Just back from our evening KC gold class and we were asked to do exactly the same as you - i.e. call dog to you and stop them part way. Needless to say we couldn't do it. However one of the people who could do it (and who trains only with rewards) explained to me what to do at home. She suggested calling your dog's name to get their attention and then throwing treats behind them and letting them go to get them. She demonstrated the throwing motion as holding your hand up like a stop signal. She said then to call and do the action without throwing the treat immediately. She has a lovely Vizsla who did the exercise perfectly and had apparently taught it in one day! Like you I'm a bit worried about spoiling my recall...
Why would you want your dog to look for a reward behind them when you call their name? If you are going to do this, use another sound....but I think it's just not necessary, to be honest - I would never use any cue associated with a dog moving towards me, or an attention getting noise, to train this. I would use a placeboard, and send the dog out to the placeboard and associate my dog stopping at a distance at that. If I needed to practice stopping a dog on a recall (for a test) I would throw a treat behind the placeboard and as the dog returned to the placeboard, I'd blow my stop. So the dog is running to a stop on the placeboard anyway. Then, very, very, rarely I'd stop my dog on a recall so I knew I could do it for the test.
This has prompted me to ask, in the real world, when a dog is working and you want to direct him, you have the back, left and right cues, but what do you use if he's overshot? Would you use your recall followed by a hunt, or train another "come towards me" cue?
Yes, I think you would recall your dog, stop him, then tell him hunt. You do need to be able to do it, but I wouldn't train it that way - as in I wouldn't use my recall as part of training that stop. I'd train the stop in as many different ways as possible, and then just also make it work on a recall.
Thanks. It's not something I need to concern myself with just yet ( ) but good to know. I do need to work on a stop when the dogs are coming towards me; I always do it when they're moving away or generally mooching. Another thing to add to the list....
It is not something I worry about either. If a retrieve goes wrong I'll usually recall Charlie and reset the whole thing.
I met up with my trainer friend this morning to look at the "stop". Not great timing as it was sleeting and hailing at the time ! I explained what had happened to her recall from a short distance so she suggested the following: 1. Back to basics - walking on lead and say sit, dog sits immediately -no problem there. 2. Walk on lead, then make a turn away from the dog and say sit and reward for sitting. Extra steps were then added before saying sit. 3. Off lead, allow dog to do it's own thing, still quite close to you, and then get dog's attention. As soon as the dog looks at you say stop, go the dog and reward. She did stop! 4. Add hand signal and then start to add some distance before getting dog's attention. 3 weeks to perfect this....we'll see! Oh and the isolation exercise, handling..........
I hope this works for you Deb. I've been stopping Molly when she's walking away from me for months, but to have to call the dog to you and then stop them seems much more difficult. How are you doing the isolation exercise? I've been told we just shut the dogs individually into a storage cupboard! It's big (about 6 feet by 4 feet) and there's a window in the door so presumably the examiner looks through that. We tried it yesterday evening and Molly was fine but I stood just outside so she knew I was there. I was more concerned about what she could chew up!
Yes - I have a "come forward hunting" cue for when dog has overshot - hand starts up (as for stop whistle) and comes down on a diagonal towards the ground (usually either slightly right or slightly left - think pointing towards where you want them to go) combined with hunt whistle. Its very intuitive for the dogs - much easier than a straight right or left cast.
