I was very much looking forward to today’s session, having found last month a little frustrating after our break of a couple of months. After the break I felt like a lot of my previous knowledge was already rusty and as there were so many more birds than we were used to I felt like I was playing catch up most of the day and that my dog was out of my league! Thankfully this time we were back on track and worked well all day as a solid team !
Started the day in open field but during the day we worked both field and forest. Kodi had 3 consistent runs where he worked diligently and consistently. The odd eye flick check in was all that he felt was needed and I could happily let him work, he went out far, following his nose until he was just out of sight. He worked well to my directional body language and I felt that my appreciation for wind direction and understanding of what I needed to do to help him get a point into the wind has definitely began to come together and the result of our hard work was a productive point and sit to flush. He waited after flush until I was close enough whereupon I indicated with my arms that he was to recall and it was only at that point that he broke his sit. Obviously since we were not shooting I have no idea if the sit would have remained steady to fall, only time will reveal the answer to that question! Very, very proud of him.
Gabriella and Rhea also worked consistently and as a team throughout the day and I am extremely proud of both of them. Rhea appeared to work better in the cover of the forest and it was at this point that she also had a productive point and she too sat to flush which was fantastic for both her and Gabs, nice to see all their hard work rewarded.
We completed our days training with a retrieve that will enable me to help teach the dogs the ‘back’ command. It was a short memory retrieve that proved no trouble for Kodi. Rhea wasn’t so interested even though she could see the bird as we had reduced the distance for her, we then hid the bird in the forest area where she happily found and retrieved it!
Both dogs couldn’t have done more to make me any happier! What a great day!
