The bad...
Let's start with the bad so we can end on a good note. After a brilliant double T on Sunday, I thought I'd take Devon to the same field to do it again on Monday to reinforce her success. It was a good idea, but we didn't have success. They were mowing at the school yard, and I wasn't sure when they would need the field I wanted. I set up anyway, but I felt rushed.
Devon struggled to find her back pile, but we worked through it. Then she started coming straight in on her overs. Overs have been a struggle for us, and I do not know why. To me, it's a simple concept, but for Devon it must be hard. In the past, Devon will be successful to the over pile once or twice, and then in the same training session fail at the over pile on the third try. Why she fails when she's already been there is beyond my understanding.
I tried to work through the over problem, but then they needed to mow the field we were in so I stopped. I took Devon to the pond for fun bumpers and tried to figure out what went wrong.
One bad session for Devon on Monday was followed by a tough track for Page on Tuesday. I laid a TDX track for Page on Tuesday morning. It was about 500 yards long and had a lot of interesting woods work; we ran it at 1 hour and 45 minutes. Now, before you say or think it: yes, I know Page is only 4 months old. However, this pup is tracking advanced work with ease. She is all puppy until you put her to work and then she's all business. What I gave her she's seen before and handled well.
Page didn't start this track very strong. On our first leg, it started raining. Oh well, you have to track in rain, too! We worked through the first woods obstacle, and Page worked hard to find the track. This was surprising as she'd handled woods fine in the past. She tracked through a clearing to a turn, which she really struggled on. Turns in moderate cover are easy for Page, but this one took several minutes to work out. Then it was back into the woods where she really struggled. It was damp and I saw lots of deer tracks. Page wrapped the line around trees all over the place and sometimes twice. All this untangling didn't help her tracking at all.
After we worked through this section of woods, I thought things were on the upswing. She tracked strong on short grass, got a turn before a road crossing and dove into high cover. She tracked great into another set of woods and found the turn pretty easily. Then we hit the wall again.
Page struggled to find the new leg. To make matters worse, I had run low on trail markers and I couldn't find the leg either. I tell people all the time that even if you think the area you are in looks unique, you must mark the track. When you come back things will all look the same. Well, it happened to me.
Page went in a wrong direction, pulling me over some fallen logs then wrapping herself around two trees more than once. After getting her untangled, I was disoriented. I couldn't help her at all, and to make matters worse, we were both soaking wet. I ended up abandoning the track and walking us out back to the van. I never found my end article, so it's somewhere lost in the high cover.
The good...
On Tuesday, I gave Devon a break from handling drills and worked one new sight blind and her permanent blind. Devon lined the permanent blind and was all confidence. On the sight blind, she didn't get it at 85 yards, but when I stepped up to 60 yards she lined it. We did it four more times from different angles and as far as 85 yards. This was a very successful session.
On Wednesday, I went back to a different field and gave Devon a double T that was slightly shorter (100 yards on the back pile and side piles of 20 and 25 yards). I also marked both side piles with buckets. I started the drill as just a T with the more distant over piles, then stepped back to a double T. Unfortunately, Devon's overs got progressively worse.
The "good" about this drill and training session was that we trained through it successfully. When Devon is stressed, she loses her sit on the sit whistle. She'll stop, but she won't sit. An e collar correction for this makes everything worse, so I've decided to use attrition. Unfortunately she was so stressed on Wednesday, that attrition didn't even work. I could have stood there all day and she wasn't going to sit. Instead of collar correcting her, I walked out to where she was and made her sit by touching her collar, then walked back to my position.
This walking out to her was actually what solved a lot of my problems. It made me realize that when she failed on the overs, I was calling her into me - reinforcing her coming in which I didn't want. Once I realized this, if she came into me on the overs, I told her no, stopped her, then walked out and put her back to where she was when she made the mistake. I then identified the over pile for her or later didn't go as far back out. She was successful to the over pile with this "correction" of just replacing her and trying again.
After several successful fixes, I put Devon back in the van to rest and get a drink. I took Page out and for the first time threw some marks for her. I kept her on a line, and after "trieving" (or keeping) the first couple of marks, she began to "retrieve" the marks back to me. Instead of taking the bumper right away, I petted and praised her with the bumper in her mouth. Page could tell she was very brilliant!
Then I reloaded the T drill and brought Devon back out for more work. This was risky; would she be too tired to work? Would she just shut down when asked to do another session? Once Devon had time to cool off and think, she was very successful. On her second session, not only did she nail her over piles, but she was nailing her whistle sits, too! This told me right away things were going much better! I'm so glad I backed up and started "teaching" her again.
On Wednesday Page also had some fun on a motivational track. I gave her a 400 yard track with five turns in high cover. It was aged 35 minutes. High cover is tracking heaven for Page, and she had a great time with this track. Below is the track from just after the start to the 4th turn where she gets the line knotted around some very high cover.
Lessons learned...
For Devon, this has been a very beneficial week of field drills. I've learned to read her extreme stress signs of not sitting; and I've seen that no sit go away when she's learning. I learned Devon coming in on the overs may be something I reinforced when I called her in instead of going out and fixing it in the field. And I learned how to work through these problems to a positive end.
For Page, I learned that there are things that stump her. I learned she needs more work on woods. I also learned I need to support her more and be ready when things are too hard for her. I also need more trail markers so I know where I'm going!!!
For me, I was reminded that a good week of training doesn't always mean each session was good. It does mean that my dogs and I learned something from each session.
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