The 4-Wheeler loaded with chairs, stickmen and
remotes (Zinger Winger, Top Gun and Max 5000)

Advantages of Training Alone

The ability to train alone can be an asset so long as you can effectively maintain or progress your dog in the skills required today. Such training can be very valuable when time is short and there is only time for a couple of setups. Also, you can custom train each dog which may not always be possible in a larger group. Your free time may restrict your training to short periods when nobody else is available. Rather than not train, training alone may be the solution.

Disadvantages of Training Alone

Before I describe my approach to training alone I will emphasize that there are several disadvantages. First is that it is a second-rate substitute for situations in which you have multiple helpers. For some trainers, a training group may help considerably with day-today motivation - i.e., getting out there and just doing it. Novices training alone will have nobody to help with advice about what they are doing and how to solve training problems. This can apply to experienced trainers also. In addition, there is no help with the physical setting up, the clean up, the supply of equipment and birds. It’s frustrating to drive for an hour, set up a big water triple, run 1 dog and drive home. Training alone effectively may require the use of remote controlled launchers for certain experiences - such units are costly and can add complexity and extra work to training. Despite these disadvantages, training alone may help you to realize your goal. I have trained Open all-age dogs alone for many years now. In those cases where I was doing wildlife field research, there was often no training group in the area. Much of the time my schedule only allowed me an hour or so maximum per day, sometimes in the morning or perhaps only 40 minutes at lunch. A couple of years ago, just before I retired, I had a very busy schedule but 3-4 dogs. I rarely had time to train and rarely for longer than an hour. I was obligated to use techniques for training alone. I’ll be the first to admit that my dogs suffered during that period but it was more from lack of training than from not having a training group. These days I have the luxury of heading south for a few months in the winter, where I have a great training group with lots of help, knowledge, birds, equipment and superb grounds. However, when back home, I train alone during the day most of the time. There remains a shortage of nearby trainers with compatible schedules. Whenever I can, I arrange training with 1, 2 or more people but oftentimes that is not possible. I find I can reasonably maintain my dogs and also advance higher skill levels with the methods I use.

The remainder of this article will describe methods and special procedures that I use to keep my dogs tuned up for today’s tough all-age competition. Everybody can visualize training alone when doing basics in the yard or maintenance drills in a yard-type environment. The real trick is to be able to train effectively for blinds with assorted diversions and marks in field and water environments. In order to do this, I use equipment such as remote launchers and 4-wheelers not only to be more effective but also to be more efficient. Nobody has unlimited time. Often, I still find I only have 1-2 hours a day despite having more freedom about scheduling.

A Summer Day Training Alone

I will describe a "full" day from last summer when I was training 3 dogs (2 Open, 1 Junior) in order to paint a picture of methods that you can use to train alone. It will give you some ideas of methods, equipment and scheduling. This day was during the middle of the trial season several weeks before the Canadian National Amateur for which I was preparing (Chip won and Target was a finalist — Tule was 18 months and not running trials yet).

6:30am Got up and aired dogs for 15 minutes giving them water and 1 cup of food each. Loaded dogs into truck.

6:45 Took 3 ducks and 1 pheasant out of freezer to thaw – caught 2 live pigeons.

7-8:00 Breakfast and caught up on e-mail, then aired dogs for 10 minutes.

8:15 Took Tule over to "yard" field and did a 16 bumper lining wagon-wheel with orange and white bumpers. Ran through picking up orange bumpers first and then white. Alternated sides after each 3 and worked on communication with "heel/here/that’s it".

8:45 Loaded 4-wheeler on trailer including birds, remote launchers and my white "stickmen". Note all my other equipment is always present on truck.

9:00 Drove to nearby field on home farm for first set-up: a 3-Peat Land/Water Blind (see Setup 1 diagram). At the field, I loaded up 3 orange blind stakes and 9 orange bumpers. Using the 4-wheeler, I set out blinds so that each line was through a narrow pond and through gaps between large round hay bales. Each blind was about 225-250 yards long. I drove a roundabout route but did cross the lines in two places with the 4-wheeler. Back at the line I set up a holding blind and put a mat at the line on a mound.

9:15 Aired Tule and ran him first. Did B1, B3, B2. For Tule, my emphasis was on the 3-Peat through the pond and keeping it simple. For Target and Chip, I wanted to add diversions and additional factors. I staked Tule out beside the truck and got 2-way radios, and put one in the breeze-way of the truck and one clipped to my back pocket.

