The act of calling your dog too you is called a "Recall" Katie and should in the early stages be made as different as possible for the dog. For example, with a puppy I command the pup to "Wait" for a recall and "Stay" for a stay. I use a single finger command for the recall and a flat of the hand for stay. I walk away swinging my arms for a recall and with my arms folded for a stay. I call my dog to me when doing a recall but ALWAYS return to my dog when doing a stay. Gradually build the exercises up. Longer stays and greater distances for recalls. Eventually introduce stays out of sight. A dog should be capable of staying for as long as you need. Anna is often called upon to stay for half to three quarters of an hour when I'm working at ride clearing with a slasher in the woods.
Incidentally, I never use treats in training gundogs although I do sometimes with petdogs because I find the average pet dog person is not accurate enough to not leave confusion in the puppy's mind. I also only teach a sit stay for working gundogs but teach sit, down and stand for pet dogs!
When my dogs are picking up on a shoot I need them sitting beside me. If they stand then they are not so steady and if a Hare or something runs across they are far more likely to run in. If they are laying down there are two reasons. Firstly they have a curtain of grass to have to see through, and secondly, unless the ground is billiard table level the bird an it drops is likely to fall the other side of rising ground, so to the dog will appear to have fallen quite a bit short of it's actual position, so the dog marks the fall short. As a little exercise, when out with your dog, get your eyes down to the level of your dog and take note of what they can see. The horizon is so much nearer than from your normal perspective and to a dog laying down the horizon is even closer!
Heres a corker to demonstrate exactly the above that John writes.
Ran my youngster in a working test yesterday. The last exercise was in groups of 5 sat up with about 5 foot space between each dog on the bank of a lake.
The dogs were taken off lead, told to stay firmly, then gunfire went and the first dummy came flying out into the lake. Splash! The first dog was sent. Swims out, collects, comes back. Then slightly pause, then gunshot, splash! Number two is sent. etc... along the row of competitors.
Now this is written casually, but for young and inexperienced dogs that is a VERY hard thing to do, sit up silently and absolutely steadily, especially when the person next to you is sending their dog. ideally no commands are given after the last 'STAY!' before the exercise commenced so a LOT of praying is worked in with the occasionally (point losing) extra 'stay!'.
I ran two dogs actually and my older girl just sat and shook from adrenaline from start to end of the exercise. Silence from the dogs was also required so the slightest yawm, squeek or moan had you a zero mark instantly.
ANYWAY I wasn't 100% sure my young dog could take the excitement and not 'run in' on someone elses command. So I put him in a down as the dog next to us prepared to go to make sure as it is the most safe and steady position for a dog to be in. He is 'less' likely to move from a down than a sit because it takes so much more effort. Fine.... he stayed, all well and good.
So its our turn, and we are in just a little bit of a dip. I had already lost a mark or two for giving him a down command whilst the exercise was taking place, so thought 'hell, he can just mark his dummy down into the lake from the down position and i'll send him from the down' If I'd fiddled around getting him to sit up I would have lost another mark or so ANd he would have definately known it was his turn and possibly gone before I commanded him knowing it was his dummy.
So Bang! Goes the gun, splash goes the dummy just off to our right behind some trees, which had grass around the bottom of them. It didn't even occur that he might not have seen it hit the water. I sent him, he flew off, entered the water and started immediately swimming towards a floating lilly pad in the other direction to the dummy! As he hadn't seen it fall he looked as he entered the water for something floating, and headed straight for that.
As he reached it he realised that it was not what was wanted (he is too young to take direction on water at the moment other than 'back') so turned to me to look for direction, and thankfully TOOk the right hand signal and headed right then saw the dummy and beavered to it like a croc.....
BUT had that been a river and the dummy or bird had floated away downstream, he would have lost it in the time taken to swim to the wrong object because he didn't mark it down as he was in a down and his view obscured rather than a clear view in a sit
Longwinded little story
Di
Last edited by Diana on Mon Oct 09, 2006 2:10 pm; edited 1 time in total
He's a clown Typical show dog has to play to the gallery!
We ran number 19 of 21 and when you have completed each exercise you can sit and watch the others go (at a bit of a distance) so there was a bit of a crowd for each of his exercises and he LOVED IT!
He has run quite a few tests this summer and always the same, he is either brilliant or a complete fool
Yesterday he would have been well up in the placings only he put his dummy down coming out the water to shake (cardinal sin and one we have worked on at home till we are blue in the face!) AND he whats called 'ran the fence line' in another exercise instead of jumping cleanly out of the wood over the wire.
