"Dixie"

03/30/09: Charlie and I took Dixie and Beau down to Central Florida HRC for a seminar put on by Rick Stawsi (Fine Line Retrievers & Fawl Dog DVD series).  Her training had slowed down over the past couple of months because of my work schedule and the fact that she has struggled at marking.  The seminar was part of jump starting (re-jumstarting) her training.  Rick put on a great training event.  Since we were already in the process of finishing her full force fetch program, that's where we concentrated while working with Rick.  She did very well, although we uncovered some room to improve.  We are going to start 3 handed casting drills next week and we'll continue to work on marking as well.  She'll get there...she's too good not to.

10/26/08: Dixie ran as test dog at Coastal Empire and was the star of the show.  There were many comments about why she wasn't running in the test.  We may decide to run her in a Started test in the Spring just before she runs her first Seasoned test.

10/13/08: Almost 6 months old now and the real training has begun!  Obedience is the priority and she is doing great.  The basic stuff...here, sit, etc are pretty solid.  She is doing well at heal off lead. 

Now that all of her puppy teeth have been exchanged for adult teeth, we have begun Force Fetch.  She is doing fantastic with it.  We've actually trained for 3 days over the past 5 and she is solid on HOLD to the point that we are doing her obedience work with a bumper in her mouth.  FETCH is next and will probably start later this week.  From there we'll return to some actual retriever training.

House training has gotten much better as well.  We still have pee-pee accidents (she must have a bladder the size of a peanut), but she has stopped the number two's in her crate and in the house.  She is terrible about barking, so for the first time I've bought a bark collar.  It has worked like a charm.  Hopefully it actually changes the behavior so that we can retire it shortly...we'll see!

8/11/08: General puppy housbreaking continues.  Dixie hates her crate and has no problem soiling it.  She'll get past it!

The pictures at the bottom of her "in action" page were just taken yesterday.  She is a wonderful natural talent and is sure to live up to my hopes for her both in the blind and in the hunt test world.

30 yard marks at her age and water entries that look like she's a year old...sounds very much like what was written about her father,  AFC Emberain Rugby, at that age.

7/28/08:  Dixie is just over 3 months old now.  She is a beautiful, energetic puppy and a very effectionate playmate for our boys and Beau. 

She is working on some introductory work with a small teal, Dokken style, dummy as well as a traditional "puppy" bumper.  She has already had some exposure to birds in the form of pigeons at a our local NEFHRC training day as well as  pheasant wings strapped to the bumpers. 

She goes with us when Beau is training.  You can almost see the light going on in her head when a mark is thrown for him.  She instinctively sits square, her ears perk up and she watches intently until he returns with the prize.  She shows the same interest when I have a dog training video or a duck hunting video on the TV. 

She has had 2 chances to get into swimming water so far.  The first was at the July NEFHRC training day.  I walked out with her to let her know that she can swim.  The next time, two days later, she let me know that she could swim.  I threw a bumper (full size) 25 feet out and she lept into the water; not walk, not run...lept.  She retrieved the mark and returned straight to me and delivered to hand.  Super Retriever Series here she comes.