
More Water - Searches and Blinds
Advancing your Water Training – Semi-blinds, easy Searches and beginning Blinds
Having introduced water and established water drive, at this stage of training you may want to introduce some additional retrieving exercises on land and water. They will add to your pup’s retrieving abilities and give you greater confidence in pup’s overall ability to tackle all scenarios that they may encounter while wingshooting!
And they are essential if you intend to do any of the Tests that these clubs offer.
Before moving on, you need to have finished or made a good start with pup’s structured retrieve – he must be reliably picking up, holding and delivering dummies and some game. This is extremely important!
Generally speaking, before doing any water specific exercises, your pup should be proficient in them on land first. Then the transition to water is much easier.
You can start on land with memory retrieves, lost searches and very simple blind retrieve training. The land work will first build the understanding of what is required. Then you can move on to water with semi-blinds, directions, searches and blinds.
A semi-blind is an simple way to begin easing your dog into retrieving from water without seeing something being thrown or shot. A dummy or bird is placed into the water without the dog seeing it. The dog is brought to the water’s edge, given the direction so he can see the dummy, and sent to retrieve. Distance is built over a few sessions, building confidence along the way and ensuring success. Here is an example video of the semi-blind… >>SA-NOVICE SEMI-BLIND RETRIEVE OF DUCK – YouTube
Refer to this article to learn more about how to begin basic land training of blinds and taking directions… >>Basic Backs, Lines, Blinds and Directional Training
Hundeschule Kompetenzzentrum gives a good overview of advancing a dog’s water work in these videos (7 videos in the series starting with…>>HZP 8 – Waterwork / Building Front with Structure
For a relativley simple way to start water blinds, see this video from Cortney Schaefer (Prairie-Flusstal)… >>Advice for Raising a 6-Month Old DD Puppy – How to Introduce a Dog to Blind Retrieves at the Water – YouTube
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