WaterfowlForum.Net

assateague wrote:I once fixed two flat tires with big red gum (and the wrappers), and drove about 40 miles home. No shit.

I'm trying to come up with a Spanglish sounding "MacGyver" but I'm coming up short. Anyone? MacGomez?

You can't have a Mac if your Mexican. Just don't work. You could be El Fernando or if you just have to El MacGaller.

Awesome pics Aaron!

As always wish I was further along with tying up loose ends before season but still looking alright. How is everyone else coming along now that season is creeping up on us? Forgot to take a pic while out working so here's one of the recovery.

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Airboat's in the shop until Friday, so we just got back from trying to work on the coyote's (and my) fitness with a long rice country hike affording him plenty of opportunity to swim, if he chose to, but water temps are now such that he's pretty much out of the pool until September. (Tried the coolest pond we've access to yesterday, and he wasn't inclined to swim more than twenty minutes or so there.) So that's it for conditioning, which has long been our primary concern going into Summer's heat, in hopes it will stand him in good stead when September teal opens. Think he'll be fine.

From now until then, about all he'll get beyond runs in the tall grass when the dew is thick are some walking baseball, short handling sessions in the pond and some marking tuneup before the opener.

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Sweet pics

Yella dog!!

He might just make a duck dawg yet!

Got some great training in today with my buddy and our mutts

Redbeard wrote:Got some great training in today with my buddy and our mutts

What did y'all run?

I got up early to train with a buddy, but his GSP was shutting down on him, which took up some time, so Ki only got to run 4 bucket blinds in about 2 hours. At least he got to retrieve some real birds.

Flightstopper wrote:

Redbeard wrote:Got some great training in today with my buddy and our mutts

What did y'all run?

Charlie ran multiple marks and multiple blinds on dead ducks and bumpers. Had Sam working the field as our bird boy with the duck call and starter gun.

Cadee just did some simple blind work and single marks. Working on stretching out her range a bit.

Then we let em swim in the slough afterwards a bit. Nothing big. Just easy short marks. Something fun for em

banknote wrote:I got up early to train with a buddy, but his GSP was shutting down on him, which took up some time, so Ki only got to run 4 bucket blinds in about 2 hours. At least he got to retrieve some real birds.

what are bucket blinds?

Redbeard wrote:

banknote wrote:I got up early to train with a buddy, but his GSP was shutting down on him, which took up some time, so Ki only got to run 4 bucket blinds in about 2 hours. At least he got to retrieve some real birds.

what are bucket blinds?

I don't know if there's a different/better name for it. We set blinds with a white bucket to mark the spot. The dog doesn't see the bird put there, but the bucket is a visual target for his line. We'd set one bird at the bucket and a second one a little farther behind it. He ran that setup twice, first time at about 60 yards, second about 100 or so.

The GSP was shutting down on the second back. It was some weird situational thing that started yesterday, apparently. 6th day in a row of training for him and I think a couple days off will help.

banknote wrote:

Redbeard wrote:

banknote wrote:I got up early to train with a buddy, but his GSP was shutting down on him, which took up some time, so Ki only got to run 4 bucket blinds in about 2 hours. At least he got to retrieve some real birds.

what are bucket blinds?

I don't know if there's a different/better name for it. We set blinds with a white bucket to mark the spot. The dog doesn't see the bird put there, but the bucket is a visual target for his line. We'd set one bird at the bucket and a second one a little farther behind it. He ran that setup twice, first time at about 60 yards, second about 100 or so.

The GSP was shutting down on the second back. It was some weird situational thing that started yesterday, apparently. 6th day in a row of training for him and I think a couple days off will help.

ok I gotcha. We often do the same thing with markers or flags.


GSP not used to hunting that deep? Which would be weird being a GSP I suppose. Aren't they trained to range?

"Sight blind" is what most would probably call it. Supposed to help teach Pup to picture the line he's given and run that picture.

Rick wrote:"Sight blind" is what most would probably call it. Supposed to help teach Pup to picture the line he's given and run that picture.

ok that's right. I've heard that term before

Redbeard wrote:

banknote wrote:

Redbeard wrote:

banknote wrote:I got up early to train with a buddy, but his GSP was shutting down on him, which took up some time, so Ki only got to run 4 bucket blinds in about 2 hours. At least he got to retrieve some real birds.

what are bucket blinds?

I don't know if there's a different/better name for it. We set blinds with a white bucket to mark the spot. The dog doesn't see the bird put there, but the bucket is a visual target for his line. We'd set one bird at the bucket and a second one a little farther behind it. He ran that setup twice, first time at about 60 yards, second about 100 or so.

The GSP was shutting down on the second back. It was some weird situational thing that started yesterday, apparently. 6th day in a row of training for him and I think a couple days off will help.

ok I gotcha. We often do the same thing with markers or flags.


