On Edge

[Amberquest]

Is that the Galloway Gundogs one Wullie?

[trekmoor]

No, it's a test at Argaty , not far north of Stirling. I know the ground very well because I took HPR training classes there for 22 years and I still do take an occasional class up there.
There is a fairly large but badly silted up pond there that many dogs do not like....... I think the dogs don't like the sensation of sinking into the silt ? Almost all of the available cover is likely to be spike-grass . In one or two places there are some gorse bushes but nothing extensive.

Last time but one I walked over one of the fields up there my wife hit me a hell of a scud. We'd gone there to scatter the ashes of her all time favourite dog...... a male GSP. His dam also had her ashes scattered there but on that occasion a wind was blowing to help scatter the ashes. When I scattered her pup's ashes they landed in a heap because there was no wind that day so I gave the heap a casual swipe with my boot to scatter them a bit and my enraged wife thumped me while uttering the immortal words ........ " Don't you kick my dog !" She meant it too!

Wullie

[trekmoor]

I think the little training session I just did with Edge was his worst ever performance. I left him in the car while I made a tennis ball lane of 6 balls along the side of a little hill covered in fairly thick spikegrass. By the end of his hunt he'd only found one of those 6 balls and I had found two by sight after he'd hunted on past them. That bugger now owes me three balls !

He even had a lot of trouble finding the two memory retrieve dummies I left behind for him 40 yards back. His hunting looked keen to begin with but faded before I think it should have...... I was having to urge him on and I don't like having to do that.

He seems healthy enough so I can only put this very poor performance down to bad scenting conditions. Everything "looked" O.K. to me though. It isn't freezing cold, only a very light rain was falling and there was a light wind blowing.

Wullie

[trekmoor]

Livvy Pond - 6.10 p.m. - CLoudy , moderate wind.

It won't take long to type this up. The training session lasted just 4 minutes ! I am feeling terrible, headaches, lack of breath and a wonky heart. Wonder if this has anything to do with the lack of cigars ? I stopped smoking 16 days , 20 hours and 11 minutes ago !

I'm puffing away on one of those e-vapour thingies and to be honest I think they cause more problems than the 30 miniature cigars per day that I used to smoke. I suppose that since I have smoked for nearly 60 years my system will take a while to adjust to not getting it's daily fix ?

I knew before I reached the footie field beside the pond that I would not be able to go for even a short hunt with Edge so I parked right beside the pitch and never walked more than 20 feet from my car . Using two dummies I did some directional retrieving and Edge did fine no matter which of the two dummies I sent him for and no matter whether the dummies fell to the side of him or behind him. He was pretty good at this actually.
Again there were no dropped dummies......... I think it must be at least two weeks since he last dropped a dummy now........... thank goodness !

All had gone well so I just popped him back into the car again and went home.

Wullie

[trekmoor]

Bannatyne's Bog - 10 .45 a.m. - Cloudy , light wind.

Dogs - Edge

A hunt through the spike grass and the reeds surrounding a "splash" produced one snipe to which Edge paid no attention at all. It wasn't really a flush anyway , the snipe was of no interest to Edge , it just happened to be where he was hunting.

40 yards further on a small pond sits in a reed fringed basin and we hunted towards that. As he neared the pond a waterhen flew off from the reedy, muddy margin but Edge didn't see that either. He paid a lot of attention to it's scent though. Odd that he should like one waterbirds scent but not the scent of the other one.

I'd left a memory retrieve about 30 yards back and over a small but very overgrown ditch. When I sent Edge back he failed to notice the ditch and tried to run over the top of it's cover .......... kersploosh ! He emerged with a covering of slime and some toad spawn then continued on to the retrieve.

He did three marked retrieves from the pond with no drops even though I was a few yards back from the water ....I'm really quite pleased by how well the "obedience present" has completely stopped the retrieve drops. I did see one thing during the water retrieves that I did not like. He did not go straight in at the nearest bit to the water from me. He went along the bank several feet to look for an easier entrance.

On the way back to the car I gave him two "blind seek-backs" but these were not by any standards , good retrieves. He does not understand this kind of retrieve yet.

I'll need to go back to the shop that sells the e-cigarette stuff this afternoon. My wife tried to refill my present one for me and since it did not unscrew easily she took mole grips to it and smashed the glass ! There's nae messin' aboot wi' that wummin !

Wullie

[trekmoor]

The rain is a bit lighter here than it was yesterday but it is still raining. I took Edge out for a very short hunt in the wood behind my house and his hunting was good. He stopped to party popper just fine and he retrieved just fine too with the exception of the seek-back retrieve I gave him. I had to go out with him to "help" on that one and the distance was only about 35-40 yards.

I don't think I'll take him to Saturdays test after all. A 3-5 minute run in the test would be all I'd be doing all day ......I'd be bored. It would cost me about £25 - £30 for fuel, entry fee and "sundries." I already know he would probably be O.K. with everything except for the blind retrieve but he'd be a dead cert to fail that so I think I will save my money and my breath for another test at a later date.

I gave Edge a marked retrieve just before going back into my house and my wife was out in the garden murdering some bushes (she calls it trimming.) My dummy throwing was a wee bit squee-hook and the dummy landed right in the middle of a very large and very nasty patch of brambles. Edge went right in and got the dummy but came out again with a cut nose and a cut tongue. He also had a two feet long bit of dead bramble entangled in one of his ears. My wife saw the state he was in so I got a bit of a glare and a mumbled reprimand for doing that to her darling.

