I had the pleasure of a day out with some like minded friends yesterday, training at the Isenhurst estate with Gilly Nichols. There are numerous lakes to choose from, and we started the day off with our puppies, firstly making sure that they were happy entering water for a marked retrieve and later asking them to swim to the other side, which they all achieved, so it was a good experience for 14 month old Moidart.
We then swapped dogs, and I worked my two and a half year old dog, Riska, starting off with a couple of marks to warm them up, followed by asking them to swim over water, cross a causeway and enter the next lake to pick a mark: we then did this from the other side, which entailed a much longer swim.
We stopped for lunch and enjoyed sitting at the picnic bench overlooking the lakes, while wondering what Gilly had in store for us, because she had said that the retrieves would get progressively harder as the day wore on.
The afternoon saw us split into two teams of three and we had to take it in turn to pick three blinds over water, either at an angle to the right, straight into the lake then over a jump, up the hill and into the edge of woodland to pick, or diagonally over the lake to the left and up a trackway: the latter retrieve was pretty difficult, because it was a long swim and I was very pleased with the line that Riska took.
We then worked up to the grand finale which was a blind to shot on the peninsula, but to get there the dogs had to cross the first lake at an angle, go over the intervening causeway and complete a long swim to reach the retrieve. Needless to say, there was much help and encouragement from Gilly, with the retrieve broken down into smaller stages at the start.
I always enjoy working my dogs at Isenhurst, and I was very satisfied with Riska’s performance, as were the other handlers and their lovely dogs. Days like these remind us how fortunate we are to take part in such a wonderful sport.
