A question - sorry : As I have said before, Charlie's behaviour is much better in the woods than on open ground, he stays much closer checking in regularly and his recall is good too. On open ground it's different, he wants to run and run a bit more : and we don't recall him he comes back within 5 minutes himself, no way do we want failed recalls if we can help it. Would you walk in the woods to keep up the good training or mix it up working on open ground except not sure how to keep him closer as he doesn't retrieve, what would you do? Any help would be massively appreciated. Thank you xx
Re: Woods or Open Ground? I would try walking in the woods until he has been out for a good while, then trying a short trip into the open towards the end of his walk.
Re: Woods or Open Ground? Thanks Karen, we do this when we go/leave the woods as we have to walk up/down a track with open fields either side so not too bad he just goes for a short excursion of leg stretching, the problem is on a different walk that I do a lot with Hattie, it's open horizon walking and that's where the difficulty lies and we really want to explore other walks but we need Charlie to be closer x
Re: Woods or Open Ground? I'd keep to the woods until Charlie has a habit of staying closer, and just try a little training towards open ground. I know Charlie is a billion times better now, thanks to your hard work, but there are risks in having him stray too far, outside where you have control with your stop for example. Are there any places that are a sort of half way? Where you can gradually transition into areas that cue him to run?
Re: Woods or Open Ground? [quote author=charlie link=topic=8400.msg118720#msg118720 date=1413898460] not sure how to keep him closer as he doesn't retrieve [/quote] Sorry, Helen, I meant to say, that book "when pigs fly" really might help - we have a focus on retrieving on the forum, because a few of us - and obviously Pippa - are keen on gundog training. It's worth remembering though that there are hundreds and hundreds of breeds that are not retrievers, and not at all biddable, and people successfully train control both close and at a distance.
Re: Woods or Open Ground? Hmm our stop is only at about 5 meters at the moment so no good at all : I'll have to have a good think about transition walks but not the walk I do with Hattie as it's open all the way for a upto 2 hours. How would we transition him though, would we just put him on and off lead? x
Re: Woods or Open Ground? He is behaving exactly like I would expect a hunting bred dog to behave. You have already said that he is far more pointer than lab in his characteristics. Any dog of the HPR breeds will use open ground to range far and wide to hunt and make full use of the wind. As soon as there is more cover on the ground and more obstacles in the way i.e. trees and bushes the dog will slow down and not range so far.
Re: Woods or Open Ground? So does that mean this behaviour will not change no matter how hard we try and we (I) should accept this is his pointer characteristics or is there anything else we can do other than keep training our recall/stop whistle?
Re: Woods or Open Ground? I am in the minority at my clicker courses, having a labrador, the focus is firmly on HPRs. Not one of them hunts until told, all of them are doing so under complete control, so it's definitely not something that can't be controlled. But you, Helen, are not really interested in training controlled hunting - so you could try other things.
Re: Woods or Open Ground? He will always have a need to run and to hunt, just like my spaniels have a need to hunt. That desire can't be squashed it needs some sort of outlet. So I train for control. The dogs get to hunt but under control.
Re: Woods or Open Ground? It's not that I don't want to train it I don't understand contolled hunting or even where to start . Julie as you know I have tried many, many things but Charlie is a difficult boy and for us to have even got as far as we have has almost finished us - really it has, with a large family etc. if all we had to do with our lives was train our dogs we are sure they would be "perfect" too x
Re: Woods or Open Ground? I don't know anything about training controlled hunting Helen. :-\ Do you think if you could find a lay mans explanation of how to start trying to control Charlie's hunting instinct it would be of help and something you might try ? Maybe Barbara could let you know how she is planning on starting with Obi. It might not be relevant with him being so young. I don't know much about this but when starting anything new it should be simple and achievable. Just a thought.
Re: Woods or Open Ground? Jen, I think these new skills should be simple and achievable too but it always ends up being complex and in gun dog training language and unachievable for me anyway I find it quite hard to process mountains of information when all I want is literally step by step instructions that Charlie and I can achieve and that I don't set him up to fail. Or maybe I will just say to hell with it Charlie is Charlie and he's tons better than he was :-\
Re: Woods or Open Ground? There are loads of people that take various forms of hunting hounds on as rescues and make good pets out of them - and I'm not belittling the challenges by saying that. I do think, Helen, if you find the gundog explanations and techniques too complex, you might try looking at other material. The sport of gundogs is not the only area that might have something to contribute to the issues you are dealing with. You could say Charlie is Charlie - if you think he'll never get into trouble, flush a bird/deer/whatever and chase, or the balance of risks and benefits (and only you know that) means that's the right answer.
