Two things he wanted was for his players to be tested and Schmiedel wanted them to bond.

Halfway through the three-day camp, Schmiedel knew both those things had been achieved.

"I can already see there's been a change in their attitude," Schmiedel told The Leader on Saturday.

"Their tightness [has increased] just after the chain-link walk. They didn't have mobile phones. They couldn't break away - one couldn't lag behind or get in front. They were linked by that arms. They had to talk to each other and it was good."

The six-kilometre chain-link walk was one of the first activities on Saturday - the big day of the three.

After getting up at 5am, the players had a quick swim, went on the walk before going for a dam swim.

Next was half an hour straight of tyre lifts and burpees.

Then, it was in to the obstacle course which proved to be fun, tough and another way to build camaraderie.

"We've made them go around once by themselves but now we're making them go in teams," Schmiedel said.

"It's about getting that team bonding, working as a unit. Instead of fixing problems by themselves, they're fixing a problem together."

The obstacle course started just after 10am and went until roughly 11.30am but the Dogs still had plenty of work to do.

Activities were planned until 8pm at night with a shift towards a focus on rugby league.

"What we've got this afternoon is a lot of field work where I'll go through some short plays and stuff we want to do this season then we've got Pete Stevens doing more game awareness, tackling techniques," Schmiedel said.

It's safe to say Schmiedel was pleased by the effort of his players to kick-off pre-season.

"They're having a great time and the boys have attacked it pretty hard," he said.