Posted: Mon Feb 16, 2009 7:27 pm Post subject: What would a 'picking-up exercise' be?
In a working test, what would be the difference between different retrieves and a 'picking-up exercise'? I'm thinking that it might be like a little walk-up jobbie, with a few dummies thrown around a line of dogs, and then you'd be told which dummy your dog should fetch, one at a time, sort of thing! Is that right, or am I straying into the misty depths of 'Becs's World' and dreaming up things that I've vaguely read about on here and have not a clue about?!!! Only there's one at the working test that I'm hoping to watch and I'd like to be able to spot the difference.
a picking up exercise is where there are a number of dummies strewn around that you haven't seen thrown and your dog has to get out and use his/her nose to find them and return them to you. You may be given a rough idea of where they are - between that tree and that tree for example so you would have to be able to hold your dog in that area.
If the dogs are sitting in a line with dummies thrown about then that would be like a drive. Very different.
Its a minefield. And there is different jargon in different partsof the country.
Sherry
A 'picking up exercise' can have a multitude of different formats, but essentially the idea is to test the dogs ability to hunt an area out on its own initiative. So the usual basic premise is that you send the dog to a given area and then let it hunt around (often unseen from the handler) until it finds a dummy (or dummies).
These contrasts with regular blind retrieves where you are given a fairly specific location of the dummy, enabling you to handle the dog to that point.
For example : You send the dog into the corner of a wood, where out of sight from you the dog hunts around until it finds a dummy or dummies (there may be a few left in the area).
Another example: You are given a specific 'square' of a field. You need to send the dog to that area and just keep him hunting in the area until he finds the dummy.
You would be likely to lose marks for struggling to get him to the required area, being unable to keep him in the area, needing encouragement to hunt, poor or indifferent hunting, the dog looking for help from the handler etc.
You would be likely to get credit for the extent that the dog does the job on his own initiative, hunting ability, finding the retrieve promptly, ground treatement by the dog etc.
can i ask what sort of distance you would be required to line a dog for a blind in a novice test please?
Well Trev, I would hope no more than 15 feet, as anymore than that and Zorro gets distracted on the way out by an interested leaf, or a small bug, or fresh air, and it's a devil's own job to get him back on track again.
But I shall bump this for you so someone can answer it sensibly!
well to be honest im a bit down in the dumps as my dog has been gundog training for 10 months now and hes so far behind zorro after just one lesson, im not even sure i should continue training anymore my dogs just so dumb
It varies tremendously Trev, a lot depends on the ground the test is being run on, you could have a relatively short distance retrieve, but the terrain, could make it quite a difficult one, ie across a river, or up or down a bank.
One thing I saw at a Test, and it tripped so many dogs up, was when a very short blind was put in, the number of dogs that set off for the next county, as people usually tend to do long blinds, and the dogs ignored the stop whistle so close into the handler.
Ever since then, I've made a point of incorporating short blinds into training, although on the day, as luck would have it, my dog did that test without any problem
But as for giving you an average distance, I would say between 60 and 75 Metres, though I maybe wrong.
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