Riley training log 2015 January Strengths: marking, delivery, hunting Weaknesses: heelwork, steadiness, recall, stop The stop has been a work in progress for some time. The excitement of going shooting seems to have had a detrimental effect on our heelwork and steadiness. I'm not sure why our recall has got so iffy, probably a combination of shooting and walking with a toddler where he gets to please himself a bit too much. I'm focussing on our heelwork and recall first as I think both of these will have a positive impact on the steadiness. I'm using a clicker for the heelwork and am teaching a target to the back of my left hand (as per Claire Raymond's videos on the Positive Gundogs Facebook page) as I found a hand target really helped my delivery issues so I think it's something that will work for Riley. I can guide him round with my left hand in the house now, a few more days and I'll try in the garden. For the recall I'm C&T out and about for any offered attention to me and popping in easy recalls whenever I can. So far so good but it's early days. I'm going to try and use my place boards for some stop work along with stolen retrieves whenever I have a training partner. I think a routine of a mark, followed by a blind, followed by a missing retrieve with a blind out to one side might work and if I can get that drill going I would be very pleased.....any other suggestions?
Re: Riley's training log [quote author=bbrown link=topic=9765.msg141244#msg141244 date=1422911522] .....any other suggestions? [/quote] Whipit? You have your stick... Dog chases ball...blow stop..if dog sits toy/ball flicks towards dog. If dog doesn't sit, ball comes back to you. Ok...it sounds easy...it looked easy when Helen did it (Charlie sat perfectly, mid chase)...it's a bit tricky. You have to practise without the dog first...
Re: Riley's training log [quote author=bbrown link=topic=9765.msg141244#msg141244 date=1422911522] I'm going to try and use my place boards for some stop work along with stolen retrieves whenever I have a training partner. I think a routine of a mark, followed by a blind, followed by a missing retrieve with a blind out to one side might work and if I can get that drill going I would be very pleased.....any other suggestions? [/quote] Suggestions? You lost me after "I'm going to try". Lol I'm looking forward to watching your progress. Stuart.
Re: Riley's training log [quote author=Lumpy link=topic=9765.msg141281#msg141281 date=1422948001] [quote author=bbrown link=topic=9765.msg141244#msg141244 date=1422911522] I'm going to try and use my place boards for some stop work along with stolen retrieves whenever I have a training partner. I think a routine of a mark, followed by a blind, followed by a missing retrieve with a blind out to one side might work and if I can get that drill going I would be very pleased.....any other suggestions? [/quote] Suggestions? You lost me after "I'm going to try". Lol I'm looking forward to watching your progress. Stuart. [/quote] And me. ;D And I'm supposed to speak the lingo. ;D
Re: Riley's training log I'm just in awe of all of you who can find the time to train the dog AND write about it!!!!!
Re: Riley's training log [quote author=heidrun link=topic=9765.msg141290#msg141290 date=1422950700] [quote author=Lumpy link=topic=9765.msg141281#msg141281 date=1422948001] [quote author=bbrown link=topic=9765.msg141244#msg141244 date=1422911522] I'm going to try and use my place boards for some stop work along with stolen retrieves whenever I have a training partner. I think a routine of a mark, followed by a blind, followed by a missing retrieve with a blind out to one side might work and if I can get that drill going I would be very pleased.....any other suggestions? [/quote] Suggestions? You lost me after "I'm going to try". Lol I'm looking forward to watching your progress. Stuart. [/quote] And me. ;D And I'm supposed to speak the lingo. ;D [/quote] Lord help me then !!!! ;D ;D ;D To expand.....and I'd appreciate thoughts on the plan......... The placeboards will be used to first get Riley to sit on the boards close to me. Then I'll start to add some distance in sending him on a straight line to the board. A stop on the board will get a reward (to be decided, sometimes food, sometimes a retrieve). Secondly: To keep Riley's straight lines in place and confidence up I want to send him for a marked retrieve first. When he's on his return another dummy will go in the same spot. Hopefully he will head straight out to retrieve the dummy and return. Then he'll get sent to the same spot with no dummy down. I'll ask him to stop and then head left or right for another dummy. The only thing I can't decide is whether to give him a mark after the stop or have the dummy already there and blind to him?....
