Pistols and Labs

Yesterday was our second visit to a field training day for gundogs. Lumi made some progress in our D&CC work for gunfire, but she needs a lot of sessions, not just two, and that place isn't doing any more training days this year.

TRAINING PISTOLS
Although Lumi already has some gundog instincts and trained skills, her noise sensitivity trumps everything else. In the big picture of gundog training, it's a small matter, but for Lumi and me, it's the top priority, the only priority, because nothing else matters if we can't solve it.

So I've put a lot of thought into how to work on gunfire D&CC. Yet it didn't occur to me until today that I might be able to order a pistol that shoots blanks online.

Sure enough, you can buy them from online stores for gundog supplies, and other places as well. I found one that was pretty inexpensive: about $22. It should be here in a few days.

Then all I need is someone to stand about a mile away and fire it for me while I play with Lumi. You'd think it would be easy to find someone to do that, wouldn't you? We'll see.

WATCHING THE LABS
Meanwhile, as suggested to me by private correspondence, I didn't spend all my time at yesterday's training day working with Lumi. At one point, I put her in the van and went off to watch the pros working with their dogs, or their clients' dogs, for awhile. I don't know why the difference between marks and blinds was so confusing to me before, there's really nothing to it once you've watched for a few minutes.

Watching serious field-trained Labs was an education in many ways. It goes without saying that they are nothing like your typical neighborhood Lab. One of the yellows looked like a body builder, muscles bulging up down his legs. He also had no hair around his elbows, perhaps from hunting hazards? I didn't ask why.

The skill of one of the black Labs in particular was also amazing, cutting off small triangles of water hazards to run a perfectly straight mark. As he approached each pond, he flew into the air and leapt in wildly. What drive!

Lumi, of course, will never look or act like one of those FC Labs, but she still looks athletic as Goldens go. I saw other Goldens there, and none of them had Lumi's lean, muscular physique. On the other hand, none of them had her fear of gunfire, either.

MORE PHEASANT WORK
We have so many things we could work on these days, but yesterday's field training inspired me to work with Lumi on field work some more today.

We still have two dead birds from last week to train with. They won't last forever. As I understand it, we can eventually look forward to maggots, red ants, and other niceties. I don't know where we'll get more birds, but at least we have these two for now.

We were training with our pheasant today at the lake for about half an hour. I'd throw Lumi's dummy into the lake, and then when she brought it to me, happily swinging into heel position, I'd reinforce that by throwing the pheasant for her up onto the hillside, with Lumi in a "wait" at heel. When I'd release her after the pheasant had rolled to a stop, she'd break from her sit like a shot, run to the bird, and race back with it. I'd reinforce that with another throw of the dummy into the water, and so the cycle continued, a continuous stream of self-reinforcing behaviors feeding upon one another.

By the end, Lumi seemed to be enjoying the bird more and more. As we were walking up the hill toward the van, I tossed the dummy one time and Lumi just looked at me for a second. "Hey, where's the bird? That's just a dummy!"

"You better get used to seeing more dummies, Sweetie," I told her. "Those birds won't last forever. You might not mind maggots and red ants, but I sure do."