9:25 For the big dogs, I wanted to put out a chair, a white stickman and the ability to do a dry shot and a poison bird. I also wanted them to navigate some scent on the blind. I loaded up the 4-wheeler including a 5-shot bumper remotely controlled thrower (Max 5000). While in the field I used the radio to say "Plant the blind, Guns Up". This relayed back to the dogs in a trial-type atmosphere voice. I also test fired the ‘Max’ twice so that the dogs heard the guns in the field before they came out of the I also test fired the ‘Max’ twice so that the dogs heard the guns in the field before they came out of the truck. Next, I loaded 4 bumpers in the ‘Max’ but left a space between them so that I could do a dry shot, a mark, a dry shot, a mark. I drove to the other side of the pond and plucked feathers from a duck to scent the area.

9:40 I aired Target and ran B3 blind with the diversion stickman. After that I fired a dry shot with the ‘Max’ and ran B2. Then I fired a bumper from the ‘Max’ as a poison bird and ran B1 under the arc. I then got Target to get the poison bird bumper. I ran the same set up with Chip.

9:55 I picked up all the gear in the field, put the dogs in the truck and headed to a nearby field for a land triple.

10:00 I already knew what I wanted so it didn’t take long to set up 3 remote throwers with the 4-wheeler. (See Setup 2 diagram). Once again I had the radio in the breezeway and I talked to it. I also test-fired every remote in the field so that the dogs heard the shooting. The two Top Gun remotes have provision for using shotgun poppers so loud bangs were possible. Back at the line I set up the holding blind, line mat and bird dryer. The dryer I use, made by Tangelo, allows me put the Tri-tronics transmitters for the 150 remote control and for the Pro-500 e-collar in the holding arm so that they are handy.

The Zinger Winger with a white coat which can be made to retire.

Details of the "retiring gunner" -- A white jacket on a coat hanger with the straightened end of hte hook just barely under the stretch cord.  When the remote is released the hanger and coat fall to the ground.

10:25 Ready to start the triple. For Tule, I shot M2 and then M3 as a double. When he had retrieved them I did M1 as a single. It had a live shackled pigeon so it was like a flyer. After staking out Tule I jumped on the 4-wheeler and reloaded all stations. At each station I reset the device, placed a bird and reloaded the primer/popper. The time at each station was but a minute. I ran Target and Chip on the same setup but as a triple, M1, M2, M3. The live pigeon at M1 helped them watch the bird and not head swing. I rigged the M2 station so that the white coat fell down when fired, effectively creating a retired station (see photos above). I wanted to work on secondary selection (to retired M2) after going long (M3) but with the long flyer (M1) visible. Note I also used a mixed bag with a pheasant after a duck.

A station with a chair, stickman and a Max 5000

11:00 All 3 dogs run and all the gear gathered up.

11:35 Back at the house I loaded the canoe on the truck and disconnected the 4-wheeler trailer. I had a leisurely lunch, made a few phone calls and was ready to head for water around 1pm. The water spot was about 20 minutes away.

1:00pm Headed for water.

2:00 The third setup was ready to go. I had to use the canoe to plant 3 blinds (B1 at 275 yards). I could easily walk to M1 and M2 to set them up (see Setup 3 diagram). Decoys and some plucked duck feathers helped set up the blind. Again, I had a holding blind, radios and had fired the remotes a few times to get the noise effect to the dogs in the truck. They came out of the truck pretty pumped up.

3:10 Finished running the setup with 3 dogs including the reloading, and staking out and airing in between. The setup had worked well as a strong cross-wind had developed just as forecast the night before when I planned it.

3:45 Back home I unloaded the gear and put the almost dry ducks back into the freezer. While getting ready to cook dinner, I sat on the porch and did my training notes for the day and planned tomorrow. It had been a valuable and enjoyable day. I felt that I had done a lot of good training despite being alone.

The above was a full day of training but at a very reasonable and enjoyable pace. Granted it was luxury to have the whole day but you can easily visualize what could be accomplished with less time or with even one person to help you. Having a few more dogs to run the setups would not have taken much longer as most of the time was spent on logistics. While I am not able to do all that work every day, it should be obvious that my dogs did get some excellent exposure to some big setups that would teach or at least maintain skills.

A station with a Top Gun and a Stickman

I hope that this article has painted a picture of possibilities for the lone trainers. On many occasions I do not have the time to do 3 big setups as I described here. I also do a lot of training on marks using stand alones. That method has been described several times in earlier ONLINE’s. Basically, it involves leaving your dog on line, walking out into the field and throwing a bird and releasing your dog to come and retrieve while you are out in the field. I then leave the dog there and walk to a new location. You can work on distance, cover, angles, hunt patterns, terrain, cross-winds and so-on. Just avoid cheaty situations where you dog can run around as such situations are hard to handle from the gunner/thrower position. Other methods of throwing marks while alone have been described earlier and all these methods are a part of my lone training. Of course, the running of blinds is somewhat more easy to do alone. As always you should strive to balance your training and that includes a healthy mixture of setups with real people out there. However, perhaps this article has given you give you some ideas so that lack of help does not stop the training of your dogs . . . no more excuses?

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