure Storm would agree that it seems quick. 🙂
Jodi wanted to know when Freighter will be coming home.
Not for a bit. He has a lot to learn. We put handling on Thunder with Darrin’s help, but it took a while. We would like Freighter to be solid on this skill and Darrin is very good at teaching dogs what they need for testing at the highest levels.
Something else that limits our training is no easy access to training grounds. It is becoming more and more difficult to train in our local parks. Between having to deal with off-lead dogs, kids playing soccer, no cover, sharing the one decent pond with the blow-boaters or people fishing, it can be frustrating when we have something we would like to work on and there is no open area.
Starting Monday and depending on the weather, our trainer will be training at the grounds where we run tests three times a week. Since Freighter is on his truck, he will go too. This benefited Storm immensely when she did it. It will be training that we cannot give him.
We are also trying something new this season. We are buying a training membership for those grounds. They are not right around the corner like the local parks, but when we have something we need to work on, we will be able to go there and have access to a lot of space, including the ponds. I have heard the ponds are in very good shape this year. We will be able to use our starter pistol and training ducks and not worry about it. Hopefully we can make good use of our membership.
It is supposed to be nice tomorrow. 50 maybe!
Have a nice weekend!
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Wow! Freighter gets more stunning as time goes on.
Thanks there are times he looks all grown up and other times like a puppy. 🙂
Well, I’m really looking forward to your blog posts about using your new training ground membership! (And have to say, you catch fabulous action shots!)
I will have to throw the bumpers when I am there so hopefully I will be able to man the camera too. I better start practicing! lol
We certainly hope it is warmer for you now. We have sun today but it is still cold. The pond looks like fun.
Have a fabulous Friday.
Best wishes Molly
It got to 56F yesterday a heat wave…lol.
Thanks for the mention 🙂 We just find it fascinating watching dogs doing their training in person or on your blog. Congratulations too on the blog hop. I rarely post on Thursdays, but if I do I will definitely join! We changed this year from 2-3 posts a week to 3-4 posts, so who knows, eventually we may add all 7 days, it is just that mom has this thing called work that gets in the way of me doing everything I would like to do with my internet presence 🙂
I used to post 6 days a week, but it got to be too much for me. With all of the work you do on your pictures and your blog, I can imagine it is very time consuming. If you ever decide to add a Thursday, we’d love to have you join us!
I remember how hard it was for our club to find good training grounds where we could actually shoot so the dogs got used to gunshots…It’s not easy…Wishing you all a happy and peaceful Easter
It is getting harder to find grounds around here. There used to be state land set aside for dog training, but they don’t maintain it at all. It is so overgrown that it is not really useful for training.
Happy Easter to you!
Hi Y’all!
Yep, we Chessies lots of times know more than you humans! Remember we have much better noses…and I love using mine! We like it when you try to get us to “focus”…my Human thinks she is “redirecting” me…BOL!
Y’all come by now,
Hawk aka BrownDog
That is true Hawk!
Great Follow-Up! I always learn fun things when I visit. Have a wonderful weekend. See you all next week.
*high paws*
Oz
Thanks OZ and thanks for stopping by!
Thanks for joining FUF! What a great recap you had, thank you for answering my questions. 🙂 You can count on me for a question. 😉
I like the idea of a membership to training grounds, do you have any idea how I might find out if there are any of them around me? I’m getting annoyed with the people at my park too, would you believe I’m the only one who walks their dogs that carries a poop bag? I can tell you Delilah makes sure to poop right in the beginning of our walks too! LOL
Have a wonderful weekend and a Happy Easter!!
Happy Easter to you!
The place we are buying our membership is the same place we run tests and that is how we found it. It is mainly a farm, but some years ago the manager talked the owner into setting some part of it aside for dog training/testing since that is what he was interested in. Eventually they opened it for membership and I think in the winter they have a pheasant hunting membership.
It is hard to find places. This place in not close. I would love to find a closer place, but we live in the city. You might look to where field trials or hunt tests are held in your area. There might be training grounds or even state land set aside for it. Google AKC or HRC Clubs near you or find them on the national site and see where they hold events.
Great follow up friday with great answers to some really good questions.
Thank you. 🙂
I love your new blog look!!
Thanks Finn. 🙂
“It is not something that you want to work on all of the time, just show it to the dog/handler once in a while during training so if it pops up at a test it doesn’t throw you for a loop.”
You’ve mentioned things like this in the past….I think it is so awesome that your trainer tries to prepare the dogs and handlers for just about anything that could possibly happen at a trial. 🙂
Didn’t think about that injury with Thunder pouncing. But now that you said it, I can see why you’d be worried! Don’t hurt yourself bud!
Our trainer has run many many tests and has years of experience so he will show us set ups he has run before or if he knows certain judges set certain types of tests we will train those kinds of set-ups before a test. That is a huge benefit to working with an experienced pro who likes to teach you how to run your own dog. Not all pros are like ours. Some are, but we are lucky to be able to train where we do.
Thunder has always pounced. You would think we would be used to it. lol
Stopping by to wish you a wonderful weekend! 🙂
Woofs & huggies, <3
~Bailey (Yep, I'm a girl!)
Hi Baily. Thanks for stopping by!
Wow so much going on everyone is training and doing different things. Hard to keep up with all that but sounds like they are enjoying themselves. Good luck to Storm, it’s going to be a long couple weeks. Really enjoyed the Follow up Friday 🙂
Thanks! You are right about Storm. She is not used to the extra weight. Too much Storm to lug around…lol.
I was just laughing to myself if Max heard a starter pistol….he’d probably need doggie therapy for the rest of his life 🙂 …he’s a “bit” (ok a HUGE) scaredy-cat!
Our Golden didn’t like gunfire either, but we made sure the dogs equate gunfire with birds. They like birds. 🙂
Hee! Hee! I was giggling in the first bit about perseverance and staying in the area of the fall/not returning empty-pawed to handler…well, I would fail miserably at hunting! Us Danes have ZERO perseverance!! 😉 If I can’t find something quickly & easily, I tend to give up. Juts not worth the effort. I mean, why bother? When I can go nap somewhere instead and that’s just as exciting? 😉
Slobbers,
Honey the Great Dane
LOL Weren’t Danes at their very beginning bred to hunt? You might be surprised Honey. Besides I saw you hunting in boxes on your site and it looked like you were doing a fine job! 🙂
Grr! Looks like my comment has gone into Spam again?
I got it. Sorry about that. Stupid spam filter. I have told it many times not to put your comments in spam.
Great Follow-up Friday! You do a great job explaining things to all the questions. Interesting about the membership, where is that?
Omega. We almost bought one last year, but it didn’t work out then.
I thought that might be where you had one, that’s close to me.
I always learn a lot from your posts. I had wondered about the bumpers and playing, too. 63 days gestation – is it the same for all dogs, I wonder?
A training membership for access to training grounds is a great idea, especially if you’re serious about training. I’d like to teach my dog Pierson agility so my choices are to make a generic set-up in the backyard or find a nearby group so I can use their equipment. I will probably choose the first option because I am not looking to have Pierson compete. It will just be as a fun challenge. Is that how you started with Storm and Thunder, as just for fun?
How do you train your guys to continue hunting in the area? One of the problems I’ve had with my guys are staying in the area of the fall, if they can’t find it they’ll usually return to a previous fall or widen their search area until they’ve left the area.
If they handle, you would stop them and handle them to the fall any time they want to switch. Or you can yell “no” give a collar correction to stop them and have someone throw more bumpers to get them to the area of the fall. When the dogs are starting out you have to have the marks spread apart and at a 90 degree angle which helps them not to switch.