The moderators were having a chat about training threads, and wondering why more people don't post about their training successes / questions / failures. One thought we had was that more people might chip in with stories, photos or videos on a general thread, along the lines of the very popular 'My Walk' thread. So here we go, I'll start us off with my rather odd training story. Anyone can join in. It doesn't have to be about gun dog training in particular, but it can be if that's what you are doing at the moment!
Re: My Training - tell us yours! So - my first training story is about 'Roll over and let me rub your tummy'. Poppy is a rather careful little soul, not overly keen on strangers touching her. This weekend we are doing the German 'Wesenstest' (character test), which is required if you want to breed from your dog under the auspices of the German Retriever Club. Several things will be tested, including that the dog is not gun shy (no problem there), that there is a strong retrieving drive present (again, no problems!), that the dog is friendly to humans (the dog gets to play with their owner, with the judge and with other people present) and not overly bothered by being in a crowd or by strange noises. No commands are supposed to be given; the dog just accompanies you through a series of little tests and games, so I am not particularly worried - EXCEPT for one test, where the dog has to lie down and allow the judge to stroke and pat her. I've been trying to get her used to this, with the use of a lot of cheese cubes. I started by teaching her to roll over in our living room, and allowing me to stroke her tummy. Then we progressed to the garden, and finally out in the woods or during training. Then I started to ask other people to stroke her while she rolled over - first women friends who she knows, then men who she knows. I have never asked a complete stranger to stroke her tummy as I feel this would be too much to ask of her. The judge is a woman, and by the end of the test Poppy will know her fairly well, so I am hopeful all will go well! It's a bit of an odd thing to teach a dog, but I can see situations where it may come in useful - if a vet that she doesn't know has to examine her, for instance.
Re: My Training - tell us yours! Im going to have to give that a go with Scott and Scout Karen. Although with my two it would be a big step for them to let a stranger stroke under the chin I doubt we'll ever get to a tummy rub. ;D Good luck with the test I hope it goes well. I'm sure it will poppy always does well with tests even though this one is a bit different. ;D
Re: My Training - tell us yours! I have been doing dummy retrieving training with Harley over the past few months. When out on normal walks, she has a ball and I don't ask for it to hand as she sometimes wants to carry it, sometimes drops it to be thrown. With the dummy, I want it directly to me, not 10ft away. We have been doing 5 min sessions and been really praising eye when she brings it directly to me. Tonight, I had 10/10 retrieves directly to me, some on my foot I'm so proud of her
Re: My Training - tell us yours! I had a training session tonight that was definitely "mixed"! First, the dratted rabbit skin ball - decided I'd use it as a reward when increasing distance in my stop. Blast it, as soon as he knew that rabbit skin was on offer and heard my stop he recalled instantly to get closer to the rabbit skin! So that ruined my stop. He then kept doing it! Darn and blast it. Rabbit skin put away! By the end of the session I had just about recovered my instant whip round and a solid sit. Then, we tried a blind - a real one, not a permanent one. Two dummies out in a row with the intention that he goes to the first which he'll see quickly, then be sent for the second. He gets to the first, picks it up, spots the second and takes the first dummy to the second one and tries to get both in his mouth at the same time, is interrupted by two terriers and ends up dropping both. Drat and double drat. Tomorrow is another day!
Re: My Training - tell us yours! [quote author=Naya link=topic=8301.msg117280#msg117280 date=1413477071] I have been doing dummy retrieving training with Harley over the past few months. When out on normal walks, she has a ball and I don't ask for it to hand as she sometimes wants to carry it, sometimes drops it to be thrown. With the dummy, I want it directly to me, not 10ft away. We have been doing 5 min sessions and been really praising eye when she brings it directly to me. Tonight, I had 10/10 retrieves directly to me, some on my foot I'm so proud of her [/quote] Oh that's great! I know some people don't like to use retrieving 'toys' like balls, but I do with Pops and she seems to have no difficulty keeping the two things separate.
Re: My Training - tell us yours! [quote author=JulieT link=topic=8301.msg117282#msg117282 date=1413478846] Then, we tried a blind - a real one, not a permanent one. Two dummies out in a row with the intention that he goes to the first which he'll see quickly, then be sent for the second. He gets to the first, picks it up, spots the second and takes the first dummy to the second one and tries to get both in his mouth at the same time [/quote] Oh yes, been there too Julie!! In front of a crowd of other people, too... Maybe you need to put the second dummy a bit further away?
