Walking Singles, May/June 2002

Walking Singles

There should be no argument among experienced retriever trainers that teaching your retriever marking concepts is an essential part of his training development. Unfortunately, many novice trainers become so enamored with teaching running lines and handling that they occasionally overlook teaching necessary marking skills. Most beginners, due to job and family constraints, spend much of their time training alone and find that teaching blind running is training that doesn’t require a cadre of helpers. After all, lining and handling can be taught by a single person utilizing a variety of well-documented training drills; marking requires helpers to throw multiple marks in a variety of configurations.

To a point that is true, but a tremendous level of comprehensive marking can be achieved by throwing singles. And, it doesn’t take the setting up of sophisticated multiple marks and running back and forth, in and out of the field continually changing throwers, to work on singles and develop a high level of marking skill. Let me explain.

With some terrain changes - such as this ditch - you can get pretty imaginative with this drill.

First you say, “What the heck is this guy talking about? What are marking concepts?” Good question. All retrievers should be able to watch the fall of a shot or thrown bird or bumper and, when sent, go to the area of the fall and hunt out the mark or follow the trail of a cripple. Pretty elementary, you think. Well, suppose the fall is a relatively moderate distance of about 50 yards across a fairly flat field at eye level with changing cover, and then immediately before reaching the location where the bird fell, the dog encounters a small piece of water or a wide ditch. What is he going to do?

The answer is, unless he has been taught to drive deep through the cover and cross the “surprise water,” there is a good chance that the water will act as a “brick wall”; he will probably hunt the near side and have to be handled or wind the bird to continue across. This is a marking concept.

At position (1), one handler and dog (H1D) throws a mark for the second handler and dog (H2D). When the dog returns, H2D then throws the mark for H1D. When Dog 1 returns, each party walks to position (2) and repeats the drill. Adding terrain (such as a pond), flyers, and blinds can really increase the difficulty - and benefit - of the drill.

Let’s use another example. You are hunting pheasants toward the top of a fairly steep sidehill, your dogless hunting partner kicks out a rooster near the bottom of the hill. The rapidly escaping bird flies up the hill, and he kills it so that it lands slightly down the hill below your level, but about 40 yards out. You quickly send your dog after the fleeing rooster (we all know that pheasants wear bullet-proof vests) - where does the dog likely go? In the direction of the fall but to the bottom of the hill. The falling away of the side-hill has “sucked” him to the bottom. Another marking concept.

For about the first 20 years, due to job obligations, I trained pretty much alone. All of my training partners worked normal hours, and I was either traveling as a sales rep in the sporting goods industry or in later years working evening hours in a business. When traveling, I looked for likely spots and trained wherever I stopped for the night, usually alone. Later, when I worked in a business, I had every morning off for training or hunting.

But neither of these lifestyles was conducive to being certain of having helpers available for throwing marks. I looked for training partners whenever and wherever I could find them.
I also searched for training drills from which I could get the most return on my investment in time and help, when I had it.

ne of the simple and effective marking drills that I began utilizing was aptly named by my long-time friend and training buddy, Ruth Holgate, as walking singles. Walking singles is a marking drill that requires only two people, each with a dog at the same relative skill level. If there is a third trainer, terrific; but if there is a whole group, it is probably more efficient to set up gun stations and switch trainers on a regular basis.

With your dog watching your partner's dog pick up the bumper right before his eyes, you'll have plenty of opportunity to work on steadiness.

Walking singles requires only one bumper or dead bird, and it can teach sophisticated marking concepts along with tremendous steadiness. If a trainer spends his time when he is training alone teaching blind running, those lining and handling skills can also be incorporated later into the walking singles drill. And, the great benefit is that both dogs get a lot of work and a lot of learning in a very short period of time. Here’s how it goes:

Two trainers each take their dogs out into the field and pick a good spot at a reasonable distance to throw a mark for the other dog. The first trainer fires a shot in the air from a blank pistol and throws a bumper or dead bird, and the other trainer’s dog is sent to pick it up. The throwing trainer’s dog is required to sit steady while the other dog picks up the mark. Then, after the retrieving dog returns the bumper, the trainer who now has the bumper picks a good spot for a fall, fires, and tosses a mark for the other trainer’s dog. After the bumper is returned to the trainer who first threw, he moves to a new location and picks another likely spot for a good fall and shoots and throws again. And on and on it goes, moving around and picking fresh spots, new cover, and new concepts for each throw. Seem simple? It is. But, let’s go deeper and add some sophistication to the basic fundamentals of walking around and tossing marks in a field.

