Hi Karen,

I think that your moving too fast,as you've already spotted the dog does not really understand the signals. This is always hard for handlers to get their head round as the dog often does what you instruct it to do, so how can it not understand? You have to look back at yourself through the eyes of the dog, what is clear to the dog at close range can become obscure or less clear at a distance, let alone at a side angle. There is also the possibility that the dog is reacting to a `sublimimal signal' that the handler is giving not the one the handler percieves they are giving!

All retrieving is about building the confidence up in your dog and rewarding the act of retrieving, in training you should never push the dog to a level where it can not achieve success, without to much help from you. The mistake we all make is continuing to over handle when a dog goes wrong instead of stopping and resetting the retrieve to an easier level.

Personally when I train blinds or memories and seek backs I like to see the young dog `pounce' on the retrieve when they find it, it shows that they are getting a level of achievement and satisfaction out of the exercise, and I can adjust the difficulty accordingly, or indeed stop retrieving if the dog is not in the right frame of mind.

The other thing to remember when training blinds, is that your function is to put the dog in the area of the retrieve, down wind, so you must know what the wind is doing in the retrieve area. Its the dogs function to `hunt' out the area staying tight and then slowley expanding outwards, training confidence with success is key to this discipline.

I have to admit I do not directional train on blinds, I keep the training of left/right signals to seen and memories and of course on quartering.

Peter