Okay, the Central Indiana NAVHDA had another training day on Saturday so I have an update. We've been working a bit on WHOA at home. Nothing to technical or proper, just trying to get him to slow/stop when it hears the command. A large reason for this is that he's not pointing all that well yet and I (more accurately I was told) think it's due to him catching birds on the ground during training. I put my order in for 5 pigeons for the day and contacted a couple of members whom agreed to bring some bird launchers to keep him from hopefully catching the birds.
The first bird was loaded and ready. As soon as Hank caught the scent and turned toward the launcher we hit the launch and the bird took off! We kept that up for 3 more birds and you could see him starting to get it. When he'd hit the scent cone he started slowing/getting more cautious until the bird took off. I spent a good part of the rest of the day helping either plant or shooting birds for others. BTW, be sure to check to make sure you've taken your turkey choke out. Makes it harder to hit birds on the wing and does a number on them when you do hit them...
Most everyone in the group I was with was about done with the field work and ready to move on to some water work, so I planted the last pigeon I had in the launcher and put Hank on the check cord. I let him burn off some energy and then gently encouraged him downwind of the bird. He caught the scent, slowed and started creeping towards the bird. I gave a soft tug on the check cord, whispered WHOA and bang, he locked up on point about 10' from the bird! Not even a tail wag! We let him hold it about 10sec and launched the bird. He gave it a good chase, but it didn't land. I was tickled! Thanks to one of the members I now have an application for a Conservation Club about 10mins from the house that has a 20ish acre dog training area and homing pigeons. Hopefully I can get everything processed and keep Hank progressing on his pointing.
After that, we moved over to the water. While others were working on duck searches, Hank and I just played with bumpers in the water. He shows no hesitation in going for a swim and to date has always brought the bumper back.
So, we are going to continue to work on WHOA and tracking drills at home. If I can get the keys to the club, do our best to get him on some live birds. They don't have remote launchers, but they do have some manual tip up baskets. If I can get one of my kiddo's or my wife to go with me that should work. I'd really love to get a remote launcher or 2, at $300 a pop I'm just not sure I can swing that right now... He will doing his Natural Ability Test in late August with a pre-test practice day the week before. I am fully confident he'll max out his score on the water portion. He's not flinching at all to the sound of starter pistols or gunfire, so we should be good there. I feel like he's doing well with the tracking at home, but tracking a dragged bumper is different than a live rooster. And pointing... He's doing a great job of finding birds, but I really hope to get him to pointing a bit better prior to the test. In the end, his score is really irrelevant, but as anyone who's done this type of stuff we all want to see our dogs do well.
All in all, we had a very good dog weekend!