Okay, so I kind of lied - it would probably he a good idea to have more than only one bumper. Now that the drill is progressing beyond basic marks in an open field, at some point you will undoubtedly find it necessary to have to help one of the dogs that has mismarked a fall. So, each trainer better have an extra bumper shoved in his back pocket to throw in order to help get the marking dog back into the area of the fall. The trainer throwing the mark, who had to throw a second time to help the dog, can then use his dog as a “pick-up” dog and retrieve the bumper that was mismarked. So invest in a couple more bumpers.

Adding a pond, ditch, or radical cover and terrain adds changes into the equation and brings on a totally new set of conditions. The two trainers can move around the pond as they pass the bumper back and forth and pick spots for the falls based on the other dog’s skill level, all the while having their dogs sit steady for the throws. The same goes for changes in cover and terrain. By utilizing the terrain available - and with a little imagination - falls can require the marking dog to hold a high-line as they run sidehills, drive deep into heavy cover, run a long distance through a field and then cross a small piece of water as we outlined above or whatever the terrain allows and based on the level of the dog’s marking ability. The possibilities are obviously endless and only dependent upon the terrain at the trainers’ disposal and the skill level of the dogs. And by starting out short and relatively simple, the distances and level of complexity of the marks can be increased as rapidly as each individual dog’s learning capacities will allow.

hile this is tremendous marking practice, one of the key side benefits of this training involves the super-steadying of the honoring dog - the dog sitting steady beside the trainer throwing the mark. To help further reinforce his honoring, rather firing multiple shots from a blank pistol while the bumper or bird is in the air will add to the excitement for the honoring dog and, for the marking dog, more closely resemble what is done while hunting. Likewise, trainers can each have a live bird or two in their vests and shotguns strategically stashed in predetermined locations in the field ready to shoot an occasional live flyer. Talk about steadying the honoring dog! And, for further reinforcing the honor dog’s steadiness, try sitting him at a remote location, away from his trainer, while throwing and while the other dog retrieves the mark.

If you spend much of your time training alone teaching lining and handling, as I did years ago, you can integrate those blind-running skills into the walking singles drill as well. (Well, now maybe you better invest in a few more bumpers.) Have your partner place a blind for your dog at a strategic location, have him throw a mark, and then come back and run a blind to the planted bumper. Or, get into the “big leagues” by reversing the order to make it more difficult by throwing the mark, run the blind, and then come back and pick up the mark he threw. The variations are endless, only limited by the abilities of the dogs involved, the terrain available, and the imagination of the trainers. Also, if three trainers want to participate, multiple marks and multiple blinds can be incorporated into the training. (Geez, maybe you better invest in about a dozen bumpers alter all!)

With all of this said, the question will undoubtedly come up from newcomers as to the value of doing singles. Pros have long realized the value of throwing single marks for teaching marking concepts. Most experienced amateurs and certainly the pros break a complex multiple marking drill down into its individual components and teach each mark separately. Often when working on a comprehensive set of multiple marks, it is common to put all of the gunners in the field but throw each mark individually. In this way, the dog can learn each mark before being asked to run it as a double, triple, or quad.

The goal here is to have him do it correctly; thus the trainer won’t be forced to correct the dog for making a mistake. Remember, the idea in all training is to teach the dog so that he performs the drills properly to avoid having to correct him for an infraction caused by the fact that he simply doesn’t understand what he is being asked to do.

Walking singles isn’t meant to take the place of placing gun stations in a field and doing multiple marks if you have field trial or hunt test aspirations. But it is a terrific drill for teaching these complex individual marking concepts that can get as sophisticated as your imagination will allow.

But a final word of caution is in order: This is a drill in which a dog can do lots of running or swimming in a very short period of time, while it is possible for the trainers to move only short distances. I have seen trainers get so imaginative and caught up in running and teaching complex marks and blinds that they forget the dog’s stress level, air and water temperature, distances involved, and that the dog is possibly wearing out quite rapidly. Take it easy on him.