This was classic 'Deeds'. The exercise is a gunshot, a dummy thrown high in the air over a wire fence into a ditch beyond the fence. We then send the dog on the judges command, a 30 yards or so run up a field, over the wire, hunt the ditch the other side of the fence. Pick the dummy, back over the wire...down the field, delivery. Thats 'in theory'.
So bang! Send, Deeds thunders up the field, jumps the wire, hunts the ditch, picks his dummy, turns back to the fence (I'm thinking 'nice, nice work, son...') The decides to be a damn clown. Instead of popping back over he starts to run left up the fenceline. I blow a stop whistle, then pip him with a recall whistle to come immediately.... and instead of doing so forwards, carries on left until he is level with a 5 bar gate.
the judges says to me, 'its ok, the gate is ajar he can come through'.... not Deeds, oh no. He sinks on his haunches and jumps the OPEN gate!
Well, the gallery burst into clapping, the judge shook her head and muttered about 'blo**dy showbred chocolates' and I have to say i ROARED with laughter! He trundled in, delivered nicely and winked at the crowd....
Thanks, John. So much clearer now! I can't believe there are all these little things I didn't know about and didn't even think about I'm so scared I'm gonna fluff up Ruby's training It will certainly be a learning curve for both of us.
Some years ago I was holding onto first place with Anne on one mark lost in the Bucks round of the Game Conservancy working test. Unfortunately amongst the last batch of cards handed in was one dog on half a mark lost and three more on one mark. So there it was. A sudden death run off with three other dogs for second place. The decided was a very long mark down the hill, a hill which descended in three steps. From the dog's perspective the fall was completely obscured by the second plateau. The four of us were tent to a tent so we could not see the test until our turn and I grew to run second. When it was my turn to run I had no idea how the first dog had done, except it seemed to take a long time on the test. Anyway, I set Anna up and the two judges called for the dummy thrower to toss the dummy up. Anna was on fire! I sent her and she was off like a rocket, over the first rise, over the second, over the third. Then she started to bend around to the right and I heard one judge say to the other, "I like the way this one's using the wind!" and she had it! Back up the hill like an missile and dummy in my hand! After that I stood and watch the last two work and both dogs marked short. Anna won the runoff and qualified for the finals at the Midland Game Fair that year. (The less said about that the better! )
Training for this kind of situation is something I do. I use a piece of land with a spine running through it. I set the dogs up on one side and throw the dummies over onto the other side so the dog gets use to judging distance rather than watching what appears to be the fall on the top. Training for a specific situation is all part of gundog training, and what makes it so interesting and varied.
Regards, John
Last edited by JohnW on Mon Oct 09, 2006 3:16 pm; edited 1 time in total
In "The real world" Katie, we are always coming against new situations and the more a dog has done the easier it is for him or her to work the situation out. Since Anna was operated on last winter she has not been the same dog. I was out with her on Saturday. Plenty of dogs picking up so I decided she was not really needed so I wandered around feeding the pens. About 10 to 15 minutes at each of the four pens so Anna was doing some decent length out of sight stays whilst I was working.
As I came out of one pen I found a gun standing there. "I have a bird down the other side of the wire John. Do you think Anna could find it for me?"
One side of our shoot backs on to some M.O.D. land, strictly no admittance. Armed guards and all that. But we have a little hole in the wire! So I sent Anna through and commanded her to sit stay whilst I walked down the slope, across a hunting gate, along beside a hedge until I could get back up the bank to the wire again, at which point I whistled her up. So there we were, me on the outside and Anna on the inside. I right heeled her along the wire about 500 yards until I could see the Pheasant, directed her onto it with hand signals. Anna was off. Back to the hole in the fence, over the hunting gate and met me only half way back and delivered the bird to hand. If she had done nothing else all day I would have been happy with that in the bag!
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum You cannot attach files in this forum You cannot download files in this forum
I wasn't 100% sure my young dog could take the excitement and not 'run in' on someone elses command. So I put him in a down as the dog next to us prepared to go to make sure as it is the most safe and steady position for a dog to be in. He is 'less' likely to move from a down than a sit because it takes so much more effort. Fine.... he stayed, all well and good.
I'm so scared I'm gonna fluff up Ruby's training 
It will certainly be a learning curve for both of us.
