I think if I post a log here it will make me keep up the training! ;D Lady is 5 years old, working strain, was always intended to be a pet dog, but during the nightmare first three years I did a spot of gundog training with her to keep her amused and tire her out as well. When she was a bit more than two years old Lady and I were invited to join a shoot and Lady started out in the beating line but for the last 3 seasons has been picking up. She does this adequately, but has lots of faults that should really be addressed mainly to do with steadiness to falling game (I think that's the right expression). Well this year between seasons the keeper on our shoot (the only one I work on) has offered to do regular training with a few of us who find ourselves in the front line of the action. He's a gundog trainer but isn't charging for these lessons because, as he says, we all work so hard on the shoot as volunteers he'd like to return the favour. Had the first session with him this morning. Very pleased to have taken up the offer and ..... he's a force free trainer. 8). Lady was the only Lab; the others are all Springers. There are 5 of us in the group. It was all new to Lady and keeping her attention was hard work to say the least, but we all kicked off with some basic sits and waits and getting the dogs used to a raised hand and sitting at a distance then calling in and sitting again. Lady can do this fine but excelled herself by forgetting all that. : A couple of the spaniels were a bit more advanced and moved on to practicing stop and sit at a distance. I've never been able to get lady to do that so I've ended up with working on that in earnest. We then tried a few retrieves. This is one area where I need help to stop Lady from running in. The spaniels were entertaining. They all sat beautifully before being sent in for a dummy thrown a short way, but whereas the retrieve ended up back with the handler eventually it seemed to include a good bit of the field as well followed by a reluctance to hand over the goods in a couple of cases. ;D Lady, having let me down on the sits and waits, did well on the retrieves of course. She was unusually steady to the cast dummy at first, and when released went like a little black bullet as straight as a dye, picked up and returned, sat and delivered. Spot on! 8) She did show her main fault of running in after that but Rory was quick off the mark and picked up the dummy before she got to it. I've got lots of homework now! I'm away for the next 3 weekends, but Rory (keeper) has offered to meet during the week in the evenings which is really nice of him. No photos - too much to do just paying attention - maybe next time.
Re: Lady's Training Log - Filling in a lot of cracks Sounds great!!! Our steadiness is a challenge at the moment too
Re: Lady's Training Log - Filling in a lot of cracks Yay! What a treat! Lady's training log. That's brill. [quote author=David link=topic=10116.msg148084#msg148084 date=1425818760] Very pleased to have taken up the offer and ..... he's a force free trainer. 8). [/quote] Yay! Yay! Yay!
Re: Lady's Training Log - Filling in a lot of cracks What a super gamekeeper, I am sure it will be an interesting time, I envy you ;D
Re: Lady's Training Log - Filling in a lot of cracks It sounds great David, looking forward to continued updates!
Re: Lady's Training Log - Filling in a lot of cracks What a great gatekeeper. I enjoyed reading your log and find it encouraging that a dog can develop and learn gradually over time - that just because something hasn't been mastered by the end of puppyhood it doesn't mean it can't be in future.
Re: Lady's Training Log - Filling in a lot of cracks [quote author=Joy link=topic=10116.msg148208#msg148208 date=1425850957] ....... just because something hasn't been mastered by the end of puppyhood it doesn't mean it can't be in future. [/quote] Yes she still seems to be quite able to learn new stuff. The sit, hold and delivery to hand of the retrieve was all learnt in the last 6 months and really quite easily too.
Re: Lady's Training Log - Filling in a lot of cracks Haven't been able to get to ANY classes for the last couple of weeks becaus)e of diary pre-commitments and could go to today's session but had to drop out because of a touch of bronchitis - doh! (or should that be cough! ;D). Any way I'm currently working on Lady's stop and sit which I should have done 3 years ago but hey who's counting. To say progress is slow would not be an exaggeration! Anyway we are making progress and she'll now sit on the stop whistle anything up to 5 feet away. ;D Onwards and upwards as they say. ???
Re: Lady's Training Log - Filling in a lot of cracks Just had a very frustrating afternoon - couldn't get Lady's attention at all. I think it must have been the high winds we've got at the moment putting her off. She just wanted to stand pointing upwind scenting the air! : Gave up after about 15 minutes and just took her for a walk instead.
Re: Lady's Training Log - Filling in a lot of cracks Yes, the wind is definitely very distracting today!! Keep it up though David, it'll stand you both in great stead next season.
