Posted: Tue Jan 13, 2009 8:49 am Post subject: Dummies in trees?!
This is a dummy question from a dummy!
I've started practising throwing a dummy into short cover for Zorro to retrieve (as he has to do this for the Grade 2 test in a couple of weeks).
Being a right girlie when it comes to throwing, I threw it and it landed sort of dangling on a bush, about 10 inches off the ground!
I'd shouted 'Mark' and Zorro may have woken up for long enough to see it land (!) so I didn't know then whether I should have gone and got it and tried again with a better throw, or if you should always send him because I'd already shouted 'mark'. So after Zorro and I scratched our heads and pondered a bit about the situation, I decided to send him anyway, and surprise surprise, he didn't find it! So when he was searching for it, I nipped in and hooked it off the bush and dropped it where he could find it.
On reflection, maybe I should have got it myself in the first place?
Its all so difficult when you are starting off! Nothing ever goes according to the books or what's happened the previous week at training. And I'm sure I'm doing twice as much stuff wrong as I'm doing right
So what should you do when you do a really naff throw?
I very often throw for Hudson and pick it up myself. He isn't what you would call steady eddy though so its an exercise in patience! I never call Mark... so I'm not sure of the ins and outs of that.
Regarding your particular throw... would I have gone and got it? Well... it would depend on how akward it was to get. If the original throw was for Huds... and it was an atainable place then I would have sent him. I'm not good with inches so I just took a ruler out to see how high 10 inches are. I don't think Huds would have missed it... so I probably would have sent him.
If it was the puppy... who maybe isn't quite as good Huds at searching just yet, I might have done exactly what you did....
I should add too... I am RUBBISH naff at throwing dummies.
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Unfortunately Becs my poor dogs have to put up with this all the time. I don't think I can even remember how many years I have been doing this but my throwing hasn't got any better and some would say it is worse .
Only last week I went for a lesson with Pepper and as two of us stood back from our dogs we were told to throw the dummy over our dogs heads. Craig's, of course went up in the air in an arc and flew well out behind his dog. Mine well, all I can say is poor Pepper cos it hit him right on the end of his nose and flew past his ear and bless him he still sat steady and I swear was looking skyward as if to say "that bloody woman" .
But answering your question yes I would have gone to collect the dummy myself and started all over again.
Problem with a dummy hooked up is that the dog cannot just lift it and return with it. It could be that he will need to pull quite hard to free it and to do that he will have to hang on tight. All this "COULD" lead to him clamping down rather harder than we want when retrieving. I'm not saying that it "WILL" just could, lead to a hard mouth.
But then, on the shoot the weekend before last, Amy had a Pheasant which fell into the low fork of a tree and had to work hard geting that one out. So these things happen.
Becs you're lucky love as is Zorro mine end up in trees Can you imagine the woofs horror when they mark it and then look at me and say ................you expect me to get THAT!!!!! Mind you bless Baxter he'd bounce around under a tree all day trying to work out how to get the blessed thing
Whilst I agree with the advice that you should have retrieved the dummy yourself and started again, at my local gundog club the we train for taking dummies out of a tree (granted they haven't been hung by the toggle, but strategically placed to avoid what JohnW describes) - as we have a club up here that is renowned for using a dummy up a tree in its Novice test!
I have all but given up on throwing dummies any distance, I walk out and throw them the last metre.
Not ideal for training all the time but I'm just really bad, I get a good arm swing and somehow it hits my head or ends up only a pace in front!. I joked the other day that i needed to train without the dog just to practice throwing and really I think I should
Oh I am so glad that I am not the only one who can't throw!! It is a standing joke that when I throw a dummy all my dogs look behind me - as it usually goes backwards!!!
I normally "put" my dummies out now, rather than throw them!
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