Hi, Lightning here. Since this is “Lightning’s Journal” and I’m Lightning, Daddy said I could write today’s post. To be honest I’m sure it’ll be more interesting than if he wrote it. 

I’ll tell you, it was a big day. First Daddy studied Mr. Lardy’s flow chart a little, and then we watched the section on “Formal Obedience” again on Mr. Lardy’s DVD. I don’t know how many times Daddy’s going to watch it. I’ve already seen it at least three times myself.

From the flow chart, Daddy figured out that if we were going to do both yard work and field work today, the yard work would be “Formal Obedience” and the field work would be two things: “Singles off Multiple Guns” and “Lead Steady (taut lead with use of hand on release)”. But we don’t have a DVD for the field stuff yet, so Daddy needed to come up with his own version.

Daddy did make a more detailed list of our formal obedience objectives. Here are the notes he made, a list of the commands, or cues as Daddy calls them, that Mr. Lardy was saying I needed to learn:

• “Here” to move out of Sit in heel position, including turns (trainers, including Mike, sometimes say Heel for this rather than Here since Heel is the command used for this behavior in other sports)
• “Sit” at side when heeling stops
• “Here” from Sit at front
• “Sit” in front finish position when called
• No “stay”
• “Heel” from front sit to side sit, either side
• Whistle Sit (one tweet)
• Whistle come-in (multiple tweets)

Then we arranged for someone to train with, but we would only have one more person besides Daddy, so how were we going to run singles with guns out? Daddy made notes on that, too:

• Stickmen and/or chairs with white jackets
• Poorman singles or remote launchers

Daddy packed up our holding blind and a couple of stickmen into the van, but he left extra chairs and launchers in the garage, so I guess that gives you a hint of how the sessions went.

Next we went to pick up the other human, whose name is Sandra. And we also picked up another dog, a fluffy, pretty girl dog named Sasha that Sandra helps takes care of. I guess Sasha isn’t a purebred retriever like Laddie and me, since retrieving doesn’t come as natural to her, but Daddy and Sandra have given Sasha some training. Daddy even has another blog about it, called “Training Sasha”.

So now we were going to do both yard work and field work with three different dogs. Like I said, it was a big day.

For the yard work, we drove to a field up the street from Sasha’s house where Laddie, Sasha, and I have played and trained before. It was quiet at first, so Daddy took Laddie out of the van first and did some formal obedience with him. I don’t know why he bothered. It was way too easy for Laddie. But I guess Daddy was rehearsing what he was going to do with me. He even gave Laddie treats. Believe me, Laddie doesn’t get treats for retriever training very often. After all, he’s a Master Hunter and has a zillion field trial ribbons.

Then it was my turn, and sure enough, Daddy did the same maneuvers with me that he had done with Laddie. Of course it was harder for me, but the treats made it fun even though we weren’t doing any retrieving.

To be honest, our work didn’t really look much like the video. For one thing, I’m a lot smaller than any of the dog’s in the video. I’m just a little guy. Daddy calls me Scrumption when we’re at home.

For another, Daddy didn’t put lines on Laddie or me the way Mr. Lardy did with the dog doing formal obedience in the video. He also didn’t use a choke chain or heeling stick. For my formal obedience training, it was just Daddy, me, and the treats. I guess Mr. Lardy had his way of reinforcing the work his dog was doing, and Daddy had a different way of reinforcing me when I did the same things. It reminded me of some clicker training Daddy did with me before, but he didn’t use a clicker this time. As I completed each task, he’d just say “Good!’ and give me a taste of the sliced ham he had in his pocket.

Remember the list of cues Daddy made from watching Mr. Lardy’s video on formal obedience? Well, we worked on all of them, but in a particular order. Daddy pretended we had a holding blind, and a mat in front of the blind, out there where we were doing our yard work, even though the holding blind and mat were actually still in the van. Then he’d follow these steps:

1. Sit next to Daddy behind the imaginary blind.
2. Leave me sitting there while Daddy walked a few feet to the side of the “blind” so that he could see the imaginary mat. He alternated walking out to the left or the right.
3. Call Here to bring me straight towards him, then cue Sit so that I sat in in front position.
4. Cue Heel and use a sweeping hand gesture to bring me around to heel position. Again he alternated which side he brought me around on. I’d sit down when I was beside him.
5. Cue Here and walk straight to the imaginary mat with me walking in heel position beside him.
6. Cue Sit so that we were both standing on the “mat” facing the same way together.

