Fowl Play

Duck Season May Seem Like a Long Way Off, but It’s Not Too Early to Start Training and Conditioning Your Dog for That First Retrieve. These Drills Will Get Your Hunting Partner Into Great Shape and Also Get You Two Outside Having Fun.

- T.edward Nickens

BLIND RETRIEVES

­Charlie Moody (tuscaokakennels.com) has been training dogs since he was 19 years old. He didn’t stop as a college student, and even kept it up while working at a bank after graduation. Now he trains a steady clientele of retrievers on 320 acres of training ponds, fields, and woods outside Louisville, Miss., and runs 18 field trials a year. “Particularly in summer, 10 minutes a day is better than four hours on the weekend,” he says. “Keep things simple, and zero in on a very specific task.” Like taking a line for blind retrieves.

1 . THE WHEEL DEAL

“The nice thing about this drill is that it can be done in your backyard, before or after work, so you don’t have to commit a lot of time to it,” Moody says. “Nobody wants to work too hard in summer, and that includes your dog. You’re teaching two skills at once here—how to take a line, and how to focus on where you are sending the dog, and not where they want to go. Keep at it until your dog moves fluidly from bumper to bumper, then add as many as four more bumpers to the wheel.”

2 . ASSUME THE POSITION

“Set up the drill in the shape of a wagon wheel. You and the dog are at the hub, and the bumpers are at the end of each spoke. Have the dog sit and stay, then toss out four white bumpers 20 yards away at the 12, 3, 6, and 9 o’clock positions.

“Now the fun begins: Send the dog to retrieve a bumper, but don’t start with the last one you threw. That’s where the dog’s focus might be, but you’re saying: No, not that one. Go to the  one I’m telling you to retrieve.”

3 . COME INTO FOCUS