We're off again!

We're off for another weekend of hunt tests. Devon's had a good week of training. We focused on blinds and lining this week. One thing I'd like to improve is Devon's bad habit of flaring off the line on water blinds. I hate having to give her an over into the water just to get her swimming.

I also re-learned (how long will it take me) that when Devon is spiraling down the drain and ignoring my casts giving her a correction only makes things worse. Instead, I need to calmly walk out to her, re-sit her from her last failure, walk back and recast her. This requires a lot of walking on my part, but it settles her into working with me again and it's plenty of "correction" of her. We have not yet had this problem in a hunt test (I'm knocking on wood right now), but I have had it happen several times in training. I guess I'll have to invest in hip waders for water...

I took this photo of Devon this week at a place we train. I've always thought this rock with the blue sky would give a lovely backdrop. Devon is such a pretty dog.

Page turned 7 months old on Thursday. She's starting to fill out (but has a long way to go), and she's about the same height as Devon. I think she might be entering another fear period. On Wednesday she shied away from a decoy in water that moved with the wind as she approached it. This was completely new for Page, who has always been bold or ignored decoys in the past. She worked through it and retrieved bumpers around this decoy, but she "forgot" how to get back into the water after she retrieved her bumper probably due to the decoy concern.

After some land retrieves, Page easily went in and out of the pond at another location and retrieved in and around lilies and other decoys. A friend told me later her dog didn't like that particular decoy either. She said it was lighter than the other decoys and had a pointy head and tail. Who knew dogs were so particular about decoys?

Page also accomplished retrieving a real duck out of water. It was hand thrown by me, so pretty short retrieves. Next week we'll work someone else throwing a duck in water and up on the opposite shore. I don't think this will be too hard for her. What has been our biggest challenge with real birds is Page taking a victory lap with them and not wanting to retrieve to hand immediately.

Yesterday Page got a nice TD track. After tracking, she and Devon got a massage by good friend Sheree. Both girls thoroughly enjoyed their treatment and thought if they continued to hang out on the massage table they might get more. Sheree said both girls were powerfully build and had incredible muscles. Not surprising with all the field and tracking they do!

After a busy day of training and errands, Devon again spent time as library dog last night. The library was packed last night, and there were kids everywhere! Devon was in her glory being petted and surrounded by kids. But as the evening went by, three times she laid her head next to or on the lap of a reading child and let out a big contented sigh! Life sure is exhausting for a "girl on the go!"