Teaching a wider cast for a double lift

[Guest Nancy Obernier]

Hi Amanda,

 

How do you teach the wider cast needed, for the second outrun, in a double lift situation?

 

Nancy O

[Guest Amanda]

In the process of training dogs, I do a lot of walking, which is good for a sloth like me. If I was training a deeper cast for a double lift, I would have a group of twenty or thirty sheep. I would split some off, and walk away with them, a couple of hundred yards. I would call my dog off. I would walk away until my shed sheep got in the mind of going back to their peers a couple of hundred yards away. I would send my dog to pick up the shed sheep, but at three o’clock or so, blow him out with a bigger whistle to pick up the remainder too. So he now understands casting wider with a bigger whistle, and the paydirt of more sheep. I do it enough that he does understand, but not over and over in one session—only occasionally. I spread this activity out.

 

I have a very long field in which I hold a trial and many reading these posts will have been there. I take a group of twenty or thirty and split them roughly in two. I stand in the middle of the long side and send one group about three hundred yards up and the other three hundred yards down. From the long side of the field, in the middle, I send my dog for the first group. After his first fetch, I send him for the second—they are at the opposite end of a very long field, requiring the dog to go excessively wide, almost towards me when he gather them.

 

Most people know that my dogs like going back way too much, to my chagrin. I have not schooled it in three years for Bart and he’s five. His uninvited go backs at the National Finals were controversial. I know what happened. He heard the handler before me, pleading with his dog to “look back” for a protracted period, while I was in the blind. His ears pricked. Next time I’ll be waiting in my truck with rock and roll music blaring, so he won’t hear it.

 

I do not recommend schooling double lifts during a regular trial season for that reason. It’s too much fun for a keen gathering dog. Do it in the winter or late fall. And make that depth side of the go back count in your training for the few times you should school it, so you go for deep when you do work at it. Moderation on this activity. Even then, you could risk looking like the expert at the US National Finals.

Amanda

[Guest Pipedream Farm]

Hi Amanda.

Any tips for the dog that won't do a reliable look back because it doesn't want to release the first group of sheep?

Renee