Re: Riley's training log Ah, I see. I use the stolen retrieve very, very rarely because I would worry that my dog loses confidence in me as the handler. So something like your scenario I would use once in a blue moon and I would probably go for a blind rather than a marked, because all of this would be happening at a fair distance from me so I wouldn't be able to throw that far and I wouldn't want my dog to start looking at a helper throwing a dummy. They suss that one out quite quickly. If you use a blind make sure you place it wisely taking distance and wind direction into consideration.
Re: Riley's training log Whereabouts are you in the stop whistle training? Can you stop him on the outrun to a seen retrieve?
Re: Riley's training log [quote author=heidrun link=topic=9765.msg141333#msg141333 date=1422959313] Whereabouts are you in the stop whistle training? Can you stop him on the outrun to a seen retrieve? [/quote] Depends how far he's got (ie not far).....probably limited to 10-15m at the moment. Are you thinking I should send him for a seen and get my assistant to pick up if he doesn't stop? If he's hunting and not finding I'm trying to spot the moment he flicks the merest look towards me and stop him then to redirect him which is working. He's less likely than our classmates to go self employed but a little bit of shooting hasn't helped as his enthusiasm is right up there at the moment. I think someone should write a structured book on training a stop I'm getting lost on the options and which should come first. As a result I'm wandering around with a shaky stop (at best).
Re: Riley's training log I just think the stolen retrieve is such a double edged sword. If you are not careful the dog will start looking up for help the moment the hunt gets that little bit harder. Been there, done that. : I prefer to stop a dog on the outrun to a seen dummy and reward by redirecting on to another dummy the dog knows is there. And even that I do sparingly. Most of my stop whistle training is in conjunction with hunting.
Re: Riley's training log [quote author=heidrun link=topic=9765.msg141370#msg141370 date=1422964880] Most of my stop whistle training is in conjunction with hunting. [/quote] and that is DEFINITELY what I'm doing with Obi.........what to do with my boring retriever though?
Re: Riley's training log [quote author=bbrown link=topic=9765.msg141355#msg141355 date=1422962477] I think someone should write a structured book on training a stop I'm getting lost on the options and which should come first. As a result I'm wandering around with a shaky stop (at best). [/quote] There's a job for you bb. I get a lot of different advice from people who profess to be experts. I pick the advice I like and stick to it. If it doesn't work I try another method. Hopefully it won't upset Riley if you change an option that isn't working. Stuart.
Re: Riley's training log [quote author=bbrown link=topic=9765.msg141371#msg141371 date=1422965266] [quote author=heidrun link=topic=9765.msg141370#msg141370 date=1422964880] Most of my stop whistle training is in conjunction with hunting. [/quote] and that is DEFINITELY what I'm doing with Obi.........what to do with my boring retriever though? [/quote] Practice with a helper to pick up the dummy or feeding bowl if he doesn't stop or use a carefully measured out long line if you are on your own.
Re: Riley's training log [quote author=Lumpy link=topic=9765.msg141372#msg141372 date=1422965311] There's a job for you bb. [/quote] Only problem with that Stuart is one needs to know what one is writing about so sadly I fail ;D ;D ;D We do however have some excellent authors on here and my, probably terribly limited, observation is this is an area that many pet gundog owners struggle with as you have to be so careful not to put the brakes on permanently they end up with not enough brakes in the first place.
