I want to teach Larks to stop/halt on command but I'm honestly not sure where to start with it. I would assume get her to stay and work from there but when I release her from her stay she always immediately runs to me. That's great but I would like to be able to stop her at certain points. Any tips or ideas from you all?
I just picked one up today so we have just started. She learns quickly so she has "come" with the whistle well already. After a few days I want to work on "stop" but since we haven't learned it at all yet I know I probably shouldn't start with the whistle until she knows what I want!
If you have only just started with the whistle for her recall you will need to proof it in different areas gradually increasing the distractions. Have you got Pippa's Total Recall book? I highly recommend it to help you with your recall against lots of different distractions, you can get it on Amazon. You could use the stop whistle when you feed Lark so get her to sit when her bottom hits the floor blow your whistle, get her to sit at kerbs, sit before you go through the gate etc. The way I started was when Hattie & Charlie sat I blew my stop whistle which is one longer 'peeeeeeeeep' went to her and treated, very gradually you can increase the distance. You can sometimes throw the treat too. Some owners use a ball or toy as a reward too. There a few ways to train it that's just how I do it, I am sure other people will give you advise too. There should be some information in the gun dog section on the forum x
I start by introducing the stop whistle (one longish peep) as a cue for sit - that is, blow the whistle, then give my regular sit cue. Gradually fade the sit cue so the dog sits on the whistle alone. Here's an article about it: http://totallygundogs.com/introduction-to-stop-whistle-training/
For "stop" I worked on "sit" at a distance (and "down" at a distance). Then I came across the "stop whistle" training on Totally Gundogs and took it from there. We're still not very good, but that's due to lack of effort on my part. http://totallygundogs.com/introduction-to-stop-whistle-training/ SNAP! Fiona - beat me to it.
I trained my stop two different ways with my two dogs. My first dog (Riley labrador) I trained a sit at heel or in front to a whistle peeeeep and then tried to get distance between him and I which I found very tricky. With my second dog which is a spaniel I did things the other way round and I taught the stop remotely from the start. He was keen on a tennis ball so when I held it up in the air his bum went down so it was easy to pair that with a whistle. I threw the ball as his reward for stopping. I'll use the second method for my next dog too.
...ah that's another method we used, at training class - holding the ball in the air, as if to throw it at first, then just held aloft. This was to get a stop while the dog is recalling - (making sure he has more complete recalls than half-recalls - we didn't want to break it!)
Yup, I've used that, too. I basically used a mixture of both methods. Started with the stop at heel, but used the ball for distance.
I just let my dog cruise around (not generally hard with a spaniel!) but if you're fortunate enough to have a helper you can get them to gently hold your dog by its collar so you haven't actually used your recall. Then if they don't stop throw the ball over the dog to the helper, this hopefully stops them travelling.
This is exactly my experience as well! The sit at heal is going great but trying to move it to a distance is confusing for her. I'll try the ball method and see how that works. Thank you!
