Have you ever heard the expression, “dogs are situational”? It means that a dog may do something you have trained perfectly well in the place where you have been training, but you go to a new place and it is like the dog has no idea.
Our goal this summer is to move Freighter forward in his training and we feel like we have outgrown our local parks and to a lesser degree, our trainer’s property. His handling in both of these places is quite good. He knows what to do and is used to the smells and all of the activity that goes along with both places. However, when he gets out to the property where we test, it is like he is overwhelmed by the size, the cover, and the smells. We figure the only way to overcome this is to get out there to train more often and to add in as many different places to train as we can find. He will still train in the parks and on our trainer’s property, but we really hope to make good use of our training membership at the testing grounds.
Last Saturday was the first day we trained out there. We joined up with a group that trains on Saturdays. They were working on “tune-up blinds”. This was the second week for most of those dogs to run this set-up, but the first for Freighter and Storm.
It was a series of 5 blinds from two different starting lines that required the dog to go through some heavy cover on their way to each blind. This is exactly the kind of set-up where our dogs are weak because we normally train on cut grass. These blinds were also quite long and the terrain was sloping.
Freighter was the first of our dogs to try this and he really struggled. He struggled taking casts into the cover which we sort of expected. He struggled holding his sits and waiting for his handler’s direction, again we expected some of this. He had the most trouble with Blind #1 and Blind #5 which were the longest blinds. Blind #5 was about 180 yards which is much longer than what we can train in parks.
Freighter struggled, but eventually he got through each blind. He needs this kind of challenging training to move him forward and hopefully he will grow in confidence to hold his sits, even in heavy cover.
Storm did a nice job on these. She has spent time training on this property and with a professional trainer. It looks like her training has held up and she just needs a refresher.
Some photos of the dogs running these blinds.
Blind #1 was off to the right.
Blind #2 was all the way back, through some heavy cover and on the edge of the pond.
Blind #3 was straight ahead through some heavy cover.
After Blind #3 the handlers moved over to a new starting line to their right to run Blind #4 and #5. Blind #4 was set in the open field. This blind was easy for our dogs because they run lots of blinds in open fields.
Blind #5 was the long one and very difficult for our dogs, although Storm did a decent job on it. It was down a slope and the dogs had to cut a corner of the cover to get to it. The blind itself was in the open field and well past the cover on a slight rise.
In addition to Saturdays, hubby is going to try to make some group training sessions after work on this property. In addition to working Freighter in cover, he will be working on his steadiness. We hope that if Freighter spends enough time there, he will understand that sit means sit on this property just like everywhere else.
You all did a great job! I’m glad to hear Freighter got through them even after his struggles. And I have actually never heard the term situational dog, so I learned something too! lol
ღ husky hugz ღ frum our pack at Love is being owned by a husky!
It sounds like you have a good plan for improvement.
Sit is rather a dull thing to do, but bipeds seem to value it a lot!
Wow, those are hard…even the drawing at the top looked complicated, I can see why the dogs would have a tough time. Well done guys.
These posts are SO educational! I know I keep saying it. But thanks!
Those are challenging blinds. We too go to other properties so the dogs get some experience as the tests are all at different places. The dogs get used to doing the same thing at our house. Speaking of that we are off to train. Have a great day.
Those are not easy and we can see why training is so important. Have a wonderful Wednesday.
Best wishes Molly
Storm is mature and Freighter will get there. I see him as a willing, and kind of happy go lucky fellow, a little more work and sits will be second nature!
Such a great area to train.
Sunny Wednesday!
P.S. I do not think I could keep all of this straight, even with a numbered
diagram in my pocket! Truly!
Mom says nice work, but she wants to go out tracking with us in those awesome fields! We lack good fields by our house. You are so right about training in different areas, at different times, etc. We are always going to new places as we never know where our tests will be at.
Impressive. This must take A LOAD of skill.
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Wow. This is extremely impressive. Good job Storm! Freighter, you are ALMOST THERE 🙂 Thank you for explaining what “tune-up blinds” are. This is a very interesting read for me.
That looks really challenging, and it sounds like they did great. I’m sure Freighter will show improvement in no time!
Great work, Storm and Freighter! We can imagine that it would be confusing and a little daunting to train in an unfamiliar place.
It must be so much fun working with the dogs each spring on their skills. I’m sure Freighter will come along nicely with a little more work.
Rita and I are very impressed! (I’d never heard that term before for dogs – but I’ve certainly experienced with her training!) 🙂
I have heard of situational before. It is why Delilah’s recall is amazing in the classroom setting, but lacking in other areas. 🙂 I wish I had a large area for training her, I think we could really benefit from a training center. Good work Storm and Freighter.
I’ve found that to be so true, they also get into a routine and will act one way when training in locations they are familiar with, then act entirely different in another location. I think that’s one reason hunt tests are important, they’re often evaluated in new locations. I also believe that training in a variety of locations builds their confidence.