RETRIEVING AUSTRALIA FORUM

Yeah that's the one. But I must say that I do really enjoy watching a hard charging lab tackle the terrain head on.

Hello Teresa and everyone else. Julie encouraged me to join in on this site and now I am reading instead of working! I have little knowledge of your jargon so can some-one please explain what a swim by is?

Regards Diane

Hi Dianne,

Swim-by is the process through which you teach a dog how to handle while it is swimming. The set-up can be likened to a single “T” on land that has been transported to water environment. Imagine a rectangular dam and you are standing at the mid point of the “long side”, near the water’s edge and facing the water. Dummies located directly opposite you on the land or at the water’s edge are the central or “back” pile of the “T”. Dummies located at or near the water’s edge and the mid-point of the two “short” sides of the dam are the left and right hand over piles. Over time you can teach a dog to line to the centre pile and to return directly back to you. The next step is to teach the dog to stop to the whistle and tread water before taking a left hand or right hand “back” to the central pile. The next step is to teach your dog to line the left hand over pile when you are sending it from the point where the right hand over pile would normally be located. You then repeat the exercise by sending the dog from where the left hand over pile would be located and lining the right hand over pile. At all time the dog must return to you via the water. The penultimate step is to return to the original send point and be able to line the central pile, or to stop the dog and cast it either left or right to the over piles. Each time you give the dog the over cast you must run to the opposite end of the dam to call the dog in after it has picked up the dummy you have sent it to retrieve. In other words, if you gave it a left overcast the dog would exit the water at the right hand end of the dam and vice versa for a right hand over cast. The final step it to teach your dog to stop and take the various casts and to re-enter the water and to exit the water at the opposite end of the dam all the while you remain standing at the original send point i.e. you can swim the dog by you (past you) while it has a dummy in its mouth.

The purpose of this drill it to raise your level of control while the dog is in an environment that imposes certain challenges. The big spin off is that, in complex situations, it gives you an ability to handle a dog in order to maintain a straight line return even when the dog is temped to cheat the water and take the easy option for the return.
Run-by is the same thing done on the land.

Regards, RWT

Hi Diane,

Welcome aboard! I can certainly empathise with you about spending time reading the forum instead of working - I suspect most of us experience the same problem....

Glad to have you joining in at long last!

Feel free to PM me if you'd like a link to the swim-by drill which provides easy-to-follow diagrams. See ya!

Teresap

Phew!! Thanks Bob, I'm not sure if I have the mental capacity to train a dog - but I shall endeavour to do so.

Hi Diane,

Welcome !

Don't fret too much about the descriptions of these drills sounding complex. If you can get someone to actually show you the drill in action it will all be very clear and simple. I must have read the details of the "floating baseball" about ten times and I was still completely bamboozled. But when I saw a dog complete the drill it all fell into place!

Best of luck!

Kirsty

Glad to have another GSP owner here! Kirsty what on earth is a floating baseball? Like walking but in the water? If so do you need to swim too?

Hi Prue,

LOL!! Sorry, I shouldn't have mentioned the "floating baseball" in a water blind thread! Its the same as a walking baseball (ie performed on land) - I just call it floating because that's the term used in the drill book I work from.

Again, sorry for the confusion

Kirsty

Robert Tawton wrote:Mark in answer to your question; yes, I do use flags for identifying the piles in T work, Swim-by and on early cold blinds.

Hi Bob
Forgive my ignorance, but what is a swim-by?

Hi Guest,

Bob has answered your question already. Please see his reply to Dianne above.

Kirsty