Wednesday 1st July 2009

The Signal Centre.
Warm, 21.5c, & humid but for the first time in a while a breeze from the South.
To me this was as fascinating a session as I have been involved in in some time. I took Coco on his own to hunt for the pigeon.
First of all I searched for a place with just about sufficient cover to hide the launcher but low enough cover not to disrupt the scent cone unduly. I found a place about half the size of a tennis court and placed the launcher at the windward side so that the scent would drift down over the relatively smooth ground.
Coco isn’t the most confident on his own so I took him for a bit of a walk down wind and then made a U turn to head back towards the bird, into the wind. Coco would run out a bit, poke a round a bit, and run back. I would give him a pat and just stand there until he ran off again. No pressure was the idea. Several times when he came back he didn’t stop, he just ran on out the other side. On these occasions I said nothing. With a sensitive dog even praise can distract them and spoil what you want to do so mum was the word.
After about fifteen minutes of this we were fifty yards down wind of the bird. He was getting some sort of scent. He would put this nose to the ground and root around a bit. Pop his head up to, sort of, take the air and then put his nose to the ground again. This brought us forward another twenty yards. At this stage he got a definite draft of the bird but he veered off to the left, with his nose in the air. He ended up about ten yards upwind of the bird but by that time had lost the scent. I called him back and eventually he came back towards me and back into the scent cone. He immediately veered off to the right but was drawn towards the bird, at first by scent. I could see the expression on his face and he was really thinking about this scent. He was edging forward very slowly but by the time he was five yards from the bird he could see the launcher. The second he saw the launcher I triggered the bird. After a long two second delay it also triggered Coco and he took off after the bird but being new at this sort of thing he quickly lost sight of, and interest in the bird. He came back, nosed about the launcher, I gave him encouragement, rather than praise and put him on the lead.
This all augers well. He is beginning to have interest in scent and birds. I have moved him and Chris to the pen behind the garage and near the loft. Every time I go out I will taunt him with a pigeon. The first time I did it before I came in he looked with mild interest at the bird which I held up to the weldmesh so that he could nearly touch it through the wire. When I let it go he nearly came through the wire! Small acorns and all that jazz but I believe we are making progress.