Hank and his Standard Poodle, Taura, met Russ and I (along with Cooper and Tooey, of course!) out at one of Hank’s favorite training grounds. A very large, mown (and rare) field with trees, out in suburbia.
It was a short session. We knew the rain was coming, and wanted to get our work done before that started.
While we were waiting for Hank to arrive, Russ ran Cooper on some blinds. He ran it in a narrow V-pattern, each leg about 75 yards long, with one blind about 30 degrees apart from the other. The pictures below, taken with my very stupid smart phone, don’t show the V. The birch tree in the top photo is the left blind, and the V-shaped birch in the second photo is the right blind.
By the time Russ and Cooper were done with blinds, Hank had arrived, and we set right to work. First we ran some 30 yard blinds for Taura and Tooey (who was disgusted that there were only bumpers to pick up, and not birds).
Then we dreamed up a long double for Cooper. He ran two very long doubles through the trees and into two small clearings. The two legs were about 125 yards and 85 yards long. The area of the fall of his long mark was very strange — in fact, we used that as the area of the fall for all three dogs, and all three of them got confused.
In and amongst the trees in this field are very wide, tall clumps of blackberry bushes. For this long mark, the thrower stood in front of one clump and threw the frozen bird over in front of another clump. From 125 yards away (for Cooper) and 80 yards away (for Tooey and Taura), all three dogs thought that the bird had fallen on the far side of the clump. They all ran around to the back of the clump, searching for that bird. Cooper stepped on his bird on his first time out to this mark, but then lost it the second time. Tooey had to be helped a bit by the thrower, who simply took a few steps toward it. Taura had to search for quite awhile all around the clump, but she finally found it.
It was a puzzling view for me, too. When I was sending Tooey out to this mark, it looked like a flat plane of blackberries, simply two clumps right next to each other, with a clearing in front. When I got out there to throw for Taura, though, I could see that the area was actually sort of circular. What looked to me at the line to be flat was actually kind of a half-circle of brambles around the clearing.
It’s always a lot of fun to watch the dogs work, which is why I keep doing this.
- Cooper is like a laser. He doesn’t always get it right, but he always wants to retrieve — birds, bumpers, balls — whatever you want to throw. And he doesn’t want to quit — Can we have just one more throw, please? That’s his motto.
- Taura is elegant to watch, full of energy and grace. She doesn’t always know what she’s doing, but she does it with enthusiasm. When she finds a bird, she sort of pounces on it with a “Oh, goody! There it is!” kind of happiness, and then runs back with it, full out.
- Tooey is out there to be included in the game. Birds are definitely better than boring old bumpers. And today, she was riveted on Russ, who threw her first bird. She kept looking at him, wanting him to throw all her birds. I had to actually kind of hold her muzzle and point it in Hank’s direction, so that she could see him waving him arms and and making quacking sounds, getting ready to throw her second bird.
And then we were done. And just as we were loading up the cars with our dogs and equipment, the rain came, cold, wet, and pouring down. But the car was warm, and by the time we got home, we were all happy, dry, and ready for a snack.
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