What? You? Here too?

It was lesson time again today. With Rory coming over to our territory to see how the would-be-bestest-Gundog behaves on his own ground.

Gunner's always keen and excited about his lessons. He knows the signs. Other dogs told to 'stay indoors' but 'Gunner out'. And he sits quivering in the porch while I don the gear and collect the (now quite heavy) dummy rucksack. And then he's all agog with that "What are we going to do now?" questioning bounce about him.

Likewise today.

Except when we got out the door and went up to the car parked outside with Rory standing next to it, he did a double-take. First he went up sniffing and wagging quite confidently... then he literally stood back, looked up and his little face clearly said "What? You... here....?"

But then he seemed to shrug it off and we went down the field to run through his paces. We ran through the library of retrieves: memory, hidden, left & right, back, drop-come here-fetch back..... everything except somersault-and-return really. The w-b-b-G didn't falter once. Eager, attentive and tail wagging merrily, he did it all. And it was a very hot day so he had every excuse to play the lazy card if he'd wanted to.

We went 'hunting' and he was keen, attentive to the whistle when it was needed and happy in his work. We tried a 'retrieve' in the midst of his hunting. It's fair to say he wasn't quite so keen on the idea; went towards it then kind of gave up and started to come back in; so I instructed him to 'sit' then 'Fetch back' and back he duly went, collected the dummy quite happily and brought it back to me.

"That's when the homework really begins to pay off" said Rory. "Two weeks ago he didn't know that command and you'd have been stuck. But he's learned his lesson and today he could use it in a practical way."

Well.... that's better than a red rosette I'd say!

Returning home we ended the session with a totally new skill.......... retrieving from water. The pond level is quite high still after all the rain we had last month but the sunshine has brought out all the algae. So it's nice and cool and green! Gunner has never been in it. He's been happy enough running through ditches and quite deep bog.... but never been in a real pond. So we sat him at the edge, threw the dummy a couple of metres in and sent him off to 'fetch'. And off he went ---- very, very gingerly; slow step by slow step, one paw at a time until he reached the dummy: which he then picked up - ugh, nasty, wet and green covered thing - equally gingerly and, almost distastfully, dragged back to shore! Full marks. Big Praise. Another red roset

te moment. Exercise repeated and carried out just a teensy bit less gingerly! "You really want me to bring you this nasty, smelly, soggy thing?" What a good dog.

Trainer much impressed. Owner thrilled and relieved. Dog..... tired!

Homework is to increase the difficulty of the retrieves by doing less and less at home and more and more in rough ground. And if the weather holds, we take the w-b-b-G to a nice clean lake to practice swimming for his next lesson. He'll like that! Of course he will.......