Post by Ghost on Mar 23, 2010 12:25:04 GMT -5
Well Belle is almost 20 weeks old now and as each day goes by I fall in love with her even more. I am amazed by her intelligence, her intense desire to make sure that I am pleased with her, and her strong ability to learn.
Her retrieving has progressed leaps and bounds. Although, we have temporarily suspended long retrieves with the bumpers because she is now teething and I am sure her little mouth is rather sore.
Her heeling, in my opinion, is almost perfect while on the lead. She does pretty darn good with heeling while off of the lead as well.
She is defiantly not afraid of the water and once she is use to the fact that she can and will have to swim to get her bumpers, she will be off to the races. We are going to load up the waders and take her back to the pond on Friday and get her rockin & rollin on the swimming. But all in all, as for the swimming, I am really happy. She shows such great intensity while around the water and when she enters the water, she explodes into it. As long as her feet remain in contact with the bottom, she will retrieve the bumpers in water right now. But I suspect once she figures out that she can swim and is more confidant, it will be a different story.
The whistle is coming along nicely. She has only been working on the whistle for four days now and is becoming comfortable with it and is beginning to soak up the training. She only has two commands that she gets from the whistle. They are one long bleat for her to stop and sit and the second is a rapid series of loud bleats to get her to return to heel.
She has just began to work on trailing. She started this training yesterday to get her introduced to using her nose to find lost game. The command for her to find a lost bird is "Dead Bird". She is still a little uncomfortable with it but this is okay. We are just going to slowly get into this phase. I am not ready for her to get into the "Dead Bird" command fully since she is still teething.
We have just started to get her working on negotiating ramps today. This was her first time to work up and down a ramp to access an elevated platform such as a blind. She did extremely well with her first introduction to this. Her command for getting into or going up a ramp is "Up". Her command for getting out of the blind is "Out". I am going to be careful about the "Out " command because I am not sure if I will train in a problem when it comes to getting her to mark and exit the blind for a retrieve of a downed bird. So I am going to further criticize my use of the "Out" command until I can see what problem this could cause me down the road.
I am going to make one correction with how she performs one of the commands and that is "Stay". When I am away for a longer period of time, and Belle realizes that I am going to be gone awhile, Belle will go ahead and lay down. I am going to work or make a correction with her so that she does not lay down. I want her alert and sitting while I am away due to activity of another hunter that maybe in the blind with her. I want her to be aware of other flocks of birds that may come in and be able to mark if another hunter in the blind shoots and kills a bird. She will not be able to do this is she lays down while I am away from the blind for a longer period. I do not see any problems that she may have with this correction. But if I do not correct it now, I fear it will be rather difficult for her later on in her training when it gets more demanding and difficult.
All in all, I am very proud of my little Belle. She has a good and strong working knowledge of all the basic commands now. She has no problem with the basic commands of "sit, stay, come, and heel". She is just amazing. Yes I know, I am a little bit biased. But what do you expect from a proud new papa
Oh, I will soon have the video of Belle's first swim uploaded to YouTube. We got it all ready for editing last night. My buddy told me that when he gets it done he will upload it for me. When he does, I will post it. But be fore warned, you all will laugh your butts off. She is flat out hilarious in this video.
Your Buddy,
Brian
Her retrieving has progressed leaps and bounds. Although, we have temporarily suspended long retrieves with the bumpers because she is now teething and I am sure her little mouth is rather sore.
Her heeling, in my opinion, is almost perfect while on the lead. She does pretty darn good with heeling while off of the lead as well.
She is defiantly not afraid of the water and once she is use to the fact that she can and will have to swim to get her bumpers, she will be off to the races. We are going to load up the waders and take her back to the pond on Friday and get her rockin & rollin on the swimming. But all in all, as for the swimming, I am really happy. She shows such great intensity while around the water and when she enters the water, she explodes into it. As long as her feet remain in contact with the bottom, she will retrieve the bumpers in water right now. But I suspect once she figures out that she can swim and is more confidant, it will be a different story.
The whistle is coming along nicely. She has only been working on the whistle for four days now and is becoming comfortable with it and is beginning to soak up the training. She only has two commands that she gets from the whistle. They are one long bleat for her to stop and sit and the second is a rapid series of loud bleats to get her to return to heel.
She has just began to work on trailing. She started this training yesterday to get her introduced to using her nose to find lost game. The command for her to find a lost bird is "Dead Bird". She is still a little uncomfortable with it but this is okay. We are just going to slowly get into this phase. I am not ready for her to get into the "Dead Bird" command fully since she is still teething.
We have just started to get her working on negotiating ramps today. This was her first time to work up and down a ramp to access an elevated platform such as a blind. She did extremely well with her first introduction to this. Her command for getting into or going up a ramp is "Up". Her command for getting out of the blind is "Out". I am going to be careful about the "Out " command because I am not sure if I will train in a problem when it comes to getting her to mark and exit the blind for a retrieve of a downed bird. So I am going to further criticize my use of the "Out" command until I can see what problem this could cause me down the road.
I am going to make one correction with how she performs one of the commands and that is "Stay". When I am away for a longer period of time, and Belle realizes that I am going to be gone awhile, Belle will go ahead and lay down. I am going to work or make a correction with her so that she does not lay down. I want her alert and sitting while I am away due to activity of another hunter that maybe in the blind with her. I want her to be aware of other flocks of birds that may come in and be able to mark if another hunter in the blind shoots and kills a bird. She will not be able to do this is she lays down while I am away from the blind for a longer period. I do not see any problems that she may have with this correction. But if I do not correct it now, I fear it will be rather difficult for her later on in her training when it gets more demanding and difficult.
All in all, I am very proud of my little Belle. She has a good and strong working knowledge of all the basic commands now. She has no problem with the basic commands of "sit, stay, come, and heel". She is just amazing. Yes I know, I am a little bit biased. But what do you expect from a proud new papa
Oh, I will soon have the video of Belle's first swim uploaded to YouTube. We got it all ready for editing last night. My buddy told me that when he gets it done he will upload it for me. When he does, I will post it. But be fore warned, you all will laugh your butts off. She is flat out hilarious in this video.
Your Buddy,
Brian
