So far, I've had her quartering on relatively short grass. On there, she turns to a 'turn whistle' to a fashion (she occasionally turns towards me or goes behind but generally pretty neat). She certainly doesn't turn as close as a cocker but it's not excessive.
She'll sit to a thrown dummy or tennis ball now and is 100% on the stop whistle.
Trouble is, she started to get a bit sticky / bored and I can't say I blame her. So, I've begun hunting her on more interesting terrain (light bracken and brambles with some rushy grass) with old pheasant, squirrel, rabbit and muntjac scent on it.
This has had the desired result and got her 'going' again.
So, to the crux of my question.
She is ridiculously fast! When she hits scent, she goes absolutely ballistic as only a springer can. This is causing her to range out significantly further than she was when hunting lifeless grass. So what do I do to keep her close?
So far I've tried hiding tennis balls and hunting her up to them. However, with a nose full of 'proper' scent the balls hold little excitement.
I've tried using the turn whistle which she now ignores 30% of the time with the added lure of scent.
I've tried returning to the old ground at which point she slows up again and goes back to turning on command.
So the only other recourse is to stop her on the whistle, then recall her and cast her back across my front to maintain the pattern. However, what tends to then happen is she soon reaches my 'range limit' on the other side at which point I stop her again!
In one of my old Youtube vids of my last springer bitch, you guys all said I was stopping her far too much. Feels like a little bit of history repeating!
Is it acceptable to cast, stop, recast as long as it's not killing her drive at least until she learns to limit herself???
Or is there a better way to maintain a neat pattern in the face of increased drive???
Cheers in advance..
Andrew
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