I'm now used to getting glares and reprimands from my wife where Edge is concerned for I delight in calling her boy "Dim Jim" or even "Toxic Tim." He really does deserve that second name coz he dropped one last night that stunk like rancid cheese suffering from well advanced gangrene ! I won't be surprised if skunks start queuing up at the door just to rub up against him........ he cannae half fart !

Wullie

[trekmoor]

I had Edge out for an hour last night along with two friends with their dog. As soon as we began hunting Edge began responding to the lady handlers whistle to her dog. That made things damn difficult for me and yet her whistle is a 210 1/2 while mines is a 211 1/2. I may have to try using a very different whistle ......maybe a so-called silent one ?

Apart from that his hunting was O.K. until Edge began to pull towards the lady's husband .....our dummy thrower and shot firer. I was just beginning to become irritated by this when I took a good look at the dummy thrower. He'd taken all 5 dummies out of his bag and was walking along holding them ! A typical Labrador man ! Edge had clocked all those luverly dummies and moved in their direction ready for the throw .

He was not as steady as he usually is last night either. The presence of another dog that also retrieved had him a bit geed up and I had to "Agggggghhhh!" him about 3 times as he attempted to run in or to run out with the other dog when she was sent.
Edge is pretty "soft" so the vocal reprimand was enough to stop him and I then put him back where he'd started from. I'm beginning to wonder if that same , " Agggggghh !" would also be enough to stop him on a rabbit flush if it happened very close to me......... wish I had a few rabbits to experiment with !

Once more I worked on getting a "blind seek back" retrieve from him last night but he just does not understand this yet so I had to go back with him to help him out.

Wullie

[deefer+tag]

With regard to your/Edge's blind issue - have you tried putting out 1or2 dummies that he sees and then another one that he doesn't see, walk him away turn and do the memories and hopefully he'll start believing you that when you tell him to go back or whatever your command is.he sounds a fairly intelligent dog so I'm sure that once the 'light bulb ' switches on etc etc.

[trekmoor]

I've been trying that way of doing things for a few days now with no success at all. Provided the time lapse between tossing out a dummy and sending him is not too much Edge is pretty good at memory retrieves. If more than one dummy is tossed to the same area though, Edge will not go for the second one. He believes I must be wanting some other dummy hidden elsewhere coz he's already retrieved one of the two dummies. If I send him back for a second dummy he begins to hunt as soon as he is sent. His memory only seems to count up to 1 !

The Tussocks - 1.40 p.m. - Sunny .....for a nice change ! Light to moderate winds.

Dogs - Edge, Charlie and Libby.

I did no hunting at all ........but the dogs did plenty ! So far I have had no problems at all from letting Edge self hunt or hunt with my other dogs when I revert to having him hunt at spaniel distances so I am now letting Edge self hunt at quite considerable distances away from me. My area is just about devoid of any kind of game so Edge isn't finding and chasing anything. He is a very easy pup to hunt with, he responds to whistle really well when within normal spaniel hunting range and he usually keeps within that range with no commands from me at all.
I actually often have to blow turn or recall or stop for no reason at all other than to keep him used to hearing and obeying those commands. He is an absolute doddle to train in this respect and yet he hunts pretty hard.
Anyway .......until he has found and flushed some game.......allowing him to roam much further out than a spaniel really orter is not a problem.

I hardly saw Libby at all for the entire hour that we were out ......she had a great time ! Charlie kept closer to me than either Edge or Libby. He's getting old the poor little sod.

A stream runs through a valley at The Tussocks that is no more than 30 feet wide . It has some high, undercut banks in some places and at one place, when the stream is running high , it is a 2-3 feet straight drop down into 2 -4 feet of water. I know the depth only too well because about 8 years ago I had to lie flat on my belly there to scruff a dog back out of the water. I misjudged how far I could edge forward and reach down so I slid headfirst into the water just like a seal from an ice flow.

As usual Charlie ran on ahead and did his famous "Kersploosh ! " dive into the water ..........just for fun ! Libby appeared just in time to see that and she obviously thought no dog would be crazy enough to do that unless game was in the water ......... so she jumped in too and began swimming over the stream to look for this non-existent bird .

Edge was fascinated but he wasn't daft enough to jump in too. Once I'd scruffed my dogs back up onto the bank nd sat them I threw a dummy in and sent Edge for it. He went about 10 feet along the bank to slightly lower entrance point then swam out to his retrieve. Edge couldn't climb out either so I scruffed him out too and to my surprise , when I regained my feet, he was sitting nearby still holding his dummy and waiting for me to take it so he could shake himself dry.

I gave him one more water retrieve which he did with no hesitation at all and once more he held it until I told him to "Give." Teaching him an obedience arena present has been well worthwhile. I've eased off a good bit on the "tight into me" delivery and he now sits, good as gold , 1-2 feet from me with no drops, no whirlygigs , no lowered head and no run-pasts. He now waits until I have the dummy and then does a couple of victory celebration whirly gigs.

Three times I tried to get him to go back for 2 dummies left 30- 45 yards behind as memory retrieves. He very easily went straight back for one of the dummies but began to hunt as soon as I sent him for the other one lying in that same area. I will, I think, have to go back to training this on football pitches where he can see the dummy he is being sent back for.

Wullie

[jas_williams]

How about using the pile method in view rather than a blind initially to convince him there may be more than one dummy to pick ?