There is a nice spot near our house where I used to work Brandy last
summer. It is a grassy area that is surrounded by the backyards of two
single family houses on one side and woods on other three. Great for
distractions as you can easily run into bunch of deers, fox, not to
mention squirrels or rabbits.
I think I stopped going there during all that snow that we got last
winter and then I just used to our new spot, but past Friday I finally
went back there.
As I mentioned last Friday we started having some biting issues during
retrieves. During our Saturday class Margot wanted demo to everyone
how to handle the it, but of course Brandy refused to provide an
opportunity, so I had to live with just instructions for the future.
As we were approaching the area, I saw the fox standing there, we were
kind of far and Brandy was too busy with picking the potty spot and I
guess smell didn't reach her yet.
By the time we hit the spot fox dissapeared by the smell was really
strong for her. Brandy was all trembling with the excitement . I
didn't want to waste any time , put her on the sit stay and tossed the
dumbbell. She was so consumed by the smell that not only she didn't
notice the command, but also didn't put up any fight during
correction, but one correction was sufficient. After that she was
quite frantic, but did the retrieves.
After 3 successful retrieves I let her to pick up the fox track and
follow it for a bit. When we reached the woods Brandy started
frantically running back left to right and right to left at the end of
a longe line, so I called her and we did few more retrieves. Retrieves
were fine but her fronts are almost non-existent on a good day, now I
had a real hard time getting her straight. Also tomorrow I will need
to remember to grub my throwchains with me as her recall under such a
strong distraction was really bad also.

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