Re: My Training - tell us yours! [quote author=Karen link=topic=8301.msg117287#msg117287 date=1413479524] [quote author=JulieT link=topic=8301.msg117282#msg117282 date=1413478846] Then, we tried a blind - a real one, not a permanent one. Two dummies out in a row with the intention that he goes to the first which he'll see quickly, then be sent for the second. He gets to the first, picks it up, spots the second and takes the first dummy to the second one and tries to get both in his mouth at the same time [/quote] Oh yes, been there too Julie!! In front of a crowd of other people, too... Maybe you need to put the second dummy a bit further away? [/quote] oh yes try a bigger gap and/or less obvious dummy, you don't want a double picking or swapping habit if you can help it
Re: My Training - tell us yours! I thought I'd just give an update on where we are with getting Lady to deliver a retrieve to the hand. I was going to put it under Gundog Training but I thought it equally applied to general training and then this thread came along and it seems ideal. Lady is 5 years old and has never delivered to the hand because I've never really taught her to do it, but I've decided to give it a go, especially as she's also a working dog so it's really much, much cooler to get the retrieve delivered to the hand than dumped on the deck when you've got an audience. I think it’s also much cooler as far as other dog owners are concerned if their dog doesn't put the tennis ball in their hand on a retrieve but my dog does. An added complication is that Lady is frightened of the clicker, so reward cues need to be spot on verbally. First steps were to get her to just hold a ball in front of me then hand it over. I offered the ball to her while she was sitting in front of me. I had to do this quite a few times until she eventually pushed the ball away with her nose and got a “Good Girl!” and a treat. She quickly transitioned from the push to putting her mouth round the ball briefly, and then later momentarily holding it. Quite a few repetitions were required to get to the point of a brief hold. Moving on to a longer hold took more perseverance over a few days until she’d eventually hold the ball for 2 or 3 seconds which is a long time when you're praying for her not to drop it! We then moved on to a very short retrieve – actually just dropping the ball behind her and then deftly taking the ball from her mouth before she dropped it. I was actually quite surprised at this point about how quickly she moved on to retrieving at a distance and delivering first to the floor but then to the hand after a reminding “Ah! Ah!” and then pretty reliably to the hand nearly every time. However, when we went out into one of our training fields we had to start all over again. You've heard of proofing? Well I needed to proof her in a whole series of different locations. First a hold, then a short retrieve, then full retrieving. She wasn't too bad at it but she persisted in dropping the dummy and only picking it up and handing it to me after a reminder. We started this malarkey about a fortnight ago and tonight, at last, it all came together. We got the retrieve and drop, but this time I just stood there looking at her and said nothing. Eventually Lady remembered and delivered. Once we’d done that a couple of times she stopped dropping the dummy and delivered properly. More success than I’d thought would be possible to be honest. I need to reinforce that over the next few days. Next steps retrieve and hold before delivery. She’ll do about 2 seconds as of this evening.
Re: My Training - tell us yours! [quote author=David link=topic=8301.msg117298#msg117298 date=1413480663] Next steps retrieve and hold before delivery. She’ll do about 2 seconds as of this evening. [/quote] Hold is a struggle for us - Charlie's hold is very "loose". He holds the dummy so lightly, it can just fall out of his mouth. My trainer gave me several exercises to do. I'm supposed to be able to poke it and not have him drop it before the end of the month...not made much progress.
Re: My Training - tell us yours! I started gundog training with an instructor when Murphy was 6 months old, he`s now 1 year. In hindsight he was too young/immature so I gave that up and concentrated on; Loose lead walking/walking to heel off lead Establishing a sit, stay Generally getting used to being around livestock/animals Starting to establish a retrieve So far progress has been slow but positive; The loose lead walking is coming along although he does tend to want to walk a bit further forward than I would like, i.e. his shoulder in front of my knee instead of next to it; any suggestions on how to improve this would be great? Walking to heel off lead is a real step forward and can now be done with distractions such as other people around. Other dogs still pose a challenge!! I can now get a 1min 30sec sit stay with no distractions or around 20/30 secs with distractions Horses and cows are a MAJOR step forward to the point of Murphy touching noses with a horse and ignoring cows Sheep however are another issue! My OH also commented on how "hard" I was being on Murphy whilst training, now I take a more relaxed approach and he definately responds better to that plus I`ve been trying to establish a "neutral" body language which I believe has helped. The retrieve has been really slow, I don`t think I`ve ever met a lab who had no interest in bringing back anything ??? HOWEVER last night I managed to get 3 solid retrieves in a woodland corridor using a tennis ball. Whilst the sit and fetch part was good the return was a bit wayward but the ball did come back to me eventually and was pretty much delivered to hand ;D Around the house he`s really good and we`ve had no major incidents involving food or chewing things etc. He`s polite to visitors, will go into his crate without being asked whilst we are eating and is turning into what I had hoped, a relaxed/chilled dog hopefully well trained!
