Re: I am curious - How to teach STOP to Whistle? Thank you all for the congratulations and nice comments, am now Granny x three! Baby boy arrived at 10:45 am All safe and well.
Re: I am curious - How to teach STOP to Whistle? CONGRATULATIONS! How wonderful for you all. Love and best wishes Helen xx
Re: I am curious - How to teach STOP to Whistle? Wonderful news!!! Congratulations to grandma, mum and baby and all the menfolk too of course
Re: I am curious - How to teach STOP to Whistle? What fabulous news!! Congratulations to you and your family, Pippa. ;D
Re: I am curious - How to teach STOP to Whistle? Here is a little video clip taken on my lawn this morning. It shows how I use the stop whistle to stop the dog on the outrun and redirect her on to another retrieve. Caddie is a super keen little retriever and as you can see sitting firmly on the ground is not her thing. She likes to hover. She has had a very busy season picking up on a big shoot so things are not quite as polished as they should be. Something to work on for the next few months.
Re: I am curious - How to teach STOP to Whistle? Brilliant thanks for posting. I think I need to work on Riley's retrieve before his stop. He runs out keenly but his return is not great. I'm not sure why when his recall is getting so much better. It's like he's worried I'll take his toy away and the play will stop so he doesn't bring it back. At the moment I run away which brings him to me but it doesn't seem to be getting any better.......hhhhmmmmmm
Re: I am curious - How to teach STOP to Whistle? Oh how annoying I don't seem to be able to play this Will get one of my sons to take a look when they arrive home from School ??? Thanks for posting though Heidrun Barbara, I have the same problem with Charlie, he too runs out picks up his ball and runs off with it only bringing it back and dropping it sometimes. If I do a long sit/wait at a distance and call him for his ball which is on the ground he recalls verbally immediately picks up and runs off in the opposite direction :-\ Am I doing this incorrectly? Helen
Re: I am curious - How to teach STOP to Whistle? There's a thread called 'not bringing back when fetching' in the training section. This link may work: http://www.thelabradorsite.com/forums/index.php/topic,897.0.html That has some handy tips plus links to a couple of Pippa's articles. I think fundamentally it's about the dog believing that it will be rewarded with more games if it comes back as opposed to being punished by losing it's prize It seems to be very much like the recall, running away and changing direction to tempt the dog in and then not rushing to take his ball off him so he's not punished. However we've been doing that for a while and I'm only on about 50/50 for a straight return vs staying away. Ah well patience, patience, patience and a huge dollop of perseverance. You may have to lend me some of yours!! I'm not actually using my recall whistle much on retrieves as I'm concerned that it will undo the improvement that we've seen on a straight recall. I think Riley knows he's supposed to come back he's just choosing not to so the whistle won't really help.
Re: I am curious - How to teach STOP to Whistle? Have you got something like a narrow alley way or a path that is fenced in on both sides? You could use that as a retrieving corridor to get the dog into a habit of returning straight back to you. You can see in my video clip that Caddie hesitates momentarily after picking up the second retrieve, a quick pip - pip - pip on the whistles puts her straight back on track.
Re: I am curious - How to teach STOP to Whistle? That's VERY cool Heidrun! Thanks for posting. I've been struggling too with the concept of retrieving and taking away the 'prize' at the end. Pops was getting more and more agitated when I put the dummy away, and not bringing the dummy right back to me. Now sometimes when she brings the dummy back, I let her carry it for a while. If she chews it or plays with it I take it straight away - but she actually just trots quietly along next to me, happy to be allowed to carry it! And she is much happier to deliver the dummy to me. She is never going to be a gun dog working on shoots, so I feel that this is a good compromise for the two of us.
Re: I am curious - How to teach STOP to Whistle? Yes I did notice that heidrun, I am trying to find a corridor to use. Riley returns really well in the house and when he does come back outside he returns well. When he doesn't though he either stands and looks at me and won't come any nearer or he travels parallel to me backwards and forwardsonly coming slightly nearer each time I turn. For the first problem I either have to go quite far or hide in order for Riley to return and for the second I just keep changing direction til he gets to me. I'm concerned that using my recall whistle won't actually improve this as his recall is still such a work in progress. I do use it when he's returning well to try and reinforce the desired action. Maybe I just need to try it? I don't want to break his fragile recall though?
Re: I am curious - How to teach STOP to Whistle? [quote author=bbrown link=topic=1190.msg7473#msg7473 date=1360683829] Yes I did notice that heidrun, I am trying to find a corridor to use. Riley returns really well in the house and when he does come back outside he returns well. When he doesn't though he either stands and looks at me and won't come any nearer or he travels parallel to me backwards and forwardsonly coming slightly nearer each time I turn. For the first problem I either have to go quite far or hide in order for Riley to return and for the second I just keep changing direction til he gets to me. I'm concerned that using my recall whistle won't actually improve this as his recall is still such a work in progress. I do use it when he's returning well to try and reinforce the desired action. Maybe I just need to try it? I don't want to break his fragile recall though? [/quote] You are quite right not to use your whistle to recall him if you are not 100% sure that he will obey. If he is already a keen retriever you could try retrieves from water. The dog will want to come back to land a quickly as possible which means you can position yourself at the water's edge to take the dummy from him. The same principal applies to cover. If you throw the dummy into cover the dog will want to retrieve it and get out of the the cover on to shorter grass. Once again all you need to do is to get yourself in the right place to receive the dummy. Hope that makes sense.
Re: I am curious - How to teach STOP to Whistle? Heidrun, I use a fenced in alley adjacent to the paddock I use and I do retrieves with Charlie every day and also to reinforce his verbal recall, as I am not at the stage of using my whistle outside YET . We then move back into the paddock and try again and when Charlie has had enough I put the ball away. I will just keep doing this and hope for improvements. Thanks for the tips, Helen
Re: I am curious - How to teach STOP to Whistle? Many congratulations to you Pippa, lovely news A little problem I have with Sam is that every so often , thankfully not too often, he will not drop the dummy . He is getting a lot better now are retrieving and loves it , he will search for more difficult ones and not stop until he has found it , he then comes straight to me and about 90 % of the time, he will deliver but just the other 10%, he wont, but looks like he wants to, just sits before me but wants to hang on . I havent tried to get the dummy off him , most times I just walk away and he will then come to me again and deliver, dont know if this is the right way to deal with it ?
Re: I am curious - How to teach STOP to Whistle? Kate, when you say won't drop the dummy, is that what you want him to do, or do you want a delivery to hand? Have you taught him a command word to release? Like 'give' or 'dead' ?
Re: I am curious - How to teach STOP to Whistle? Sorry yes , I mean deliver to my hand which he almost always does perfectly apart from these very odd times when he wont let go , I always say Dead .
Re: I am curious - How to teach STOP to Whistle? Have you tried Karen's tip and given back the dummy to him to carry, not every time but every so often?