Re: Riley's training log [quote author=heidrun link=topic=9765.msg141375#msg141375 date=1422965630] [quote author=bbrown link=topic=9765.msg141371#msg141371 date=1422965266] [quote author=heidrun link=topic=9765.msg141370#msg141370 date=1422964880] Most of my stop whistle training is in conjunction with hunting. [/quote] and that is DEFINITELY what I'm doing with Obi.........what to do with my boring retriever though? [/quote] Practice with a helper to pick up the dummy or feeding bowl if he doesn't stop or use a carefully measured out long line if you are on your own. [/quote] Thanks ;D
Re: Riley's training log Lovely to read about Riley, haven't got a clue what you're talking about though ;D What's a stolen retrieve? ??? xx
Re: Riley's training log [quote author=charlie link=topic=9765.msg141412#msg141412 date=1422973772] What's a stolen retrieve? ??? xx [/quote] It's where you sneakily steal the dummy from the dog while he's not looking and send him to where he still thinks the dummy is. Then when he's hunting you blow your stop whistle and redirect him somewhere else. The problem with it is your dog may start to think you're an idiot not to be trusted with important things like directing them to dummies or they will stop hunting really quickly because you're an idiot who changes their minds so you might as well tell them sooner rather than later that you want them to try somewhere else
Re: Riley's training log I managed to sneak an hour out of work today to head over to our gundog trainer for a bit of 1-2-1 help. This meant we had a glamorous assistant for our training today so we did some work on our stop whistle. Our trainer was concerned about my plan to stop Riley on his outrun. That would be the last of the exercises he would do in order not to make Riley "sticky" (this means he doesn't run out with purpose or he stops part way anticipating the stop whistle). He would do my original plan of sending for something that isn't there......we had a bit of a chat about the pros and cons and the potential impact on the dog handler trust of both options. We did both exercises in the end as well as one other so we knew were we were at and how Riley responded to each. We started with a single push up a bank to nothing and Riley stopped really nicely about 10m away, a dummy was thrown either side of him and he was steady as a rock (yay!) then I sent him to my left for the retrieve. Riley has good response to left and rights we're just lacking the stop as a platform for that directional ability. Then we did the same thing down the bank at which point we had another conflab as I think there was an anticipation that Riley wouldn't stop as well as he did and we agreed we'd go for a stop on his way to a mark. I stopped him on the outrun to clean up the last dummy out down the bank and then we put out a mark up the bank and I stopped him again at about 10m dummies left and right. All going well so far..... Then we left Riley on the bank and walked down into the field at the bottom. We threw a dummy over his head up the bank(still steady yay!!) then I recalled him towards me and stopped him on his way home. A dummy went out to my left and I sent Riley back up the bank for the first dummy. The dummy up the bank should have been a left back but because there was a dummy in full view out to his left I was advised to I pushed him back with my right hand. Duly done, he hunted well and picked no problem. Then I sent him for the dummy out to the left. Finally we put a mark up the bank to finish on with no stop and here we came unstuck. I hadn't moved at all and Riley was suddenly unwilling to go out. I moved forward a few steps and he shot up the bank and retrieved beautifully........big fuss all round, happy days. I think this shows where our limit for stops is at the moment(both distance and frequency), we did 5 stops in that session (2 to nothing, 2 to marks and 1 on a recall) so I'll only do 2 or 3 in any one session so as not to impact his outrun. The other good thing was that my friend got me to take a breath and relax after each stop before giving direction which stopped me from rushing and meant my directions were nice and clear rather than flappy (it's been known) A few days off stopping now and some nice clear marks before we do a little more ;D Obi pup got a run out too if anyone's interested in a spaniel training log I can write that up aswell......
Re: Riley's training log btw I think Riley works better being stopped on the way to something he knows is there. I think stopping him on a blind(effectively) does dent his confidence in me. At least on a mark I've changed my mind rather than making a mistake (I may be putting words in his muzzle there though ) Oh and he managed to cut a paw on a flint so has had a hibiscrub wash and has a bandage on it to stop him bleeding all over the floor - you'd think I'd cut his leg off : : :
