So, today was Harv's first advanced gundog training class. I have to admit - I never thought that we would end up here (unless we went to watch somebody else's dog!). Almost regardless of how we do in these classes I'm so pleased with Harv for getting this far 
Harv is always hugely excited at these classes so, as we got there early, we started with some figure-of-eight heel work to help him relax and that worked really well (thank you @snowbunny ) ... until the trainer came across to see us with an enthusiastic 'Hello Harvey!' as he lunged towards her! Bad trainer!
There were a total of four dogs in the class; Harv, a young male black lab, a female black lab (who is very good and was basically in the class as a warm-up for doing the Masterclass after the Advanced class), and a black cocker that belonged to the trainer's helper. So, I'm pretty pleased with the ratio of dogs to trainers.
We started with some clockwise then anti-clockwise heel work in a large square just to help warm us up. Apart from an initial desire to pee on every weed that was more than 4 inches high Harv was very good and I was commended for my handling of him when he did take a slight pee detour
We then did some steadiness work. All handlers in a line, dogs at heel, facing the trainer who was about 10 metres away. She then threw a dummy about 5 metres in front of each dog. We then took it in turns to walk out and collect the dummy in front of us, walk back and around the back of our dogs returning to the heel position. We then threw our dummy so that it was in front of another dog and once all dummies were out we each sent our dog out to retrieve the dummy that we had thrown (not the one nearest to us). The young male black lab couldn't contain himself here and had a bit of a run-around - Harv stayed in place despite a 'buzz the tower' from the black lab. Very pleased with Harv during this exercise as once upon a time he would have been like a volcano preparing to erupt if asked not to fetch the dummies being thrown, and would have gladly joined in the black lab's antics - in fact, I was more pleased with this part than his very good retrieve of the correct dummy.
We then did an exercise where, one at a time, we walked our dogs to a cone and stopped, threw a dummy to a cone around 5 metres further on, turned 180 degrees, left our dogs while we walked back to the starting position, and then sent the dog back to retrieve the dummy. We had a brief deviation off course on the first attempt, more sniffing of the super-interesting grass in the field!, but thereafter no problems.
Next up was some Stop practice. Although every dog managed this it wasn't perfect by any means - every dog, including the helper's cocker and the Masterclass lab, got hugely engrossed in sniffing the grass. Not sure what had been going on but this was clearly a very smelly field!
We finished with a long retrieve for each of the dogs. I think this was around 100 metres but that is just a 'by eye' guess - I haven't measured it. All the dogs managed this and the helper said how well Harvey did. I did have to laugh at the trainer's comment we formed up again to discuss the retrieves - there were some land surfers (go-cart devices for the adventurer to ride on and a large parachute attached to it to pull the go-cart along) in the next field and we could see them through a gap in the hedge, the trainer said that Harv's desire to retrieve was so strong we could probably point him at one of the land-surfers and he would bring one back!!!
All in all a very good first session and I'm so pleased with Harv's progress.
Harv is always hugely excited at these classes so, as we got there early, we started with some figure-of-eight heel work to help him relax and that worked really well (thank you @snowbunny ) ... until the trainer came across to see us with an enthusiastic 'Hello Harvey!' as he lunged towards her! Bad trainer!
There were a total of four dogs in the class; Harv, a young male black lab, a female black lab (who is very good and was basically in the class as a warm-up for doing the Masterclass after the Advanced class), and a black cocker that belonged to the trainer's helper. So, I'm pretty pleased with the ratio of dogs to trainers.
We started with some clockwise then anti-clockwise heel work in a large square just to help warm us up. Apart from an initial desire to pee on every weed that was more than 4 inches high Harv was very good and I was commended for my handling of him when he did take a slight pee detour
We then did some steadiness work. All handlers in a line, dogs at heel, facing the trainer who was about 10 metres away. She then threw a dummy about 5 metres in front of each dog. We then took it in turns to walk out and collect the dummy in front of us, walk back and around the back of our dogs returning to the heel position. We then threw our dummy so that it was in front of another dog and once all dummies were out we each sent our dog out to retrieve the dummy that we had thrown (not the one nearest to us). The young male black lab couldn't contain himself here and had a bit of a run-around - Harv stayed in place despite a 'buzz the tower' from the black lab. Very pleased with Harv during this exercise as once upon a time he would have been like a volcano preparing to erupt if asked not to fetch the dummies being thrown, and would have gladly joined in the black lab's antics - in fact, I was more pleased with this part than his very good retrieve of the correct dummy.
We then did an exercise where, one at a time, we walked our dogs to a cone and stopped, threw a dummy to a cone around 5 metres further on, turned 180 degrees, left our dogs while we walked back to the starting position, and then sent the dog back to retrieve the dummy. We had a brief deviation off course on the first attempt, more sniffing of the super-interesting grass in the field!, but thereafter no problems.
Next up was some Stop practice. Although every dog managed this it wasn't perfect by any means - every dog, including the helper's cocker and the Masterclass lab, got hugely engrossed in sniffing the grass. Not sure what had been going on but this was clearly a very smelly field!
We finished with a long retrieve for each of the dogs. I think this was around 100 metres but that is just a 'by eye' guess - I haven't measured it. All the dogs managed this and the helper said how well Harvey did. I did have to laugh at the trainer's comment we formed up again to discuss the retrieves - there were some land surfers (go-cart devices for the adventurer to ride on and a large parachute attached to it to pull the go-cart along) in the next field and we could see them through a gap in the hedge, the trainer said that Harv's desire to retrieve was so strong we could probably point him at one of the land-surfers and he would bring one back!!!
All in all a very good first session and I'm so pleased with Harv's progress.
And 