Field of Fun!

Winee and I have been playing at field work, retrieving bumpers and birds. Last weekend we worked with our classmates running on different terrain with our dogs. In this sequence, we were at the top of a hill and the throwers were down the hill throwing the bumpers up the other side. of the opposite hill. I was just glad I was not the one doing the retrieving!
Winee's first mark in this exercise.

What a gal! The dog crying in the background is the honor dog.. clearly not happy that he was not the one getting the bumper!
Here is our second mark on the same terrain, but to the left of her first mark. I am holding Winee's collar and stopping her from leaving because she is so smart that she figured out as soon as the "judge" says 'DOG' that I need to release her! She is such a helper! So we practiced the judge saying 'dog' several times before I gave her my release command.

You have to love her enthusiasm. It's been 11 years since I have had a dog that could do field work. Since then I have only had 'back yard' field dogs! It is nice to see that over the past years the negativity in field training has lessened somewhat. Being a purely positive trainer, it's very difficult to be around negative training. Years ago when I worked with my UD dog, Mohawk, in field classes, I was the only one using a clicker and positive rewards. The rest of my classmates chose to use electronic collars, riding crops, force fetch and lots of 'No'. Even though the instructor was supportive of my positive training, it was a very hard to keep my spirits up during that class. Although these methods are still being used, it is much less prevalent and while a few of my current classmates are chosing to use some negative training, there are those who are not. It is a much happier experience! Of course it helps to have a buddy in class that is also a positive trainer ... Nancy & Brio (Winee's half sister), plus 2 instructors who also support my choices :-)
It is so exciting to watch all the dogs work at their natural job. I will continue to video our experiences and post them over the next few months. Enjoy the show!