There are a number of articles on teaching your dog permanent blinds on this website.
The purpose of this article is:
- To introduce the concept of permanent blinds
- To explain why you’ll find it a useful concept to incorporate into your training programme
- To give you links to some articles that will help you along the way.
What is a permanent blind?
As you know, a blind retrieve is one that the dog has not seen fall at any time.[wp_ad_camp_1]It is unknown to him until he scents the presence of the dummy or bird with his powerful nose.
A permanent blind, is also a retrieve that the dog has not seen fall.
But it is a blind retrieve that the dogs expects to find.
Even before he can smell it or see it.
This may seem rather like a contradiction in terms. But this is a useful concept to help dogs make the transition from marked retrieves to genuine ‘true’ blinds.
What is the point?
The point of the permanent blind is to get the dog running blinds with confidence.
This is achieved because the dog’s expectation of a retrieve, motivates him to keep going for longer than he would if he were running a true blind at this stage in his training.
Many people struggle with the transition from marks to blinds and take huge leaps which dent the dog’s confidence and lead to him hunting way before he reaches the area of fall, or constantly turning back to ask for your help
Permanent blinds help you through this transition and teach the dog to run long straight blinds with confidence.
Why does he expect a retrieve to be there?
The dog expects a retrieve to be found at the permanent blind, simply because it is placed in a location from where he has retrieved many times before.
So, to sum up, a permanent blind is a retrieve placed at a location where your dog has found dummies before. And where he expects to find dummies again, with a fair degree of confidence.
To get to this point of ‘expectation’ , you need to follow the training process you’ll find in the links below
Where do I put the permanent blind?
We need a location that is easily identifiable to the dog. So it needs to be visually different in some way from its surroundings.
The foot of a very large tree, or the corner of a particular field are typical examples of appropriate permanent blind locations. You’ll find lots more information in the permanent blind training articles below
How do I train with permanent blinds?
There are three articles to get you started with permanent blind training
Don’t forget to let me know how you get on. You can share your experiences in the comments box below.
I like to use permanent blinds to introduce new concepts, even after the retriever is strong in cold blinds. I may have run the permanent blind once a month or 2 ago, but I think most retrievers remember. Whenever I start poison bird blinds or diverted marks (mark then blind then memory mark), I start with a simple permanent blind to simplify the new concept.