Anticipating the Three Ds - written by Butch Goodwin of Northern Flight

he dictionary defines anticipation as: (1) to look forward to, (2) to forestall, (3) to take care of in advance, and (4) to be ahead of in doing. With all due respect to Carly Simon’s 1971 hit song of the same name, she pretty well covered the first definition. For the purposes of this discussion, we need to think primarily about the last three.

In previous columns, I have talked about how important it is to stay focused on your dog when training or hunting, to teach yourself to anticipate his actions, and to know what he is going to do before he does it and "act rather than being forced to react." But let’s talk about the Three D’s: Dangers, Distractions, and Dumb Moves - things that you should "take care of in advance," "been ahead of in doing," and then, hopefully, "forestall" a bad situation or a disaster.

The Three D’s result from either a lack of pre-planning and preparation, losing concentration on the task at hand, or simply not recognizing a potentially hazardous situation. We all have done dumb or dangerous things or been distracted at the wrong time, and it will no doubt happen to each of us again; but, hopefully, we learn from our mistakes and won’t make the same one twice.

Case in point: A couple of decades back, my daughter, who was about eight years old at the time, and I were tossing bumpers across a pond for a big male Chesapeake I was training who was noted for his high-flying water entry. We had used this pond, which was behind a locked gate on private property, quite regularly and had absolutely no reason to think that a potentially deadly hazard lay just below the surface. I had my daughter walk around to the opposite side of the pond and throw a bumper onto the hillside beyond the far bank. With his usual style, the Chesapeake aggressively hurtled himself into the water and let out a squeal that was barely audible over the explosion of water and would probably have been construed as eagerness by anyone within earshot. As he continued to swim toward the mark, I made a mental note that he seemingly lacked his usual speed and enthusiasm, but I really didn’t give it a great deal of thought.

After picking up the bumper, his reentry into the water for the return was extremely tentative - not like him at all. When he reached the shore, I took the opportunity to examine him and discovered that he had injured his chest, which was very tender, and he was reluctant to have me touch it. There was no blood, and he was ready to continue with the training session; however, this usually stoic fellow was obviously in pain. To make a long story short, we loaded him up and made a quick trip to the vet where X-rays showed that he had broken a couple of ribs and would be out of action for about a month or so.

After the vet visit and with the dog still in his crate in the truck, my daughter and I returned to the pond to try to figure out how he had injured himself. It turns out that there was a rather sizeable tree that had apparently been felled by a beaver and was floating around, just under the surface of the water. With the glare coming off of the water, it was nearly impossible to recognize as anything except a dark shadow without walking around the shore a bit and looking quite closely - but it was lying in exactly the spot where the dog had landed. On a more positive note, in a bit over a month, we resumed training, and he and I hunted together for the next nine years - but never again did he hurtle himself into the water. After that day, he always ran into the water with, at best, a level of cautious enthusiasm.

Sure, this was an accident, and I was very fortunate that it didn’t have a more disastrous outcome. But just as my dog was cautious about entering the water throughout the rest of his life, it taught us both a very clear lesson, and, to this day - about 20 years later - I still tend to be excessively vigilant about checking all water and land for potential hazards when training and hunting.

This is part of an old fence that was taken down, but the fence wire is still there, hidden in the weeds.

Broken glass on land or in the water can do serious damage to a dog's feet, causing a long layoff period.

ecoming aware of and learning to anticipate the Three D’s isn’t difficult to do - but you have to consciously raise your level of awareness and force yourself to do it. Sure, we are all going to make mistakes - it’s inevitable - but if you begin to require yourself to think ahead, have a clear and focused game plan each day before you go out to train or hunt, not allow yourself to be side-tracked by other things going on in your life or around you, you can do it.

Nobody understands this more than a professional retriever trainer. A pro trainer has to deal with his helpers asking for directions, visitors who have come to train with him asking questions, the prevailing wind and weather conditions, terrain features, and designing training tests that can be run by several dogs at varying levels of abilities with only a slight modifications to the setup. All the while, he must stick with his overall game plan to see progress in each individual dog’s training, focus his total attention, and try to maintain mental contact with the dogs he is training - after all, that’s why he is out there to begin with. And, on top of all of this he has to be wary to avoid distractions that might cause him to lose his concentration, he has to anticipate potentially dangerous situations or hazards, and try to avoid the dumb moves that might cause his training to take a step backward.

