8/24/99 (9 Weeks 1 Days) 13 Lbs We noticed a remarkable weight gain over the last two days. Yesterday evening marked Rosie's first live retrieve in the water. It was very short but did include swimming depth water. We used a small live pheasant. We will stop using live birds in the very near future. Our initial goal was to instill a strong desire for birds and this has been accomplished. Admittedly she came with that quality but the work we have done so far insures its place in pups life. This pup will now jump on a pigeon when she attends her first puppy stake. House training has not been mentioned so far simply because I view the house training as separate from the field work training. It deserves at least brief mention and I will do so now. Rosie is now close to completely house trained and it has been a couple of days since her last accident. I do not use a kennel for this training but we do use the same concept. Our next goal will be a reliable sit and that training will start at the same time we discontinue the birds. I am not going to make a habit of mentioning the specific training methods I use except when I feel the methods that I use are different from what most people practice. The sit command is one of those things. I teach this on a table that is 100 feet long 2 feet tall and 18 inches wide. This table is one of the training environment factors that I feel gives my pups such a good start. The table also instills a natural heeling ability and this is encouraged by doing a sequence of sits and walks down the length of the table. I make it a point to remain on the side of the table in a position that I will ask the pup to heel to when we get to that point in our training. 8/26/99 (9 Weeks 3 Days) 14.1 Lbs Table work started yesterday with 1 session of about ten minutes. This was preliminary exposure simply designed to familiarize pup with the table. Water play has continued with at least three trips to the pond daily. Water retrieving is progressing nicely with regular training bumpers. Rosie seems to prefer the grown up dog size bumpers. (Birds are out of the picture for the time being.) Her swiming technique has for the most part turned to grown up style with occasional bouts of puppy paddling. Land retrieves are up to about 50' with hand thrown bumpers. Water retrieves are still being limited to about 20 feet of swimming water. Today I noticed a marked increase in the amount of time she wanted to do repetitive retrieves. We stopped at 8 hand thrown bumpers on the land. While it is positively too early to tell how Rosie's marking abilities will turn out I can say that she seems to follow the bumper in the air well and that her eyesight is good. Pup is also being exposed to everything I can think of including short stays with strangers. With house training almost a sure thing Rosie is being "Loaned" to my nieces and nephew for brief away from home experience. This Saturday Rosie will attend our retriever clubs fun day. Rosie will experience her first taste of the big guns at this event. This is the second dog event Rosie has attended. It is important to note that Rosie has been exposed to guns at a distance at her first event and that she has been exposed to many .22 cal dummy launcher shots. This was accomplished by allowing her to watch at our daily training sessions with the big dogs. For the next diary entry, please visit Week 10 of Rosie's Journal.

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