I want to introduce the sit whistle to Bruno, I'm currently mid way through Total Recall (using 4 pips) and was just wondering if I introduce this will it confuse him? I know many others use different amount of pips or duration of a pip for different things but as this is Bruno's first stage of learning (using the whistle) I don't want to jeopardize it. Also how did you teach the whistle without heel? (or do you need heel for this to work?) Ive read to start on lead, blow the whistle, say the command "sit" and then reward. Then to progress onto just the whistle blow means sit (if only it was that simple). How do I proof this then to move onto when his off lead in a big open space?
Re: Sit Whistle Pippa has a good YouTube video on this although it is from heel. I do it this way as well as my own blow, sit command and treat. We are phasing out the sit command. And moving it to slightly longer ranges. Rightly or wrongly, it's working and there's no confusion with the recall. It is taking a fair amount of time though.
Re: Sit Whistle There are loads of ways to do this but yes, a building block is associating the whistle with the sit so the whistle becomes a cue to sit. There is no reason why the dog should get confused, it's best to separate out training different things, so do recall and stop in separate sessions. You create the sit to the whistle cue in the same way as you create sit to the verbal cue "sit". To then get distance, it depends on what will work for your dog. My dog will sit if I show him a ball (so Heidrun suggested the following) - all I had to do was wait until he was at a distance to me, get his attention and hold up a ball. He sat and I blew my whistle as he sat. Then I threw the ball. Did that a few times and then didn't show him the ball first (to remove the lure of the ball). Worked like a dream. The other way is to clicker train the dog to sit on a placeboard. A dog turning on the placeboard to sit to face you is exactly the action that you want to associate with the whistle to create the cue (you get the behaviour, then add the signal - so then the signal becomes a cue to prompt the behaviour). Once you have distance in your placeboards you can associate sitting at a distance with the whistle stop. I actually didn't train my stop whistle with my dog close to me, and the first time my trainer asked us to use our stop whistles with our dogs on lead Charlie just looked at me blankly, and I had to go away and train that - I only had a stop whistle at a distance. : ;D
Re: Sit Whistle I used Pippa's Stop whistle training articles. They work. http://totallygundogs.com/introduction-to-stop-whistle-training/
Re: Sit Whistle So I trained my labrador to sit at heel and found getting a sit at a distance challenging. My spaniel I've taught at a distance using the ball method Julie described and he struggles to sit still close by me I'm using place boards to fix that though which is working well. So from my perspective you pick your method and get good and bad bits with each. Whichever you choose teaching a proper stop at a distance has challenges with your dog anticipating a stop and getting sticky but that's probably for another day What are you hoping to do with your dog? General obedience? Gundog stuff or something else? I think I would start at a distance with the next dog as the heel sit I find easier