Similarly, hunters are no exception when it comes to having loads of distractions to deal with. It’s not easy maintaining focus when it suddenly becomes necessary to have to control a previously steady dog that has suddenly forgotten all of his training, all the while trying to negotiate the calling and the shooting. And when the birds are on the water, hunters often find that they are distracted by multiple priorities and lose their concentration on their dog making the retrieve: other birds suddenly showing up within calling distance or dropping out of nowhere with their wings set, trying to land; trying to reload; possibly dealing with a frozen or dirty shotgun that won’t chamber or eject your new handloads; or perhaps a decoy that the dog has dislodged and is now floating off, down the river. All - and more - can take your eyes off of your dog.

Any trainer who has spent much time traveling - such as a field trial or hunt test professional, training in various locations - learns that the very first thing he must do in every new place that he uses is "walk the property" before setting up any training tests or even before exercising his dogs. Even if you are intimately familiar with the property you’re using, taking a walk around, alert for hidden hazards and checking every spot where you plan for a dog to run through should become standard procedure before you ever toss the first bumper. My dog landing on a submerged log is a perfect example of becoming complacent about an area that I was totally familiar with, had trained there countless times, and had no reason to believe there were any unseen dangers.

You may be the only person training a dog on that particular piece of property, but how do you know how the property might have been used in the past? It isn’t uncommon to find long-ago discarded glass that has worked its way to the surface, barbed or electric fence wire that is strung between old posts or left rolled up and discarded in the weeds, fishing line and lures or hooks around ponds, chunks of rusting car bodies, and all manner of other junk that was buried and has become exposed by the elements. A Lab belonging to a training partner of mine came back from a retrieve limping rather severely. He had his pad chewed up by stepping on the protruding nails of an old horseshoe lying right in the open beside a dirt road. The dog’s owner and I had been standing on the very spot where that horseshoe was located just the day before while designing a training test, and the horseshoe wasn’t there - and, there were no horses pastured on the property!

t's important to note that these types of hazards aren’t limited strictly to training areas; hunters must be aware of potential hazards, too, and thoroughly check the area out before hunting. In the past, it was common practice to protect riverbanks from erosion by burying old car bodies along the banks, and also to tear down bridges leaving old concrete bridge abutments with protruding reinforcing rods hidden under the surface of the water, just waiting to trap and slice open a swimming dog. And this isn’t limited only to waterfowl hunters: Upland hunters have to be conscious of places where people may have discarded their trash or congregated to target-practice. It isn't uncommon to find broken bottles, cans, old refrigerators shot full of holes, sharp edged broken clay pigeons, and lots of other shot-up trash right in the middle of good upland habitat.

Also, there are "dumb moves" that you can't blame on anyone but yourself. Waterfowl season occurs at a time of the year when, in most parts of the country there is the potential for a layer of ice covering the ponds or floating on the water. Trying to get a duck or goose that lands too far out on questionable ice is an invitation for disaster - possibly for both you and your dog. Likewise, sending a dog into a river for a retrieve where there is a chance that an ice shelf extends all or part way out over the water is a potential tragedy waiting to happen if he can’t climb back up or gets swept under it.

Also, all hunters who hunt rivers should have a predetermined plan with a boat or some sort of a strategy to get down the shore and get a dog out of a river should he get too far downstream while chasing a bird. If a river is rolling swiftly, your dog probably can’t hear your whistle over the rumble of the water. And if his focus is on the bird that he is chasing, he likely won’t pay much attention to his location as he is being swept along downstream, until he either grabs the bird or loses it and gives up. Then he will likely look for the closest riverbank and start trying to figure out where he came from

There is no substitute for solid obedience training and an unquestioned response to the "here" or come command when hunting a river or any other potentially dangerous surroundings. Think before you send your dog: There is no bird that is worth the life of your dog - or yours!

Like my story about the dog landing on the log, it only takes one serious accident to make a believer out of you. I have become mindful over the years that there are a great number of unseen hazards out there, and that our neighbors, as well as our ancestors, may have discarded all manner of junk by burying it, tossing it into the water, sight out of mind." And you and I have no idea what is right under our feet or right below the surface of the water where we are training or hunting unless we remain vigilant and constantly watch for these potential hazards. But you can avoid most potential problems if you make a conscious effort to remain focused on your dog and your surroundings, not allowing yourself to get distracted. Remember there are unseen dangers out there, so anticipate problems rather than making any possibly dumb moves that you will have to pay for later.