MOVING ON

Irishwhistler · Apr 30, 2019

Moving On ~ Lake Chaffee's Autumn Legacy O' Trad Finian Mac - call name "MAC".

T'was just this time last year that wee MAC a pup of about nine week old was being encouraged to start retrieving with a clean paint roller. Here the young MAC is seen proudly returning with a paint roller that had been tossed for him, one of his first early retrieves.

Now at 14 months of age, I will be heading off to Long Island this coming Friday to run MAC in his first HRC licensed hunt test event as hosted by the Long Island Retriever Field Trial Club. Much training during the last year of MAC has been diligently conducted in preparation toward making him competent as a K9 hunt test athlete and gun dog. Our participation as a handler / K9 team this weekend will see all of that prior training put to the test under actual hunt test conditions this weekend. I will update next week with our results.

Cheers,
TEAM MAC

smoke665 · Apr 30, 2019

How could you not live puppy pictures? @Irishwhistler when you're training on the retrieve do you use any scent on the roller?

Irishwhistler · Apr 30, 2019

smoke665 said:
How could you not live puppy pictures? @Irishwhistler when you're training on the retrieve do you use any scent on the roller?

Smoke,
No need to use scent on the roller. My own scent which the pup has previously imprinted to is on it. The pup is making the retrieve by visual marking, not by scent tracking to locate at this early stage of development. Once the pup's mechanics of retrieve are established at a simple level, I quickly transition over to live training pigeons to solidify scent tracking and enhance prey drive in the pup.

Mike

Irishwhistler · Apr 30, 2019

MAC a few weeks later after the paint roller intro, seen here carrying a live Chukar training bird. Proper hold / mouth habits formed, the Chuckar is carried softly by the retriever trainee.

Mike