Part of hunt test training is drill work (also referred to as yard work).  Drills are set-ups where the dog repeats a skill over and over again in order to practice or reinforce that skill.

Some dogs like drill work.  Our Chessies hate it.  They get bored fairly quickly and the value you can get from drills decreases as their boredom increases.  As a result, they probably do not do as much as they should.  There are ways to practice without the doing actual drill work, but sometimes you just have to get back to basics and do the yard work.

Freighter has progressed in his training this summer to more complex set-ups.  As the complexity has increased his basic skills have become sloppy.  I am not sure why this is.  Maybe because he has a lot going on in his brain.  The harder set-ups seem to have him over thinking when he should gust trust his handler to get him to the bird.

For example, his initial line to a blind has become sloppy.  He will look straight ahead but flare off to the side.

Now hubby could bust him for that because Freighter knows better, or Freighter can do drill work and practice going straight.  Drill work it is.

A good drill for this is called Wagon Wheel.  Wagon Wheel is just as it sounds.  You set a bumper or piles of bumpers around an imaginary wheel, stand in the center, and the dog runs the spokes to get to the bumpers.  Depending on the dog’s level you can use white (visible) or orange (less visible) bumpers.

This drill is a good one if the dog is just starting.  If the dog starts to go to the wrong bumper, the trainer can recall, reline and resend the dog so the dog understands to go where he was pointed.

But you can work on more with this drill.  The dog can practice looking straight rather than swinging his head around (which is also part of Freighter’s problem).  The dog can practice carrying the straight line and the handler and dog can practice moving and turning together on the line.  They can practice turning a lot or maybe just a step or two.  You can add more and more “spokes” and make it more difficult and make the “circle” as small or as large as you want it.

With drill work repetition is important so you would want the dog to go around the basic wagon wheel a couple of times at least and you would want to repeat the drill over time.

Last weekend after Freighter had run a couple of marks and a couple of blinds, we still had the park all to ourselves so it was Wagon Wheel drill work for him.  It was morning but kind of humid so hubby set up a basic wagon wheel (4 spokes) which Freighter repeated twice.

The following video is Freighter working this drill.  You can see the improvement with less head swinging as he goes around.   At one point Freighter passes over a pile.  He took a decent line, but was slightly off and did not see or smell the bumpers or was going so fast he just missed them.  There was not much wind and orange is supposed to be hard for a dog to see which I suppose may be true in Freighter’s case.  It also could have been the white line painted on the field that caused him to veer a bit.  Who knows?  At any rate hubby handled him back to the pile.

If the video doesn’t play try here.

During one of the “spokes” hubby says “good dog” after he has sent Freighter.  This is not his normal practice and it confused Freighter, like he may have done something wrong and hubby was going to recast or resend him.  Hubby just stayed quiet and eventually Freighter continued on his way.  At least it shows that Freighter is really in tune with hubby and trying to be a team player.  That is a big improvement from last summer.

Freighter is in decent condition, but even he was struggling a bit on a warm muggy day.  When he gets hot and bored, he tends to get sloppy and not give up bumpers which you can see on the video.  You have to be careful not to overdue drill work on hot days.  It is better to quit rather than push too hard and loose whatever you have gained.

A special shout out to Glory over at Sand Spring Chesapeakes.  She is due to whelp anytime with Thunder puppies.  Hoping for an easy whelp for her and for healthy puppies!

Have a nice weekend!

Thanks to SlimDoggy, MyGBGV Life, and To Dog with Love for the FitDog Friday Blog Hop!