I have class once a week and that will always have walk up in it at the moment in preparation for the live game training. I train with other people one or two times per week and at the moment I've asked if we can always do a bit of walk up at some point. Then I'll do one woman walk up too so we'll probably do three to four sessions of walk up a week from now until October. The one woman walk up isn't ideal and what I'll do then is focus on our heelwork and then throw one dummy in front and one behind so Riley doesn't know which one he's going for and has to wait to find out. It's a lot easier with one or two extra people like yesterday because then the other dogs can retrieve until Riley really starts to hold himself. I'm lucky that the people I'm training with have very steady dogs. I'm also lucky in that we've done all this before so I'm revisiting not starting from scratch in which case it would probably all take much longer.
So on to getting a stop right next to a dummy..... Started with my food bowls this afternoon in the garden. I began by doing a "retrieve" as normal and sending Riley to the food from by my side. This worked fine while we stayed within our comfort zone of distance. The food bowl was probably 8 metres from me and I stopped him about 6m away so 3/4 of the distance. As soon as I asked him to stop at 7m he was continuing on to the bowl. So I moved the whole thing much closer to me. I sat him a metre from the bowl, put the treat in the bowl and blew a soft hunt whistle. As his head moved down towards the bowl I blew my stop and his head came up again to look at me. So I rewarded that. Same again and his head went down and he stood up - stop whistle - bum went back down again. Very pleased! Finished there for now, same again tomorrow!
Is it a treat in his dinner bowl? Or is it a reward bowl (we use these bowls at training where the dog can take a reward but only when told to)?
It's a little kibble in his bowl. He gets his reward(sprats) for stopping/sitting and looking at me from me. Then he gets a reward for hunting/putting his head down by eating the food in the bowl. I'm basically copying something I saw Ben Randall do with his dog (but with more rewards because we're learning)
Warning: This post discusses shooting and retrieving birds. My friend had to drop out of her live game training day so we took her place. I hadn't planned to go shooting until October. Anyway, made my lunch, packed both dogs up and headed out for a 9am start. It was the same as a shoot day but only 4 guns and 8 dogs. 4 labs, 3 spaniels and I took Riley out in the morning and Obi out in the afternoon. One of the guns was our trainer and he had his dog with him in the morning in case there were any problems and a bird needed finding that the other dogs couldn't. It's completely unacceptable to leave birds on the ground, all efforts must be made to find them. We were doing walk up all day so the spaniels hunted out front and flushed birds while a pair of labs walked off lead with the guns. The rest of the dogs followed behind in a gallery. We rotated the dogs through the morning. Riley was great, he pulled a little on his lead and wasn't completely tight to my leg off it but he was listening all the time so would come back into tight heel when asked. It needs a LOT of work though. He seemed fine with the shot, didn't jump or hide and marked the fall of birds. He also ignored the spaniels working right under his nose which is a really big deal for him!! We finally got our retrieve, just a really nice mark straight ahead across some stubble into some long grass. He went when he was sent, picked and came home. He did put the bird down to rearrange it but that's just lack of experience, he wasn't dropping it. Unfortunately the bird wasn't quite dead so I had to quickly despatch it. This is why we have trained dogs, to get the birds quickly and minimise their suffering. Later in the morning Riley started hanging back a little and not coming out of his sit to walk on without some encouragement. He didn't seem stressed just a bit unsure about all the stopping and starting. Hopefully more shooting will build his understanding and confidence. There was a really nice moment later on when I had Obi out and everyone was dithering over a retrieve their dogs hadn't marked when I wished I had Riley with me as I was confident I could get him out. That was a really nice feeling rather than the "please don't pick me" feeling of the past
Ah, brill, well done Riley! Walking at heel with spaniels hunting in front is something Charlie finds super difficult!
Hey! Well done both! A great day out. Good that Riley had a nice marked retrieve to give him confidence. I expect the stopping to do a bit of rearranging will sort itself out with a bit more experience. I've been working hard on Lady to complete a delivery to the hand and holding until she's given it to me. If she puts down a runner we can end up with a merry old chase, but it's quite difficult, I find, as a flapping bird can be a bit of a "mouthful". Not quite reliable in that area yet.
It wasn't dead but I don't think it was wriggling and it certainly didn't make a bid for freedom. I'm sure he'll get better with practice I still struggle a little with despatching the birds when needed but I know I must.
