Gundog Training

First a confession; I don’t train as many dogs as I would like. Basically, the buggers live so long that if you trained one a year you’d end up with a dozen even if you were careless enough to lose one or two along the way. A side effect of keeping a dozen dogs is that the toilet arrangements would take over your life. So the chance to train a spaniel to walk to heel was eagerly grasped, especially since the shovel duty wouldn’t be mine. 

So I was quite pleased when Brian asked about getting together to try to sort out a few problems he was having with his spaniel, and as it coincided with me not being on call or working on a late-running project. I have probably written about Bonny the Springer in another article on this site, but if you haven’t stumbled across the article, when we were younger we had a spaniel that spent six months on valium and still put on impressions of Tigger on Red Bull.

So I was quietly confident that with a few quiet walks we would soon be able to iron out any wrinkles in this year old puppie’s training. We agreed to meet up at a local spot fairly popular with dog walkers, giving us an opportunity to factor in some distractions as well as a gentle stroll.

The puppy was let out of the car, and duly did his business. We then put him on his lead, and proceded on our gentle stroll. He had a tendency to pull forward on the lead, but a few firm tugs, and a good telling off, along with plenty of praise when he didn’t pull and he was starting to behave nicely, looking up at me to see if I approved of his behaviour. The next minute I felt as though I had a marlin on the end of the lead. He took off, jumping vertically when he got to the end of his lead, because he had seen a dog in the distance.

It is no exaggeration to say that I was glad to have Brian to fend off questions from passers-by as I wrestled the pup to the ground, with several firm no!s to leave him in no doubt I disapproved of his behaviour. I have blisters on my fingers, and my back is sore.

During the walk we covered heelwork, the sit, use of the whistle and a little bit of quartering. After the walk I used one of my dogs to act as a distraction, and walked the pup back and forth past her until he would behave politely (ie not wrench my arm out of it’s socket).

By the end of an hour, the dog was not nearly as bad as he had been, but he will still need ten minutes a day or so focussing on the heel work, the sit and the recall. All on the lead until Brian is totally sure he has this training embedded. Then we are going to meet up again.

So what came out of it for me?

• First, a needed reminder that it is easier to gently train a puppy from a young age to behave with other dogs. This is best done in puppy classes. These are often held in villages or towns, and most people won’t have to travel more than ten or twenty miles to find some. 
• Walking to heel is best done by positive reinforcement from a young age; plenty of praise, and gradually build up the distractions.
• Manufacture situations that you or the pup are finding difficult - so we used our dog to distract the pup, letting us teach him that he should ignore other dogs if we are walking past, or greet them calmly if we stop.
• The use of restraint to establish dominance is effective; grasping the pup by the scruff of the neck and holding it to the ground tells it you are not happy much more effectively than almost any other means.
• There is the potential for embarrassment when training; chastising a dog will not always be popular with onlookers. With hindsight this first training session may have been better done out of public gaze.
• Don’t overdo the training sessions; 10 minutes intense training is ample to start whilst you build up your dogs attention span.

I have reviewed Graham Gibson’s ‘Training for Life’ DVD elsewhere on the site; at the time I said I was disappointed with the scope of the training as I had anticipated it being focussed on training gundogs and it was basic obedience. However, this episode has brought home to me the fact that even gundogs need basic obedience. It also showed me that if you know what you are doing you can avoid problems that other people don’t see until they occur. I think our experience is such that the pups we have are socialised and trained to walk to heel without us considering it.

However, if you are having problems with heelwork, and you cannot get a more experienced handler to give you a hand, I would suggest Graham’s video as an effective alternative. Don’t expect to come out with a fully trained gundog from it, but if you follow it faithfully I am sure that you will end up with a dog that does listen to you and walks to heel. Tell him Ken sent you!

I will let you know how we get on with the pup when we meet up again. I am sure that Brian will have him trained to walk to heel in no time… In the meantime, enjoy your training!

No Comments

To successfully train any dog, let alone one subjected to the challenges and temptations that face a gun dog, you have to be the focus of his world, at least whilst he is working or training. To get the best out of your relationship, it is important to reward the dog with whatever motivates it most. Here are some suggestions.

Food is often thought of as an effective training reward, and true enough, it will catch a dogs attention. But in economics there is a concept of the law of diminishing returns. Put simply this means that if you have stuffed your face with biscuits and someone asks you to give up something you wanted to do in return for another biscuit, you aren’t going to want to give up what you wanted to do.

So if you have a dog stumble across a hare (or jackrabbit if you are reading in the States) then try rattling the biscuit bag - I can almost guarantee he will already be out of control and will not have any intention of returning for a biscuit - after all he can get those for just sitting when he hasn’t got the chance of catching a giant rabbit! So give treats little and not very often - then it is like having a chocolate cake with cream when you have been dieting!

