Notes from Sunday's session

Larsen and I met with Cathy and her five clumbers at 7:30 on Sunday at Circle W. Cathy ran Zelda and Humphrey, and I ran Larsen.

We took Larsen back to the basics. I sat him and heeled him. I tossed a (dead) bird around him and walked to pick it up. I walked a dead bird out 20 yards, walked back and then heeled him around. Then I sat him and sent him.

Larsen's heeling, sitting, and retrieves were sloppy. Cathy thought he was pushing me around. Larsen's tail wagged throughout the morning session, so we continued with some drills, and I became more exacting with my expectations. Cathy noted that my whistling was ambiguous -- here a sit, there a come-in. I worked to become a little more exacting myself.

On a true hunt dead, Larsen could not really find the bird. This means I have to work on communicating with him and getting him to follow directional commands, most importantly the "back" command. As Kim Parkman once said, he has to learn that he can trust you when you say there is a bird out there.

Larsen's water work was good. He broke once, but the cause of it was me shuffling my feet and moving my hand. The take-away there is to keep myself calm and organized.

At the end, and on a second water retrieve with the same bird, he refused to deliver by hand and went off to pluck the bird. I corrected him by being very displeased and pointing a finger at him. He backed off from the bird and sat.

Our home work is to work on sits on the 6' lead. I have to expect him to stop and sit immediately upon the pip of the whistle, or correct him with a little pop on the lead.

Cathy and I were on the field for a full five hours working the three dogs. It was an intensive and very useful day.