Cassie's Gundog training log

Well done @Selina27 and Cassie, you've done brilliantly! I admire your commitment and the way you have adapted your training to suit Cassie's personality and drive.

Bring on level 3, you'll smash it!
 
So, last night was the second night of our lessons working towards grade 3, and we had a fab session with all the dogs working very hard and enjoying themselves.

We worked on blinds for the first time properly and directionals. I have work to do on setting her up and sending her straight to a true blind that much is apparent, but all the practice "set ups" eg following on from a mark,and building up from there she did brilliantly and enthusiastically and was a joy to see. She did extremely well in the steadiness exercise on a grid, where the dummies were thrown out to the marker stakes while she sat in the middle, and was then sent to each one randomly. One behind and one either side. Not only that but they were new dummies to her. I must say I was very proud of her, but you see my little girl has often been called a "thinking" dog. :inlove:.

We must have been working for one and three quarter hours I'd say, swapping between groups and waiting our turns, so she earnt her sausages!

I'd like to say that there were no impromptu interactions with her other retriever buddies, but, erm, well I can't say that.:rolleyes:
 
to think there was a time you were almost struggling with her behaviour. Wow, don't times change :clap::happyfeet:
Well, 2 years ago I was struggling with her, during and after that ghastly phantom pregnancy, when she went a bit cracker dog. Only ever outside though, she's always been good as gold in the house and car etc.
Heading towards Grade 3!
I knew I had to grit my teeth and get through it, but Forum friends were so supportive. I knew somehow it wasn't really "her" though. But you can see how easily young Labradors get put up for rehoming.
 
Heading towards Grade 3!
I'm so pleased we're doing this, I'd recommend it to anyone. I know you can do it on your own but I'm getting a lot out of being part of a group. Everyone is so supportive, and I think this helps the dogs a great deal, if one of them is successful in a task that they have been struggling with there is such a positive response generally amongst the group that transmits to the dog I'm sure.

It's great now that we have progressed to more "meaty" stuff, I was far more worried about marked retrieves at 15yds in Grade 1 than I am learning to do a blind at 30 yds!
 
Due to being poorly I haven't been doing much training with Cassie until the last couple of days, and then only retrieving. She's loving doing memories and blinds and really developing her confidence with these, and is just loving the distance marks, doing 80 yds with enthusiasm and speed at training the other night. We continue to work on the stop whistle, pairing it up with "good things happen" afterwards.
Confession -- I've done little of the steadiness exercises, really need to do much more offlead heel. I don't anticipate her having much trouble with the individual components of the Grade 3 test, but not sure she will be able to apply herself throughout ! We'll see.

At training we went to work in the sugar beet , she was meant to retrieve from the crop, she was having none of it!! Nope, not looking forcanvas dummies when there is all this hunting to be done, . Let's just say a little self employment took place :speaktothehand:
So, project, start finding crops to retrieve in :) Cat food pouches will be required I think!
 
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