I'm dead certain sure as I can be that Riley would go after a runner if he's marked it. He knows the birds are prey and it's in the genes as they say. He might not quite know what to do with it though. Lady circled her first runner not quite knowing the best way to pick it up, but with huge waggy tail. As far as I recall she ended up pinning it and I helped her out. It's probably worth being a bit cautious with cock pheasants as they can kick and have spurs. There will always be the first one of course. How old is Riley. Lady is 6 now and has 4 seasons under her belt so has a reasonable amount of experience which helps. Interestingly for me the only time Lady has shown any serious aggression to another dog was around a runner. It was her bird but another Lab ran-in on it. She pinned it and stood shoulders down, tail and hackles up and the fiercest snarl I've ever heard. The other dog decided to be sensible about the whole business and ran back to it's owner.
It sounds like Riley did really well, well done! I have a question; how do you know that a specific bird is for you and your dog to retrieve? Is there someone there to tell you?
It varies between shoots how things are done, and I can only really tell you about how it's done on my shoot (it's a farm shoot rather than a commercial shoot and the only one I do). In woodland we pick up as we go otherwise it's too easy to lose a bird. I know where the guns and the dogs are in relation to me and if the bird comes down in my "area" then it's my dog's bird. Normally works fine but occasionally we get two dogs after the one retrieve. Woodland is quite difficult because I must keep close track of falling birds while I let the dog very much get on with things on her own if she's out bringing one back. Out in the open on a driven shoot I believe it's more usual to pick up at the end of the drive, but on my shoot, again, we pick up as we go as we are normally in standing crops behind the guns and it's easy to lose birds if we don't pick up immediately. Rape and turnips are nightmare crops! If birds come down less than halfway to the next dog they are mine. Runners I'll leave if there is a dog in hot pursuit, but if not I'll send Lady if the bird crosses into my area even though it started in someone else's area. The regular pickers-up on my shoot now know each other pretty well (in fact we train together out of season and also come together on working parties) and we get allocated generally to the same tasks each shoot, know by custom how we are going to work together and so we end up as a pretty effective team. On the odd occasion when things haven't quite worked as intended we've generally had a chat on the trailer about it afterwards if it's something not needs a solution. Otherwise a simple "Sorry picked your bird back there." suffices. We're generally short of good picking up dogs anyway so we end up being a bit thin on the ground and as a result clashes rarely happen. One complication is where a gun has his/her own dog along. Normally their dog picks up all their birds unless we end up with a couple of runners and a second dog is needed. Pretty much common sense really. The last task at the end of a drive is to sweep up for any lost birds. Spaniels are usually much better at this than Labs because they can get into difficult places. Pickers-up liaise together and the guns often say if they think they brought down a bird but it wasn't picked. The keeper also keeps tabs and will allocate a dog to go and look for suspected runners, or pricked birds that flew on. We're actually working as part of the keeper's team and the actual deployment is done by him, so sometimes things vary. I haven't done any walked up shooting so I don't know the form there.
Based on my limited experience the people picking up usually have a bit of a chat about whose bird it is. As David says the keeper or person who runs the picking up team place the dogs and you kind of have an area. When we're in class and picking up dummies or tennis balls you just all move round each other and watch the dummies and the dogs. Then you've got everyone's innate sense of fair play means you share the retrieves out Riley is four now David, he's done a handful of shooting days. Hopefully we'll get a bunch more this season
An interesting class today where I realised there are certain things I avoid training because of the fear of failure. Some of you will remember that in all the working tests we did Riley ran in at some point. I thought I was working on his steadiness but today I really learnt that I hadn't been. One of the trainers who does a lot of working tests and judges joined us to run the peg and help us while our usual instructor threw dummies. It transpired that all I've actually been doing is trying to get my commands in before Riley makes a bid for the dummy! We had a clock effectively but one dummy was in water, another in the wood and another up a path. We were asked to put our arm out to send our dog but then stand up and rotate round. I needed a few waits but actually Riley's self control grew massively just in the hours training. The net effect was I was less rushed and could look up away from my dog instead of watching him all the time. Also Riley tends to travel on his hunt whistle so we can tighten that up a bit. Our instructor is really good but it's amazing what a fresh pair of eyes shows you!!!