GSP not used to hunting that deep? Which would be weird being a GSP I suppose. Aren't they trained to range?

No. It's a drill he's been successful with before, but for some reason he is blinking on the second back of the series. First one he's fine, second one he blinks and shuts down when more pressure is applied. On land he goes 5-10 steps, stops and either lays down or slinks back to heel. On water he enters the water, sometimes with a leap, then turns around and comes back. It was hard to watch. My friend's frustration was on full display, which did not help. He kept trying the same thing over and over with, of course, no change in dog's behavior. I observed that both he and the dog exhibited very different body language between first retrieve and second back. His voice on "back" was different, too, and I let him know. He finally ended on some very short, successful ones, like 20-30 yards.

Early in his training the dog was sent and encouraged to do big searches without any handling. Now he's working on backs to get the dog deep, then do the search. One of his tests requires a 60+ yard swim to then leave water and search land. He's having a hard time getting the GSP to take the back across the water without seeing a mark. We meant to work on that today, but got hung up with him shutting down way before we got to it. Even with a live duck, he wouldn't go unless he could see it in the water.

Unfortunately my friend is kind of stressed out about the whole test thing and trying to get as much work in as he can before it's run in September, hence the 6 days in a row. Plus he's admitted that the setbacks are taking a toll on his ego, which doesn't help in any way at all. I told him to train for the dog he wants in two years, not the one he wants next month, but I'm not sure it was a message that was well received. "But if the wife and I have a kid next fall my training time is done...."

I could be wrong but sounds like maybe he needs to back up and re-cover blind work at short distances

When you lose your temper, you lose.

And insisting the dog do something it doesn't understand time and again because "the damn dog ought to understand" is just cementing its current notion that backs across the water are bad news.

Just from what I've read, it sounds like Pup is expecting to find his bird/bumper in water. I'd want to work on blinds away from the water while also doing plenty of marks on land that Pup has to cross water to get to before trying to combine the two concepts again.

Redbeard wrote:I could be wrong but sounds like maybe he needs to back up and re-cover blind work at short distances

Probably would help. But he claims the dog ran this same thing perfectly before. And the dog is successful on the first bird, just won't go for the second one. In one instance he went 90% of the way across some water, to within 15 feet of the bird on the bank, downwind so definitely getting a nose full, then turned around and swam back. He goes back and lays down as if to say "ok now it's time when dad gets mad," which is exactly what happens. I don't know how it started, but I think it's turned into a situational thing where the dog is being cued to behave in the way that causes a correction, which then causes more of the incorrect behavior, more correction, feedback loop.

The cue is probably my friend's change in posture and tone. On the first back he heels the dog, lines him up, gives a confident "back" and the dog does the drill. When the retrieve is complete, he stays the dog, takes a couple steps back to drop the bird off, steps back up and re-heels the dog but now he sort of hunches over him while he tries to get the dog lined up for the next back. For several seconds this goes on, with handler trying to get dog to line up with his hand, and dog avoiding the line, looking away, at the bird he already got, at me, not at the line. When he finally sends the dog, his tone is higher and coaxing, not affirmative. He isn't telling the dog, he's asking.

I agree he needs to back way up, if even just to rebuild the dog's confidence with several days of success.

Rick wrote:When you lose your temper, you lose.

And insisting the dog do something it doesn't understand time and again because "the damn dog ought to understand" is just cementing its current notion that backs across the water are bad news.

Just from what I've read, it sounds like Pup is expecting to find his bird/bumper in water. I'd want to work on blinds away from the water while also doing plenty of marks on land that Pup has to cross water to get to before trying to combine the two concepts again.

I agree.

The plan today was to do long marks to land across water to see if he could build to the same as a blind, but he blinked on the land blinds we started with. We had a live duck, so hoping that would stoke the dog up we set up a mark where I would toss the duck into the tall bank grass across a small pond. It was about a 30 yard swim. On the first one the duck swam out into the water and the dog went right for it. After that he blinked, would be excited enough about a live bird to launch into the water, but then turn around and slink back up the bank.

I worked Wendy today, got her out of bed this morning and took her for a walk (made her sit if a car was coming) and she took a great dump on the golf course. This evening I fed her and took her out for another walk, she took another dump. The training session was awesome. She has heel and sit down pat.

[quote="Rick"]When you lose your temper, you lose.
/quote]boy you can say that again

When you lose your temper, you lose

I should clarify that my friend didn't blow his top, yell at the dog, hit it, etc., was just visibly frustrated and tried to physically move/drag the dog through its task. I still don't think it was the best way to handle it, but it's not my dog and it wasn't abusive, just probably not especially productive.

Digging in his heels, instead of looking for a workaround, sure sounds like a lost temper to me.