I bet his nose is just as good as Willow's, he might just enjoy the act of sniffing or hunting more than the picking up of the object, be it a ball, dummy or even a treat. Some dogs can get extremely clever at disguising the fact that they are actually blinking.
To be fair, there are plenty of people (complete with two hands and opposing thumbs and everything!) who can't catch either
I've recently been training with Charlie with a working line girl Labrador, doing the same exercises. Obviously, I train with working line Labradors a lot, but I haven't spent so long doing exactly the same exercises with my dog. The working line girl is younger, and more excited by balls and dummies than Charlie (I know that sounds impossible, but Charlie isn't so OTT these days when he is just in his normal, familiar field and he is more under control, and is steadier). The working line girl moves faster, and she hunts faster than Charlie. So she'll whizz around the area, slightly frantic, tail going crazy. Charlie is slower, not so frantic and will look back to me if he doesn't find something (which is progress, because before he'd search the whole field). Charlie finds the ball/dummy just as efficiently though. I was wondering if it was just experience. Charlie is just a little bit more methodical and less excited than the younger dog. So this got me wondering about whether there are things you can do to help the dog improve - also prompted by someone telling me a couple of weekends ago that Charlie is quite a 'visual' dog and wasn't using his nose (he was in a new place, in much longer grass than I normally have to train, and was a bit confused on a blind that was clearly too hard for him).
I think that's the thing with Shadow. Let's say I've thrown a ball for him, which has landed and stopped. He'll look for it with his eyes rather than his nose, and generally fail, since it's no longer moving. He's not slow because he's methodical, poor love. I'm not sure it's because he's enjoying the hunt, either, because he often gives up and looks to me for direction. When we're doing the Talking Dogs scentwork stuff, this is quite good for the teamwork part, because I can have him "try here, try here" etc, whereas Willow would happily (and efficiently) go self-employed if I wanted her to. Maybe it's something I should bring up next time I have a training session
I tried using a scent stick on a dummy the other day - I just thought I'd try it, and see what difference it made. It did make a big difference, and seemed to help him quite a lot.
That's interesting, was thinking of using scent for Benson, as he can struggle to find dummies sometimes, and he does seem very visual compared to Casper or Bramble.
I do think that the comment about Charlie being a 'visual' dog might be a red herring though (people say all sorts of things without thinking, particularly when they are talking about showline dogs ). I suspect there is nothing much wrong with his ability to sniff out a dummy, and it's my training at fault. I think I've made mistakes like having him follow footprints on blinds, not given him enough exposure to searching in different types of cover, and I've been inconsistent with my directions and control, so can't help him when he needs it and I should be helping him. Plus the area of fall he searches is too big, and he ranges too quickly - these are things an untrained dog will do. I'd say all of those things I could get better are more important than how 'good' Charlie's nose is - well, for the pet gundog things I'm doing, anyway. It's not like I'm training more than the basics....
There are clearly dogs with 'good' noses but a lot of it is experience and practise. You get the opposite as well dogs who don't mark with their eyes and trust their noses implicitly and so hunt their way out on retrieves instead of taking a line to the area. Or dogs who get used to a consistent distance, take a line for 30m and then put their nose down automatically. One trainer teaches her dogs to mark with their eyes from tiny puppyhood. Trusting their noses is a balance of setting them up to succeed, leaving them to work it out and well timed encouragement. I would say all dogs can be improved on both sides with practice. Riley marks pretty well but if I take him to a new hill you can see it takes him a a couple of retrieves to get his eye in. Hills can often make dogs mis mark if they often train on flatter ground. I was with Obi when he was younger, he was nose down and I was trying to pair this with his hunt cue but Heidrun told me to shut up as all I was doing was distracting him from his sniffing and he needs to trust what his nose is telling him. Some people use a hunt cue for 'you're in the area' and another cue for 'it's under your nose' usually a verbal 'there' or similar and obviously pronounced in some crazy way
I used to be terrible at catching. No, useless. I thought it was because I'm short-sighted. Then I met my husband who is a keen cricketer and he taught me how to catch. Then, with loads of practice throwing the ball between us with Snowie being "piggy in the middle", my catching improved dramatically -- I don't use my eyes as much as an instinct of where the ball will land. So... anyone can learn to catch! Perhaps it is the same with dogs. I notice that Snowie is worse when he's tired and excellent when he's not tired. Makes sense. But furthermore, my husband explained how I should throw for him so that he has a better opportunity of being successful: throw up so that he can catch when the ball is coming down, much easier to get under the ball. Or his salmon oil capsules -- if he's been eating tripe, the last thing I want to do is give him the capsules by hand, so I throw them to him to catch, and if I throw directly at his mouth, they usually just bump off his snout and onto the ground. He also needs a "catch" cue so that he can ready himself; if I simply throw without saying "catch", he usually won't catch cos he wasn't expecting it.
