The purpose of this drill is to teach your
spaniel which initial line you wish them to take. Naturally the
queue will be "NO" and "GOOD". The first
thing to do would be to take a machete and clear the exit areas
from the waters edge into the find areas on all lines that we
are going to teach. This will help to give your dog a simple
and visual understanding to the concept of this drill. The technique
here is for the dog to take the initial line that you have chosen
for them. Prevent switching the initial line once your spaniel
has entered the water on the blind.
We will teach one line at a time starting with the longest line
first. We will use the marked blind technique that we used during
teaching land blinds here for the starting of this drill. Have
an assistant hide from plain sight in the find area of the blind.
Take you spaniel to the starting point of the line. Once you
are ready, signal for your helper to step out into plain view
and toss a white pigeon onto the ground then disappearing again
into cover out of sight. When the pigeon hits the ground give
your dog the "dead bird" command. Now go through the
sequence and send you dog for the retrieve. Continue this drill
until you are running this water pattern blind cold.
Now go through the same technique and introduce the second and |
finally the third line. Remember always start with the
longest or first line that you taught being run first. Then run
the second line and so on. Many
paniels will take this drill quickly with little fuss. However
some will try to switch their line in the water.
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Wait until they have switched their line
in the water and committed to another line. Recall them with
a "no here" command. Now send them again, they should
stay on that proper line this time.
Should he over compensate the correction of their line or switch
once again, call him back again and this time do a Marked Blind
with the help of your assistant to the proper find area. Once
completely mastered, load the blinds and teach the commands of
"No" and "Good." "No" will command
the dog off one line and "good" will command him onto
the other line. Make sure that you mix up the sequence as to
which line you run first and which lines you "no" and
"good" the spaniel on. Again recall if they switch
their initial line. We want our dogs to understand that if they
take the initial line that we have chosen for them. They will
be rewarded |
