Sorry for being so bad/slow at updating this, I never was very good at keeping diaries
Ok well Caoimhe is now 8 months old and is doing very, very well. I have to have a small gush and say that she is shaping up to be everything I could have hoped for in a working Cocker; she's bold, bright, driven and focussed and is also the sweetest, sookiest girl with a superb temperament and cheeky character.
I took her down for an assessment with Simon Tyers last month. For those who don't know of him Simon is the owner and handler of Caoimhe's sire FTCH Timsgarry Barlow (2007 Cocker champion) as well as various other dogs including FTCH Sandford Black Mamba, FTCH Timsgarry Valtos (2008 Cocker champion) and FTCH Timsgarry Simpson as well as being a very nice, down to earth man whose 'way' and methods I like very much. He agreed to see Caoimhe so I took her down to Staffordshire and luckily for us he liked her a lot and he has agreed to take her into his kennels later this month to do a bit of intensive assessment for a few weeks with an eventual view to running her in field trials
Needless to say I am delighted about this, obviously nothing is set in stone and she may not make the grade as yet but the fact that he thinks she has potential and likes what I have done with her so far is very exciting. She will be down there for a few weeks, it's just too far for me to drive her back and forward and it will be good for her to have some intensive work with a real professional - trialling has become a professional's game and it's difficult to even get a run so with his help I think she really has the best chance of reaching and fulfilling her potential. Simon's website is here:
http://www.hawcroftgundogs.co.uk/Anyway, in the meantime I have been working hard with her. Her retrieving is not an issue, she is happily now retrieving full size dummies, rabbit skin dummies and pheasant wing dummies over a variety of distances and in a variety of cover, including over obstacles and from water. She took to swimming straight away and will dunk her head under to pick objects from the bottom as well as fetching floating retrieves. She has had light exposure to cold game and retrieved her first (pre-shot) baby rabbit last week, again she did this very well, she picked it up and held it nicely - no carrying by the head or legs - and brought it straight back. She is not sitting to present at this stage, that's something I haven't worked on yet as it's not top priority but she is coming in nicely and looking up at me while holding her retrieve. I have got her sitting steady to fall at my side now and that is the main thing I have been working on retrieving-wise. This entailed a lot of reinforcement of her 'sit' command and starting by having her steady to an object placed on the ground and then working up to throwing things greater and greater distances.
I have changed my way of teaching retrieves when training Caoimhe. Previously I used 'fetch' and 'go back' if the dog didn't go far enough which can get wordy at times. Now, on the advice of Simon Tyers, I simply say 'out' and she knows that that means she is to go in a straight line until she finds something. It's one word to cover any retrieve in a straight line. With Rodaidh I found I'd say 'fetch' and he'd go back 20 yards or so and then stop if he couldn't find anything so I'd have to start with the 'go backs' and possibly more 'fetches' if the item was further plus the 'go back' arm signal which isn't very clear to the dog whereas with this 'out' covers her for any distance and it also means 'bring back what you find'. It is working extremely well for her.
Her stop whistle has progressed and she will now stop up to a distance of about 20 yards which is the maximum she goes from me on a retrieve. We are working on stopping at a short distance and staying steady as I throw a retrieve out in front of her this week. She did well today and only broke her sit once but stopped after 2 paces forward and didn't go for the dummy so I moved the distance down a bit again and she was fine and we'll keep at it tomorrow.
The main thing I have been working on recently is her hunting. I needed to get her a bit less focussed on me and into more of a flow and rhythm when she's free hunting so I've been going out and planting dummies for her to find to give her the idea that she is looking for something and there is actually something there for her to find to keep her interest rather than asking her to hunt 'dry ground'. I planted 6 or 7 dummies in a regular pattern and then walk with her through them keeping her moving smoothly and quickly to the left and right by taking a few steps each way myself to encourage her and then turning quickly to keep her moving. She has progressed over the last month or so so that I only now need to take one step in each direction to keep her going and she's really getting the idea of the pattern and upping her pace - I saw some of the FTCH dogs quartering when I was down at the Tyers' place and they have to cover the ground at a blistering pace to stand a chance. She's also really clicked that she's looking for something and she's super keen with her nose to the ground and she really attacks any cover she sees and gets right in there but quickly so I'm very pleased with this progress. She picks up every dummy she finds perfectly, from day one of doing this she has not missed a single one and has brought them all to hand and then resumed hunting with gusto
I have had to work on myself quite hard in all this as well not to help her too much - I have to let her do this for herself as she needs to get into using her own brain and initiative and not to be looking at me for guidance all the time so I haven't been saying anything to her apart from giving the one pip turn command and praising her when she retrieves a found dummy. I have also been keeping my hands in my pockets as I walk the route with her as if I have them out she was focussing on them in case I produced a dummy or a treat or something. With my hands away and minimal input from me she is much more focussed on the task at hand. At all times in this she goes no more than 5-7 yards from me, there is no need whatsoever for her to go any further.
What else... she is walking perfectly to heel on and off lead now and her 'sit' (meaning 'stay') is solid in that I can walk around her, walk past her, run past her and have the other dogs running around and she won't move. In the next few weeks I plan to start making her do a bit more work when the other dogs are there as a distraction. She still does not go on walks with them but she has play with them in the garden every day supervised by me and I've been making her do some work too - just the odd recall, a few sits and downs, a 'sit stay', an easy retrieve etc. before releasing her again - and now I'm going to up the ante to having her do some hunting and more retrieving with them sitting there progressing to having her sit and watch them do some hunting and retrieving.
I think that's about it for now, I'll probably think of something else later. She is a cracking little dog to work with, I'm having so much fun with her and she loves it too. She is showing a few teenage tendencies, the main one being her cheek with the other dogs - if she wants to play they know about it
and she can be a cheeky little madam but it's not affecting her enthusiasm for her training or her biddability as yet!