After we did that once, it turns out we had done all the formal obedience tasks on the list Daddy had made from Mr. Lardy’s video. Daddy had just arranged them into a sequence that we’d need for competition rather than doing the cues in random order the way Mr. Lardy seemed to on the video.

Then Daddy changed where the imaginary holding blind and mat were so that I was sitting behind the new imaginary holding blind, and we did the same thing again, but in a whole new direction, or new orientation as Daddy would say. We did the same six steps over and over, and I got a taste of the delicious ham almost every time I sat down. I felt very good about how our day was going.

Someone brought a dog out of their house where we working so we all got in the van and drove somewhere else to continue our training. Sasha got out first this time, and Daddy worked with Sandra to teach Sasha some obedience skills, too.

That completed our yard work. Now it was time to begin our field work. Daddy and Sandra put on their white jackets and whistles, got out a couple of radios, and loaded up a blank pistol.

As usual, Laddie got to go first. Sasha and I couldn’t see what was happening, but Laddie told us later that he ran a big double with a retired memory bird, and then an even bigger blind. I hope you know what all that stuff means, because I don’t.  I just heard the gunshots and whistles from my crate.

Laddie didn’t get another turn, but Sasha and I each got two more turns. First Sasha, then me, then Sasha, then me again. Sasha ran singles and was mostly practicing her returns, wearing a long line Daddy had brought to help her learn.

My sets were more complicated. For the first set, Daddy got Sandra to help him bring out the holding blind, the mat, and both stickmen, which were metal T-shapes dressed in white one-piece uniforms. Daddy set up the blind and put the mat a few feet in front of it. Then he planted the stickmen about 20y in front of the mat, but on angles to each side. I think he would have put them further out but he was going to walk to them while we were training and he doesn’t walk very well these days. He asked Sandra to go out with two black bumpers and the pistol. She went out about twice as far as the stickmen, and stayed in the angle between them the whole time. Once she was more to the right and threw toward the left, and the other time she was more to left and threw toward the right. This was one of the mirror setups Daddy likes to use to keep me balanced.

Here were the steps of our field practice:

1. From behind the holding blind, Daddy brought me to the mat using the same steps we had practiced the other day and again during yard work today. Of course this time the blind and mat weren’t imaginary.
2. Daddy threw a poorman single from one of the stickmen. That is, he left me sitting  at the start line, walked to the stickman and threw a black bumper, walked back to me, and sent me on my name.
3. We went behind the blind again, then came back out again, and this time I ran one of Sandra’s singles. I was wearing my training tab, which Daddy held loosely rather than taut as the flow chart said. Daddy doesn’t want me to be aware of the tab unless I break. Sometimes I did try to break but I couldn’t because of the tab. Other times I didn’t even bother to try to break and just waited till Daddy sent me so I couldn’t even feel the tab.
4. We repeated steps 1 and 2 for the other stickman.
5. We repeated step 3 with Sandra throwing a single from the other side and in the opposite direction.

So that’s how Daddy ran me on “singles with guns out”. I had no trouble marking the falls and running out to pick up the bumper each time, but to be honest all those white coats out there had me confused and I have to admit my returns were awful. When Daddy brought me out for the second set of four marks, he moved all the equipment to new positions and orientation, and this time he had me wear my check cord, which I haven’t needed the last several training sessions. But the check cord helped Daddy catch me before my returns got too bad, so I had a chance to do better on the second set. I even delivered my bumpers to Daddy’s hand a few times instead of dropping them at the start line, even though Daddy doesn’t require me to delivery to hand the way he does with Laddie.

So that’s how the day went, with both yard work and field work for all three dogs. Daddy looked exhausted, but everyone else was fine and we had a great time. I’m ready for more soon, tomorrow I hope!