I may have missed it, but I don't recall a discussion of the concepts that one needs to introduce a young dog to in order to prepare it for competition. I would think it would be useful. A lot of beginners that I have watched don't have a specific purpose when they set up marks, figuring as I did when I started that just about ny mark is good and will make the dog better. That may be true, but it is not very good time management. Here is a list of concepts that I think a young dog needs to be taught:

hip pocket marks
two down the shore
three in a line
pinched birds
over and under marks
big turns (wide open marks)
sidehill marks
hill to hill marks
downhill birds
changes of cover
angle entries (water or across roads)

There are more, add to my list as you will, but going out to train with the intention of working on one or two of things such as these will make your training more efficient and get you where you want to go sooner.

-Short bird first
-Re-orientation marks(dog loses sight of gun(s) while in route)
- Bridge birds(throwing mark across water to opposit bank)


Tim

excellent topic Tom (LOL - - not Bill - geesh... ),

I was, a few days ago, thinking of this very thing....

what about under the arc marks? (maybe goes by one of the names you mentioned?)

And, is there a specific ORDER in which you would want to teach these? (I would presume the answer is yes)

Juli

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Tim, I think bridge birds are extremely important (don't know why I left them off my list), but before teaching them on water I prefer to do so on land (across a road or some other barrier). It helps to be able to walk the dog out to the bird or be able to pick it up and rethrow--which can be difficult across water.
Juli, the order depends on the dog and what training grounds you have available. As a general rule, however, try to do the simpler ones first and on land before on water. Get the other stuff pretty solid before trying under the arc birds.

Have had this concept twice in the Master last year...hard especially for a youngster:

Inline double holding blinds so that only one is visible to the dog on line, that of course being the shorter one. Memory mark (flyer in this case) was about 125-135 yards out shot left, other mark about 90-95 yards shot right, coming from the only holding blind the dogs sees. Also, have had a triple this way as well having the go bird shot ninety degrees right of these two marks about 45 yards out.

A version of a flower pot?!?

Norene & Dom
Nordom Chesapeakes

Boy oh Boy do I hate to see a flower post type set up, this is one marking set up I rarelly train on, to my detriment sometimes.

I spend about 60% of all my marking concepts picking up a long bird then a check down bird, as Tim discribed.

Two reasons's I want the young dog to think and find the long gun firt when he comes to the line and second it is one of the harder concepts for a dog to do, go long and then "Check" down for a short bird. I start teaching the easy command from the cradle on this concept.

Marty

quote:

Originally posted by Marty Newport:
Boy oh Boy do I hate to see a flower post type set up, this is one marking set up I rarelly train on, to my detriment sometimes.

I spend about 60% of all my marking concepts picking up a long bird then a check down bird, as Tim discribed.

Two reasons's I want the young dog to think and find the long gun firt when he comes to the line and second it is one of the harder concepts for a dog to do, go long and then "Check" down for a short bird. I start teaching the easy command from the cradle on this concept.

Marty

We had not trained on this concept in years - until we saw it last year twice. It's a hard one for dogs to crasp....even though the marks are not coming from the same holding blind it certainly appears that way from their perspective.

We teach 'easy' on short and/or check down birds as well!

Norene & Dom
Nordom Chesapeakes

PS: Set-ups like these re-appear every few years in the Master.....sometimes it best to just take them with a grain of salt.....and move on! LOL

Norene,

off topic, but I love your new signature line...

Norene
The same kinda thing happens around here as well. We saw that scenario a couple of time's as well. What really made it bad was the field had some really great places to throw a mark that would have challenged the dog's marking and memorey. Insteasd they did the Flower Pot and wasted an opportunity to put out a set of really good marks.

Marty

There are some concepts that aren't worth the trouble of working on--at least not until the dog has the more basic ones down pat. I include three down the shore and flower pots in this category. You can work and work on them and not ever get good at them--at least with most dogs. I prefer to work on the concepts that my dogs have a good chance of mastering and just take my chances that 3 down the shore and flower pots won't show up--and when they do, I just say "Ah shit!" and take my lumps.

Tom
I understand and use the same comment when I see those two set up.

If you had to say which of all the concepts there are to work on, which do you spend the most time on?

I would say that I spend the most time on an indent and follow that with a long punch bird with the short bird pinched into it.

Marty

I spend most of my time on Long Middle bird with two retired. Indented with indented retired and the indented always has a hip pocket and in lines. I also do doubles long and short hip pockets. Switching long sometimes the go bird. I also do very little flower pots. Though occassionally I do run into them.

quote:

which do you spend the most time on?

It really depends on the dog, Marty--both where they are in their training and their natural strengths/weaknesses. With Nate I don't do many punch birds, but lots of check-downs and indents, because he has so much innate drive that going long is no problem for him but he often blows through short stuff. With Billy I do more over and unders, angle entries, and arc birds since she doesn't like going tight to short gun stations when going long, tends to square her water entries, and often establishs her hunts a bit too close to the gun station and these are set-ups that work on those weaknesses. . . . Of course, I run Billy on Nate's setups and vice versa--and when I train with Steve Parker once every week or two we tend to work on the things that Steve's dogs need, so taken all together my dogs get a pretty rounded program (even if I don't train as much as I should because of having too many irons in the fire).

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