Re: Woods or Open Ground? Yes there are many people that do rescue HPRs BUT they may not have had the absconding issues Charlie had and have invested 3 years of their lives trying to sort it out . I believe this forum has a duty to offer explanations and techniques in a way that all of us can understand not just gun dog enthusiasts. I have looked at lots of material but Charlie's hunting is surely a gun dog issue and therefore I would appreciate help with that issue and not being sent away to look at other material because I find the "explanations and techniques too complex" Actually I feel really upset by that comment :'( Charlie does flush birds and chase Deer and how many dog owners can say that their dogs don't chase something that they shouldn't even if it's another dog? I'm not condoning Charlie's behaviour I just don't know how to control it? I wonder how many dog owners would find my Charlie a "walk in the park" he would probably bring most of you to your knees. All I want to do is fix the problem as best I can and help Charlie that's all :'(
Re: Woods or Open Ground? Helen, I think the progress you have made with Charlie over the past few months is amazing. Your patience is admirable. I know I wouldn't be able to manage Charlie at all and admire you for sticking in there I don't understand hardly any of the gundog terms either and get confused, so I do my own thing. On walks, we play a lot with the tennis ball, play hide and seek and generally just enjoy being out together. Harley does occasionally play with other dogs, but is happier just meandering and retrieving her ball. Her recall is generally really good, but we do have our off days. I want a dog who has manners, stays out of trouble and enjoys being with me. Anything else is a bonus As for fields, I would try a short time near the end of your walk to start and slowly build up the time you are in there, then after a while, go into the field earlier in your walk. I know you will get there xx
Re: Woods or Open Ground? Well Helen, you've made great strides so far, and a year ago I'm sure you never thought you'd be able to go for a walk in the woods with Charlie off the lead... I would make the most of that, and maybe put him on the long lead when you go to open spaces. I think I'd only let him off the lead in the open after he's been running around in the woods. At that time I would walk into the wind and see if Charlie does indeed start to run across from side to side rather than just disappearing over the horizon. I think you could try to train him to run from side to side, by choosing a verbal 'turn' command or whistle which you can use in the woods every time he naturally turns. In time, he will learn to associate the command with changing direction, and then later you may find it possible to transfer that to open spaces. I've never trained a hunting dog, but that is what I'd do if I were to try!
Re: Woods or Open Ground? I used to walk my GSPs as anyone would walk a dog, I just got used to them being off into the far distance, I remember once saying I took two leads for a walk! If you could get used to Charlie being Charlie and that there were no sheep about, you will find that as he gets older he will stay closer, he is after all tempered with some Labrador genes
Re: Woods or Open Ground? Helen, I think I understand more than most people here on the forum how very difficult it is to train a hard hunting dog. It's difficult to train such a dog from a pup but it is almost impossible to train a rescue dog with a history of free hunting. So I take my hat off to you for still hanging in there and not giving up on Charlie. I was in a similar position to you when I got Murffi at 14 months of age, hunting obsessed and used to free hunting. I had the advantage of several years of training spaniels as working gundogs and yet I found it incredibly hard to re-train Murffi. Even now I'm having kittens every time I lose sight of him just for seconds, luckily for me, he is also having kittens when he loses sight of me. From what I understand your Charlie is a bit different and is not too concerned about losing you out on a walk. I will happily explain to you what controlled hunting entails and how to achieve it but it would only work if you stopped all free running. And is that really what you want to do?
Re: Woods or Open Ground? Well the forum is really just made up of people rather than being an entity, and in principle I don't really think that anyone using it, except perhaps me, has a duty towards other members. Though I appreciate that is it great when people are supportive. And I think on this forum that they mostly are It may be some time ago now, but I think we did talk about quartering (controlled hunting) and that you had decided that it was not for you? But if you want to have a go, I, and I'm sure Heidrun, will happily help you. We also have some HPR people on the forum - Paul, Stacia, off the top of my head, and I expect they'll be able to help too. The principle of quartering is to keep the dog hunting across the wind within the confines of a 'beat'. Initially you'll need to walk into the wind yourself and the dog will turn naturally into the wind at the end of his beat. With pointers, the beat can cover a very wide area. Here is the article on quartering It is aimed at spaniels, but the principles are the same. You are doing really well Helen, you should be pleased with what you've achieved. And we are all on your side
