    This weekend Julie and I attended Evan Graham’s Transition seminar hosted by the Northern Utah Retriever Club at the Lee Kay Center, just west of SLC, UT. Evan is the author of the Smartwork series of retriever training materials (Rush Creek Press). The training was excellent. I am a die-hard upland game hunter, not a field-trialer, which this seminar was geared toward, nevertheless, it was excellent, because I learned about how retrievers tick, what kinds of drills you can use to help them learn to mark falls and handle into blind retrieves, and just what you can expect at the highest levels from a dog. I have a lot of respect for field trialers. In order to win, they have to demand the utmost from their dogs. Therefore, they train and drill accordingly.
    A couple of the key principles I took away from the seminar were the following: You cannot expect a dog to be more exact than you are (Rex Carr), therefore you should set high exacting demands on yourself for training and expect them from your dog; accept nothing less.
    A solid basic foundation is critical for higher success.
    Your dog must find lots of yes’s (positives/successes) in the field and few no’s (corrections/failures). Set the dog up for regular success and build his confidence. Make him believe that he will succeed every time he charges off the line and he will; you build his expectations for success.
    I really enjoyed Evan. He was very personable and a great teacher. I liked his methods, because they were well reasoned and stepwise, moving from one phase to the next to build a winning dog step by step.
    I felt like I got a whole year’s worth of training experience in one weekend. I was really impressed with the level of dogs of all of the participants there. We have some great trainers here in Utah. It got me jazzed up to take my training to a higher level.
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