Freighter has back to back weekend hunt tests coming up so he is getting out to train as much as the weather allows.  This past weekend he attended a club training day put on by our retriever club.

This was a well attended training day as you might expect the weekend before a test.  I bet there were at least 40 dogs at every level in attendance, from Master hunters to puppies.  It was great!   The set-up for the day was a walk-up in-line double and a land blind.  The lower level dogs could run it as single marks, with or with-out the walk-up.  The blind could be run from the same place that the dog ran the marks, or for lower level dogs, they could move up to shorten the distance to the blind, or they could skip it completely.

Freighter ran it as it was set-up.  If you follow the blog, you know that Freighter has had issues with his steadiness on walk-ups.  Hubby has been transitioning him to sit on a whistle rather than a “sit” command for walk-ups and this was a good opportunity to train that.

Freighter did a nice job of walking at heel while scanning the field looking for the bird to be thrown.  With walk-ups, the first bird is thrown in a surprise situation and can be anywhere in the field.  The dog does not hear a duck call or anything to signal that the bird is about to be thrown.  There is just a shot at the time the bird is thrown to draw the dog’s attention.

Freighter sat right away when hubby blew his whistle and looked for any more birds that might be thrown.

The second bird Freighter watched being thrown came from way out at that far blind.  Freighter was sent to retrieve that bird first and he needed to hunt a bit, but eventually he found it.

Freighter had a bit of trouble on the closer bird and needed to be handled it.  This was a difficult set of marks, not only because it was an in-line, but because of the order.  It would have been a bit easier if the farther mark fell first and then the shorter one.  A lot of dogs struggled with this set-up, but that is what training is for.

Freighter did a nice job on the blind.  He got a bit off course and hubby blew a whistle to stop him, but he was in higher cover and hubby could not see him.  Freighter was a good dog and just sat an waited until hubby called him back to an area with a bit less cover.  A couple more casts and Freighter had the bumper.

We had a great time at the club training day.  It was nice to be able to sit and chat with friends and to watch the dogs work.  The weather was just about perfect.  Thanks to everyone who worked and organized the day.

Did you do any training over the weekend?