Whilst on a walk today..Benson met 2 extremely well behaved and well trained spaniels. We had been heel training and I had just got him off the lead when I noticed them...he went racing over...first oops...I sighed and attempted a recall..nope...waved my arms..jumped up and down to try and get his attention..nope...then as a last resort I made a sort of trilling noise. and he came straight over BUT..oops..both her spaniels sat!!! She sighed, looked at me slightly annoyed..and said now they think you are going to throw them a dummy..and that I should only make that sound if I was going to throw them something...oh dear...I apologised profusely and tbh she was lovely, and we started chatting about training, she gave me some really useful tips and advice especially on heel work. So my question, what is this trilling noise? I did hear our trainer use it..and thought it was just used to get the dogs attention? Hope this is not a daft question!
Re: whoops! And a question.. It is exactly that, a trilling to get the dogs attention so they watch the throw and mark the dummy. The problem is that everyone does it and so her dogs (as Riley does mostly) will sit when they hear it and start looking for the dummy falling. It's generally only used for dummy throws as opposed to general attention getting so the dogs closely associate it with a dummy throw. When you start retrieving your dog is probably already sitting but if you do any walk up exercises which mimic a shoot that walks forward, shooting as birds are flushed in front, you will need your dog to sit every time a dummy is thrown or bird is shot. Then the retrieve happens and you all move forward again. You might want to choose a different noise to attract Bensons attention but I wouldn't worry, she sounds like she was nice and to be honest if that's her biggest problem on her walk she probably had a nice time. Her dogs will be used to not getting every retrieve so I think they'll live
