Do you mean opening dog's mouth and putting item in and telling dog to hold, whilst kinda keeping mouth shut with your hand and stroking chest?
If that's what you mean, then yes, I've tried that. Bracken hated it and I didn't like doing it. She tended to slide to the floor, and do stressy yawns. She would sit and hold, but looked really sheepish and unhappy. What has worked better for me has been to find something that she's really interested in and praise her to the max when she picks it up and walks around holding it. Now she's all waggy-tailed when I'm doing 'hold' training and both of us are much happier for it. Need to see if she spits once I go back to giving her retrieves though.... proof will be in the pudding!
Posted: Sun Jul 12, 2009 7:54 pm Post subject: hold
I am teaching Roxy gsd pup to hold things still at the moment, a few holds each day of various things for a tit-bit, I do not hold her mouth shut, if she mouths or messes about - no treat and she is getting the hang of it now. She will search for articles and retrieve them to hand (working trials) but I need a good hold by the time she is old enough to enter a trial.
when teaching the hold some people make the mistake of doing the whole thing - some way away - i.e. dog has to pick up the article and then run back to you - when it's back with you - it then MIGHT get nagged if it drops it or mouths it !
teach the pick up and hold first - close up - sitting in a chair - with the dog beside you - when that's strong - then go for the distance ....... but break the exercise down...............
be patient -and no i wouldn't use the forced retrieve method
It depends so much on what you call a "Forced Hold." Very many years ago whilst working obedience I was shown how to force the hold. It was pretty much the way 40 years ago. But I decided there and then that it was not something I wanted to do. It took me weeks to repair the damage, and since then I've certainly never needed to.
But if you mean training the hold, yes, I've use that to eradicate a problem on several occasions. But in the normal course of events, no dog needs to be taught to hold. All can do that or their dinner would fall out of their mouths. The only possible use is in teaching them to hold on command, possibly to correct a "Spitting out" problem.
I'm asking if the people who do serious field work with their dogs teach their dogs to hold by opening the dog's mouth, putting the dummy or article in the dog's mouth and then holding it shut whilst saying 'hold', Andrew.
I only know of 2 ways to teach the 'hold'. I have always (in assistance dog puppy-socialising and not in gun dog training admittedly) not used a forced method. But I know that a lot of gun dog trainers do used the forced method and the reason I've been given is that the 'hold' command has to be absolute rock-solid, as you don't want an injured bird to be dropped and to do a runner.
I just was wondering what the pros and cons were.Does a forced hold method of training make for a more reliable hold? It wouldn't matter unduly if an assistance dog dropped a set of keys (unless it was stood over a drain cover!) but I can see that it might matter if an injured bird was lost.
Teaching a forced hold goes against the sort of training methods that I prefer to use, but it obviously works well for an awful lot of people and I'm not making any judgement.
I just was wondering what the pros and cons were.Does a forced hold method of training make for a more reliable hold? It wouldn't matter unduly if an assistance dog dropped a set of keys (unless it was stood over a drain cover!) but I can see that it might matter if an injured bird was lost.
What you discribe is not really a forced retrieve Becs, it is more a trained retrieve. And no, it would not make a more reliable retrieve, unless something has already gone wrong.
If you talk about "Forced Retrieves" then believe me, there are some horrific methods around!!!!!
I understand where you're coming from now Becs, but like JohnW, I was a bit concerned about the implications of a forced hold, particularly after you've just been to your first training class with Mouse.
To be honest I've not had any experience with this, as all my dogs (fortunately) have thus far held retrieves, without having to resort to coercion.
Rightly or wrongly I still think it's all in the breeding, if a dog is bred right in the first place, and the basic training is done effectively there should be no need for recourse to forced methods of any kind. As John says, it's a corrective action, that should n't be required.
If you talk about "Forced Retrieves" then believe me, there are some horrific methods around!!!!!
Regards, John
I've watched some on UTube John, and if that was the only way of ever training a gundog then I'd not want to ever train one.
So far I've found that rewarding a dog for holding something in it's mouth and then building up the time it holds it until it's taken off him, has worked well enough to meet my needs, but they haven't involved expecting the dog to hold a flapping bird!. I'm just interested in finding out if it's enough to be good enough for proper gundog work or if teaching the dog to hold by putting the dummy in it's mouth and using our hands to keep it there until released is a more bomb-proof method or not. I'd like to understand it better myself before ruling one method out for me personally.
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