Re: My Training - tell us yours! Sounds great! [quote author=SteveF link=topic=8301.msg117412#msg117412 date=1413531471] The loose lead walking is coming along although he does tend to want to walk a bit further forward than I would like, i.e. his shoulder in front of my knee instead of next to it; any suggestions on how to improve this would be great? [/quote] Charge up a clicker, and then go out with dog, clicker and tasty treats. Mark out a circuit (say two poles 25m apart) and walk round and round - don't use your clicker yet. Once your dog has settled, then start clicking for the bits that are like, or more like, what you want. You need to guard against the clicks getting random, so concentrate on "paying" for the right things (his shoulder moving more towards your knee). Once things consistently improve, after a few days, up your requirements for what you will "pay" for, and start again.
Re: My Training - tell us yours! Good luck! It's easy to end up with a dog that is staring upwards if you do this - some people want that, I don't though. If you don't, "pay" for looking forwards and his shoulder more in line with your knee.
Re: My Training - tell us yours! I do tend to get despondent sometimes as I do some training every day but progress can seem slow, however this thread is good as it made me go back over my previous posts and realise that we are slowly improving. Back in July I posted about Molly's lack of retrieving desire and I'd completely forgotten this - she's now very keen and also always delivers to hand. I was interested to read that you Karen use toys as well as dummies - Molly also seems to be able to distinguish between them. If I'm using a dummy I always try to stop her running in, whereas I've decided to let her do an immediate chase when it's her rope toy or hoop (because she looks so happy!) She still brings them back to hand, but then if it's a toy I give it back and we have a tuggy game, whereas if it's the dummy she either gets a food reward or a throw of a toy to chase. Not running in is still a work in progress - I can now leave her in a sit, walk away about 5 yards in any direction, quietly put the dummy on the ground, walk back and send her for it and she almost never breaks. However if I throw the dummy or make it exciting in any way she breaks. She seems quite good on what I think are called blinds. If we're walking through the forest, I sometimes quietly drop the dummy when she isn't looking and then when we've walked on a bit, send her back for it. She's very funny, as after she's brought it back to me she keeps a close eye on me and if I try to drop it again, she immediately picks it up and thrusts it into my hand as if to say, "for goodness sake look after the blinkin' thing". So I guess we'll just keep persevering.
Re: My Training - tell us yours! Joy, I actually use a toy as Poppy's reward for a retrieve. Not every time, but quite often, I throw her ball for her as a reward for a particularly good retrieve. I think that what you are doing on your walks are called memory blinds. It's not a true blind, because she learns to follow the path you've just walked along to get to the dummy. But very useful nonetheless, and you can make them progressively difficult - crossing a stream, doubling back, changing direction when two paths cross - and slowly increasing the distance. Great stuff!
Re: My Training - tell us yours! [quote author=Joy link=topic=8301.msg117464#msg117464 date=1413541627] I do tend to get despondent sometimes as I do some training every day but progress can seem slow, however this thread is good as it made me go back over my previous posts and realise that we are slowly improving. [/quote] I know the feeling - why not post a training journal? It's not something that you can expect a huge number of replies to - although enough to keep motivated I find - I post one (bit behind for October though) and it really helps me. It's a bit like announcing to all your mates in the pub that you are giving up smoking! ;D ;D ;D And it does help to commit to posting updates and seeing how far you've come since you started. Worth a go, maybe....
Re: My Training - tell us yours! Really proud today - at our training class we were the only beginner team, and the four other dogs and their handlers were far more advanced than us. Our lovely trainer is very good at adapting the tasks for each dog, though. After a less than optimal start (Total fail on an attempt at a blind ), we managed to keep up very well, culminating in a 150 meter marked retrieve, with a blind across a stream on one side of the field, a search along the hedge on the other side, and then the dog was sent straight through the middle to a blind where the previous marked retrieve was. Yes, a blind over 150 meters, with distractions on both sides!!! We would NEVER have been able to do this on our own, but it really helps Poppy to watch the more advanced dogs. Very, very pleased. 8)
Re: My Training - tell us yours! Yay! Poppy good girl! Looking forward to my next training week - 8 more sleeps - and hoping to get some help with blinds. 150m blind sounds super impressive to us...
