The long awaited time has
come. We now are going
to take our spaniel through the advanced stage of training for
the water blind. Your spaniel now should be very comfortable
with the following concepts: 1) taking a line; 2). traveling
through water and making a blind find up on the opposite shoreline;
3) making a clean return to the handler and delivering the bird
to hand and finally, 4) stopping and taking a cast on water and
out on the opposite shoreline.
For some, the reader included, this stage of training maybe sufficient.
You are content with the level of training your spaniel has achieved
and have no need to continue on with advance water blind training. |
However for others, the final stage of
water blind training is essential. For the hardcore waterfowl
enthusiast, you may hunt on salt-water marshes during slack tied;
suppose the grasslands are somewhat flooded. You will need a
dog that will work through high reeds and cattails out into open
water for a blind bird. Additionally, you may find yourself in
a situation where you have a downed bird out on a body of water,
beyond a small spot of land out in front of your boat. Finally,
this training is essential for Spaniel hunt test at the Master
Hunter level, because simply you never know what you will encounter
for hazards at the water blind test.
The advanced level of water training will again require that
you have access to one or several ponds that have an opposite
bank about |
sixty yards away. We will also seek a body of water with an
island and a peninsula. The peninsula will be necessary if you
wish to teach the "re-entry to water" with your spaniel.
So you may want to start looking for a pond that will handle
this re-entry drill. You will need an assistant, some sort of
a boat whether it is a flat bottom Jon boat, or a small canoe
will be sufficient. Birds will be the used here, however have
some white and colored dummies at hand as well.
Well let's get started. Find yourself an area on your pond that
will allow you to teach you spaniel a minimum of two lines. Three
lines would be my preferred choice; all of the lines would start
from the same point. Now keep in mind that we do not want the
two or three find areas to close to one another. The "find"
areas should be a minimum of forty-five degrees apart. The wider
apart that they are the easier this concept will be for your
spaniel to understand. It will be difficult to find the proper
spot to run this drill because many spots that offer the opportunity
to run this drill may also give your spaniel a high level of
temptation to "bank run" back to you on the delivery
rather than returning to you clean. So keep this in mind when
you are selecting you drills sight.
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