exuberance

Hi Jo

Standing still with a very overexcited dog, whilst more excitement manifests itself in front of his eyes is unlikely to result in him calming him down. So I think moving about, keeping him walking about as you were advised is a better strategy if you cannot get away from the excitement. I would also if possible keep him focused on you with food but some gundog classes will not permit this.

Over excitement can be a problem for a lot of dogs. One of the things that serious gundog trainers take great care over is maintaining a very calm atmosphere around the dog at all times to encourage calm behaviour. This is quite difficult to do with a family pet as no matter how calm you are, there will always be relatives, visitors, kids etc that wind the dog up and get him excited and leaping about.

One of the first things I do if a dog is becoming excited or vocal is to remove it from the source of excitement. This can happen with a previously calm dog that is introduced to an actual shoot day too soon. The excitement gets too much and the dog goes into meltdown. The best thing to do is to take him home and try again another day after working further on patience and taking turns exercises.

I appreciate that this is very difficult for people with only one dog to do, and may necessitate the help of a pro trainer that can let you get gradually more involved with his own dogs.

Some dogs are simply too hyper and excitable to make good gundogs, or to enable their owners to enjoy them in a working environment, and only an experienced trainer that spent time with your dog would be able to say whether your dog falls into this category. If he does, then there are still other fun activities that you could try with the dog. Agility for example is one activity where getting the dog excited and revved up is actually all part of the game.

It might be an idea to have your dog assessed with some 1-2-1 sessions with a gundog trainer at some point, but in the meantime, practicing being patient will really help you. Most domestic dogs do not have to do this very often. They are a bit like kids that have been spending too much time on video games and TV, instant gratification becomes a bit of a habit.

Things you can do to help are ‘long stays’ (whilst you have dinner, hang out the washing, etc), sitting on the sidelines at your local rec whilst kids play football, sitting and watching people playing on the beach or at the park and so on. Don't make him wait for his dinner as this can cause whining.

Build up the long stays gradually, with lots of treats and praise for sitting quietly. If just a few seconds silent sitting is all he can do, then start there and work up. If he makes a noise you have pushed him too far. Dogs over nine months old should be able to work their way up to ten or fifteen minutes patient, silent, waiting over a period of a few weeks.

At the end of the day, if you find out that he is still just too excitable to be a gundog, you will at least have taught him some useful behavioural skills.

Hope that helps, and thanks for your kind comment on my badger video!

Pippa

 

Re: exuberance

Thankyou Pippa for your advice - very helpful. Your comment about a pro-trainer is maybe one I should look into. Archie is from working stock, with, I think a sire that had a good track record (Druimmnuir Desert Storm), but I appreciate that doesn't guarantee his temperament. It's possibly as much about me as iis about him(!) and maybe I should make sure I am calm as well (which is why the trust tectnique is interesting).

I will follow your advice on long stays and see how we get on - should the long stays be'sits' or 'downs' or doesn't it matter?

 

Re: exuberance

Hi Jo

Re length of stays: the important thing is to set him up to win. Estimate how long you think he can sit quietly and start with less than that. Then build up gradually, a little at a time. He should be consistently successful, if he gets up or starts making a noise, then you have pushed ahead too quick, just go back a little and practice a few more easy ones before increasing duration again. You may find it helpful to keep a record jotted down in a notebook. It is easy to forget where you got to last time.

When you increase the stay, sandwich the longer stay inbetween two shorter ones so he starts and finishes with an easy one.

UPDATED to say I am sorry I misread your post. Thought you were asking how long the stays should be. In general, if you want to get into gundog work then a 'sit' is preferable, as the dog is in a better position to watch what is going on and to pay you attention. But I definitely would not worry if the dog happens to lie down in your case, as it is a good sign that he is starting to relax.

Pippa