Wylanbriar Labradors

Est: 1994
Bred for Temperament, Type and Trainability

Bumping Heads with Bondy ;-) ;-)

Bumping heads with Bondy!  😉   😉

First, take a day that you know you don’t *really* feel like training. For whatever reason. It doesn’t have to be a big reason. But theres a ‘reason’ they call it a ‘reason’, and that should be ‘reason enough’ to stay home. Wink

Secondly take a day that is threatening rain. Not just a bit, but huge sweeping black clouds gathering for miles around, and a ‘stay at home unless you want to drown’ warning on Heart ‘I only have 12 songs’ FM.

Thirdly, drive to your training field with nothing planned. Nothing. Well maybe ‘something’. Maybe an idea you might need to set ‘something’ up that went ‘pretty wrong’ at the weekend on the real thing. But because you aren’t really ‘in the mood’ you haven’t the intelligence or enthusiasm to think through how to do that worth a damn! So you arrive and fanny about wondering whether to leave the dog in the car whilst you set some blinds… or do something straightforward and seen, or…. well…. at that point I run out of ideas completely and nearly get run down by someone speeding down the lane and an ugly shouting match ensues….. ;-(

Fourthly. Have completely the wrong clothes on. Basically walking boots with a hole in. A huge great fleece rather than anything waterproof (that will turn into a giant sponge in about 40 seconds with a decent cloud burst)… Jeans that will turn to cardboard and no hat.

Fifthly (is that a word?) Want to get it right TOO badly. Have a young dog you’ve waited, what seems like forever (but isn’t!), to get out and show people his worth, and maybe MY worth, because i’m never quite sure I can hold my own through a bit of a lack of confidence and a long prolific chain of adoreable but only semi talented showbred dogs Wink Then get a couple of trial runs dangled, and suddenly making them count means EVERYTHING!!! ;-(

Sixthly, have the people who own the house on the land you train on all sitting watching from an upstairs window like you are on ‘I’m a celebrity’….

How well did training go? Not overly well. Put it this way, I started an exercise at 3.15pm. It went beautifully. I decided to do, at about 3.30pm, ONE LAST ONE and make it stupidly hard. For no real reason. We would gain nothing from my stupidly hard exercise. It was misguided, training suicide and I need a good slapping.

As I set him up for the retrieve at 3.31pm, the clouds opened and it started to pour….. I shall draw a veil over the next 55 minutes except to say I have given up Gundog training and taken up competitive Flower arranging. I was soaked. It was pitch dark. We couldn’t have understood each other less if we tried, and we both hated each other and completely weren’t on speaking terms at ALL.

We drove home in silence. Then I caught his eye in the rear view mirror, and he grinned and winked at me. (He DID! I SWEAR!…. Wink ) And I started laughing…. and he starting wiggling and waggling in the boot, and I started apologising, and he started to tell me that I had been ALL wrong for the wind, I wasn’t thinking about the incline of the ground, I was getting him in a frenzy and he couldn’t think straight…and basically I was a utter moron.

I couldn’t agree with him more, and we decided to go to the pub. Wink

Hard Decision number 247….

Train in the rain….:

Versus…:

The Pub….

View Image

Ummmm….. Tricky….. 😉

Nov 2010