Originally Posted by
BlaineT
mine is (MOST DAYS) a GREAT marking dog. FT length, big triples & quads. Has great vision and when he focuses i dont worry about marks. But......the moment he gets a bit unsure of himself, the head goes down and he becomes a real pain in the azz. His handling on marks when it has to occur is terrible, and I feel its mainly because he THINKS/KNOWS he can dig it out with his nose. His only failed test came when he got too far wide of the 2nd mark of a triple and smelled where the blind had been planted between the 2 guns and he blew me off when i tried to handle him back to the mark. surprisingly enough he handles well after throwing a poison bird and "no'ing" him off the bird. He's still real young though so hopefully his attitude will continue to get better.
also we've had to really work on long land blinds through strips of cover and parallel cover, across ditches, anywhere the spaniel may want to come out. He's improved greatly though with LOTS of these blinds.