April/May 08

Viewpoint
The Circle Drill
by Butch Goodwin

n my previous column, I described the “pivot drill,” which teaches your dog to pivot left and right with you as you turn. This is the drill that enables you to precisely line up your dog for running blind retrieves or to point him toward a fallen bird that he may have forgotten. It is also the first step in getting your dog to look where your gun is pointed or to watch when you swing it on a group of passing birds. But lining him up is of little use if he won’t run or swim in the direction he is pointed. The “circle drill” (also called the “wagon-wheel” lining drill) will teach him to go in the direction he is facing.

Once your dog is doing the pivot drill correctly – pivoting backward and to your left when you step to the left and say, “Heel”; and pivoting forward and to the right when you say, “Here” – it is time to move ahead and line him for bumpers placed in each cardinal direction. However, before moving on, I would strongly recommend putting your dog through a thorough force-fetch program and mastering the “fetch-it/leave-it” ground drills, if you haven’t already done so. (See “Teaching ‘Leave-It,’” The Retriever Journal, June/July, 1998.) To be successful when teaching him to pivot and run to the bumper that he is sent for, he must reliably retrieve bumpers and deliver them to hand.

The circle drill is where your dog begins to learn basic lining. Lining is teaching the dog to run in a straight line away from the handler and toward an unknown destination; it’s essentially the foundation of a blind retrieve. For now, lining drills should be taught separately from casting drills. When the dog becomes proficient at each (lining, stopping, and casting), the drills can then be linked together and practiced as blind retrieves.

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