I have a catch cue already, and it helps, and I do throw up in an arc. Shadow tends to sit too close when he's expecting a throw, so I have a "back up" cue to get him far enough away that he has a chance. Still, he waits until it's right upon him, and then snaps at it, meaning it normally donks him on the snout and rolls away.
Ok, so how do you do this on a suburban footpath with grass verges and trees and letterbox posts? Just keep moving and...pull the dog behind you? I've been letting Xena sniff but sometimes the sniff lasts and lasts and I've just pulled her away...feels awful but I don't know what to do. Smelling the smells is self-rewarding, isn't it?
The dog walks on the road side. When they are pups we give treats for good walking, luring them past distractions too. The lead is kept short enough for them not to be able to sniff at first. But, by six months old they must be walking ahead with their back end by our legs, on a loose lead. If they begin to sniff we get them in a 'sit', wait a moment and then move on. They soon learn that walks on lead are for walking. Rather like I don't read my emails while walking, they don't get to read their pee mails! They soon learn. By 12 months old they are able to lead the way and walk us round obstacles, stopping for roads. Twiglet is now 15 months old and her trainer does all her walks blindfolded ...
Ok, this is going to be tough, because there is grass on either side of suburban footpaths here - I can't avoid smells! Keeping the leash shorter and putting her into a sit...I'll have to try. She's pretty good on our familiar evening stroll around the block, but there are still certain trees that she yanks towards without fail.
I think the regime Mags describes for a (future) guidedog is too restrictive for a pet @Xena Dog Princess . It is actually easier to train 'you are not allowed to sniff - ever' than it is to put 'heel' and 'loose lead you can sniff' on cue. But a walk for a dog without sniffing is a bit pointless. It's completely understandable that guide dogs do not sniff on lead, of course, but I think a pet dog needs to enjoy the walk, and for most dogs that enjoyment involves sniffing. So you need to be really, really consistent about when a pup is allowed to sniff, and when it is not. There are loads of posts on this on the forum about this. I once trained (briefly) with an owner who had a reactive gundog that had never learned loose lead, only heel. This dog could not relax! It was unable to bumble along, sniffing and enjoying the walk, keeping pace with its owner. I thought that was sad, to be honest.
And there's the rub, got to figure this out! Thanks for your feedback, I don't mind a short (and even not so short) stop and sniff, but I do want to strike a nice balance now while she's still young.
How about letting the length of the lead be the cue? Short lead - no sniffing, longer length - sniff as much as you like. You could also have nice treats for luring her away when she gets 'rooted'. JulieT - I have the same regime for Tatze, our time on pavements is only to get to free run places (or the green for wees) so I'm happy to have the 'no sniffing on lead' rule for her too, not just the GDs.
Yes, fair enough if your dog does just a few minutes on lead and that's all. My dogs do far too long on lead to ask them to walk at heel - both for walks, but also for outings, days out and events and so on, and certainly for training (my class today was 9.30am to 12. 30pm and my dogs had breaks on lead, including toilet breaks on lead).
i know what you mean about your dog being "deaf" when he's got a good sniffy spot. Simba is like this too, once and awhile. He gets completely absorbed in the sniff. It's the same when we are on the walking trails in the woods and he catches a scent that he just "has" to follow - a deer or whatever. He will take off after it no matter what. It's why I always have the long line on, and generally am always holding it. But it's a bit different for Simba in some ways, I think. He got so used to ignoring his previous owner that he just isn't very tuned in to me - he is much, much better now, and using the whistle instead of a voice command for recall was a life-saver. But the early months of "tuning out" set a pattern in his brain that just kicks in at times, I think. He absolutely will not recall to his name, ever, no matter what. So for Shadow, who you raised from a pup, to not respond to you would be quite unusual, I would think, and I can understand the dilemma. In my case the "leave it" works pretty well when I've had enough standing around during a sniff, but sometimes I do have to pull him away. That is a last resort, though. For the most part we have a fairly good compromise going on our walks. He doesn't pull me towards a sniff and I don't pull him away from one. Mostly, anyhow. He does pull towards tasty garbage bits, though, if I don't forstall him with a "leave it". So our walks aren't perfect in this regard but I certainly am not being yanked around at all times. Mostly I can walk and hold the lead with one finger if I wanted to and be quite relaxed. Which is good. Like you, I just couldn't do walks on icy pavements in the winter if I had to worry about a dog pulling me around.
