It was a beautiful day for group training on Saturday and quite different from last weekend when it was cold and snowy.   Nice weather means time for the dogs to get into the pond.  The dogs did a series of three water blinds as “tune-up” to get them back in the swing of being handled in the water.  Blinds are where the bumpers are placed out in the field or the edge of a pond and the dog does not know where they are.  The dog must rely on its handler to direct it to the bumper using voice/arm signals.

The first blind was the dreaded down the shore blind.  These blinds require the dog to swim parallel to the bank of the pond without getting out on the edge of the pond.  This is advanced retriever work and it takes a lot of time, training and patience to get the dog to maintain that line because most dogs want to get up on the bank.

Here is a photo showing the desired path to the blind.  The dogs were starting further back on land for this blind.

Freighter is up.  When you run a blind, you sit the dog next to you and try to have it positioned in line with the direction you want the dog to run.

You have to have patience and wait for the dog to look the direction you want it to go.  Head and spine should be in a line.

Once Freighter is lined up, hubby sends him.

Freighter has had problems with these blinds so they are something we will be working on with him.  Last year, he would have tried to run around on the little strip of land to the right.  This time he went a bit too far left which you can see in the next picture.

Once Freighter got into the water, hubby stopped him and cast him to the right.

Freighter keeps swimming until he is almost to the edge of the pond.

Hubby stops him again with a whistle.

This is where the handler needs patience to wait until the dog is in position to see the arm signal.  Many handlers tend to want to rush to give direction.  Training is for both dog and handler.

Freighter gets too close to the edge and looks like he is going to get on the land so he is stopped again.

He takes the “back” cast and stays in the water…good dog.

Freighter takes a very nice line back swimming parallel to the edge of the pond.

Not bad for the first water blind of the year.  These types of tune-up blinds are designed to have a lot of whistles and Freighter had his share during this blind.  I only showed a couple in this post.  The good news is that he took each cast and did not work his own program.  Hubby will work some lining drills with him and we will try to get that entry line better because these kinds of blinds are pretty popular at Master tests.

It was a beautiful day for a water blind, and I will have some more of Freighter’s blind work in future posts.