Our outside time is so limited in the Summer so I have to come up with ideas to entertain Dexter ( even though left to his own devices he would sleep the day away) The Training Board feels a bit too official to write this on as we only 'play' at gun doggery in a very amateur way so I'll slot it in here. Anyway Casting has been on my to do list so I collated all Pippa's articles and tutorials and made a start yesterday. Bit of background is Dexter was always a really ambivalent and easily distracted retriever so I've never practiced any steadiness with him whatsoever,he's 3 now and when I throw a dummy for him when we are out he will sit at heel and wait until he is sent out for it so I could see I had something to work with. Pippa coaches that you need to make sure your dog is steady before you proceed with training the Back cast.....so I wanted to see what Dexter could do. I sat him up in front of me ,threw dummys left and right,increasing the distance and he was brilliant,he watched the dummy land and then looked straight to me.....so I got confident ..........bad ideaI threw a dummy over his head......he leapt in the air,caught it,fell on his back ,legs sliding out from under him ( did I mention I have marble floors ) I nearly died!Training session suspended while I checked him all over and made him walk round the house scrutinizing him for limps.......so casting training is postponed until I can throw the dummy over his head....so we will work on that and then I will let you know how we proceed......I have dug out the rubber matting from last Summer now ,don't think I was irresponsible ,we were in a really contained area when I tried the over head throw so he only would have walked a few paces to get it so I didn't think I needed the non slip flooring .......
Oh eek! Glad Dex is ok. The closer the movement to the dog the harder it is for sure. I think it's much easier to throw something far but away from the dog than it is to throw something that lands close to the dog. There is an exercise where you throw a dummy around a clock face, working up to be behind the dog, that's quite fun. I still do all my casting to place boards (not that I'm doing any such thing right now of course), which I really loved training. Best of luck with it, we'll need some vids when you've cracked it!
Thanks both,lesson learned,I'll do everything on the non slip floor now. I've dug out my Grade One book Julie and it's got the clock games in.I haven't got any place boards but I've bought 3 green bathroom mats to use instead......I've been through Barbara's place board thread and watched Jo Lauren's 3 Hand Casting video so I'm going to have a go at that ......it looks so graceful when she does it.Id love to be able to achieve the left and right back...Dex is very visual so I might crack it....I can't find anywhere where it's written how to do that though and when to introduce it .....I don't want to muck up straight away if I have any chance of fettling it! I'll go to Training and ask....I probably should have put this Training now....it might get confusing.I should have a bit more faith in us.......
You'll be fine, our dogs seem to understand far more of what we want than we sometimes give them credit for. My Grade 1 book is still sitting on the coffee table shelf where it's been since the week after Juno's surgery - the intentions to read it and prepare for post surgery were good, just not the follow through . At the moment I'm trying to train Juno out of trying to collect more than 1 retrieve at a time. If it's out there she wants to get it and bring it back - I'm not too bothered though as it's more for Juno to have fun than serious retrieve training