Re: Lady's Training Log - Filling in a lot of cracks Hi David, may I ask what technique you're using for the stop and sit at a distance? I used a tennis ball in my hand at first (the first few tries), then progressed to a treat and now use nothing, except a reward for doing it, obviously. I think, at the very basic level, it's the easiest thing I've taught so far! At first, they didn't sit, so I would cue them to do that, but now they spin and sit with the whistle or hand signal about 80% of the time (the rest of the time, they stop but remain standing).
Re: Lady's Training Log - Filling in a lot of cracks Well I'm making slow progress. I'm using the stop whistle plus a raised hand cue. I've got success now up to about 30 ft away and I walk up to Lady with huge amounts of praise and a treat. I tried slightly different tactics this morning. Going straight into the stop-sit exercise, I found it very hard to get Lady's attention, so this morning I got her pumped up a bit by doing a couple of sighted retrieves and a couple of blind retrieves. That worked well and seemed to switch her from "dog walk" to "hunting" mode. I then got her to stop-sit a few times really easily and increased the distance from right by me up to around the 30 ft mark, which I thought was good enough for today. Between each stop-sit I walked on, or got her to do a retrieve then walked on and picked a moment at about the right distance to blow a stop and hold up my hand. She's a bit slow to respond, but getting there I think. By slow to respond I mean she stops and looks at me then "eventually" puts her bottom on the deck. ;D I think it's all much harder with a 5 year old because of ingrained habits, but I think we'll get there.
Re: Lady's Training Log - Filling in a lot of cracks That sounds promising! I definitely have a similar issue with Riley switching between "walks" and "work". I try to only walk in certain areas and never train there so he knows he can switch off. All other spots are training grounds and he has to concentrate, I rarely mix walks and work. I know others do but it doesn't work for us. With Obi that's taken to the next level and the only place he's not always under orders is the garden otherwise I'd have a mental spaniel chasing anything that twitched. Can you pre-seed the ground with dummies for Lady to find? Then hunt her up like your sweeping up after a drive and pop some stops in there. Then she'll have the occasional reward of finding a dummy. You just need to be careful not to try and stop her when she's indicating. Also putting a mark out when she stops as reward although I find that easier to do with a decent dummy thrower (mostly because my throwing is pitiful!) I've been stopping Obi with a small dummy in my hand and then throwing that for him. Riley usually gets a mark after he's stopped unless I've stopped him because he's out if area on a retrieve when I push him back into the right area when he hopefully picks. If Riley isn't getting success then again I'll pop a mark out for him to reward his good work.
Re: Lady's Training Log - Filling in a lot of cracks [quote author=bbrown link=topic=10116.msg153521#msg153521 date=1427913455] That sounds promising! Can you pre-seed the ground with dummies for Lady to find? Then hunt her up like your sweeping up after a drive and pop some stops in there. Then she'll have the occasional reward of finding a dummy. You just need to be careful not to try and stop her when she's indicating. Also putting a mark out when she stops as reward although I find that easier to do with a decent dummy thrower (mostly because my throwing is pitiful!) I've been stopping Obi with a small dummy in my hand and then throwing that for him. Riley usually gets a mark after he's stopped unless I've stopped him because he's out if area on a retrieve when I push him back into the right area when he hopefully picks. If Riley isn't getting success then again I'll pop a mark out for him to reward his good work. [/quote] Good idea. I haven't done that in the past, but there are a couple of places I could leave a couple of dummies overnight where they wouldn't get picked by a casual dog walker off the public paths. I'll give it a whirl. Lady's on light duties for a couple of days though because she strained an elbow playing kiss-chase with Rory the Golden Retriever who started to get a bit amorous : so after the holiday weekend I think.
Re: Lady's Training Log - Filling in a lot of cracks Out walking with OH and Lady yesterday morning and Lady was dragging behind a fair way so we stopped and waited for her to trot up. Said to OH that this is what I've been trying to train but she probably won't do it as she's too far away. Blew stop and raised hand. Lady stopped and sat! Whoohoo! She's got it at last. Just a matter now of proofing it all over the place and make it more exciting by starting to hook it up with a retrieve I guess. Time to meet up with the trainer I think to push onwards.
Re: Lady's Training Log - Filling in a lot of cracks Woohoo well done Lady I think they I think they like to surprise us every now and then
Re: Lady's Training Log - Filling in a lot of cracks ;D Yes she seems to have got the idea. Blew a stop this evening and she turned, stopped and sat as good as gold and I was able to cast her onto a blind to one side. Magic and very satisfying. Lots more work needed but we are moving in the right direction.
Re: Lady's Training Log - Filling in a lot of cracks It's so great when that happens 8) Good girl Lady.