What about praise, will this stop him in his tracks when old longears gets up out of his form and runs so slowly just out of reach? You can shout ‘Good Boy’ after him, but he will still be trying to work out how that hare can run so slowly but why he still can’t catch him. And whilst he is thinking that, he isn’t going to stop to have his ears scratched. So praising him at this point is, well, pointless.

Punishment? Will it work if you kick his backside or tell him off when he comes back, tired and exhausted after chasing that hare for ten miles just to try to catch it for you? No, he is going to think that is the last time I am going to run up to him when he calls me back.

Threats? I have tried these, including ‘If you don’t come back now I shall NOT get your dinner tonight!’ and he has shouted back that hare was on his menu tonight, thank you very much!

The only thing that motivates a dog to do as he should is embedded repetition of basic training. Basic training for the sit, enforced by the occasional treat, and gradually diminishing praise will make it automatic for a dog to sit.

Then start challenging him. Take him where you know a hare (or a rabbit, or bird) is hiding, but keep him on a length of rope. As soon as the hare gets up, give him the sit! command (not too loudly - you have him on a rope, so he isn’t going far enough to get out of earshot, and you want to be able to do this quietly when you do it for real!) Since he is on a lead, he can’t run and you can hold his attention. Repeat until the dog sits as soon as the hare moves. Vary it with rabbits, deer, pheasant, partridge, or whatever game you have in your hunting ground, and before you know it your dog will be sitting as soon as game moves, giving you a clear shot (or clear view, if you are just working the dog for pleasure).

A word or two of warning - don’t leave the lead too slack, or you may find your arms yanked from their sockets, or the skin of your hands leaving on the lead - stopping thirty kilos of GSP or labrador can be a bruising experience if they have too much momentum!

No Comments

Teaching your dog to use its nose to the best effect can be relatively simple, especially if you teach it from a young age. The best time to teach a dog to use the wind effectively is when you are walking it in relatively open ground, and working the dog upwind.

Let the dog off the leash and walk sideways to the wind - the dog will tend to run in front of you, across wind. Let the dog get ahead and (without it noticing it if you can manage it) turn around and walk back the way you came but upwind as well. When you judge the dog is about to turn, or notices you are going away and does start turning give two peeps on your whistle to bring him back. Because you have walked upwind, the dog should turn upwind as well.

This is important because the dog can catch or lose scent depending on which way it turns at the end of its beat. Because the dog will generally work across and upwind naturally, and will also try to get ahead of you; all you are trying to do is encourage this natural behaviour.

As the dog gets used to running from side to side he may start pulling out his range or predicting your turn. If you are concerned that he is going to far, use your whistle, and if he is a little slow on the turn run in the opposite direction. If he is predicting your turn just keep on walking in the direction you want him to go.

Once he gets used to this quartering behaviour he will naturally run crosswind, always turn upwind and run as wide as you want him to. On open moorland in Scotland when game is scarce it is quite possible to work your dogs out several hundred yards and be fairly relaxed about it. When you are working heavier cover, it is important to keep track of where the dog is - if he goes on point without you knowing where he is it is not unusual to struggle to find him.

Using a bell on a dog’s collar can help in heavy cover, but you must always be dog aware, concentrating on the dogs whereabouts at all times. Use the whistle to keep the dog working within earshot, and keep a good idea of the direction of the bell in order to find the dog when it stops ringing!

No Comments

What makes a great hunting dog? Dogs, as with many things in life, can all too often be subject to fashion; and over a lifetime fashion can change a breed beyond recognition.

But this is not a new thing. I have just been reading my copy of ‘Dog Breaking’ by Hutchinson. In it he talks about an extremely bad scenting day in October 1838, with a cold dry wind blowing from the east. Three gentlemen, an Hon., a Baron and a Knight were shooting partridges over three ‘fashionable’ setters, which did not manage to set any partridges - in fact they flushed a great number ‘as though they were larks’. However with a trusty old fashioned pointer, despite the badness of the scent, they still managed thirty-five brace.

A Fashionable English Setter Vs an Oldfashioned Pointer

No Comments

This sounds a simple question, but to my mind it actually requires three different answers.

The first answer I would give is one hour. That amount of time will be sufficient for someone who knows what they are doing to get to assess the dog; see him or her with their owner and identify a few problems. Take over the handling of the dog and get him to acknowledge his role in the pack; and ensure that maybe one or two of the problems are addressed to an extent; certainly enough for the owner to understand what they have to do over the next couple of weeks to resolve the problems on a permanent basis.

Now when I talk about problems I don’t mean hard-mouth, whining or other real faults; I mean dogs ignoring recalls or refusing to sit.

The second answer I would give is ten minutes; this is the daily time to be spent working with the dog to train rather than enjoying a walk and reflects the intense portion of the training. Spaniels and other hunting dogs can be trained for longer, because the hunting portion of their training is important and enjoyable; so they don’t even realise they are doing anything other than enjoying themselves.

The third and last answer is probably a cliche, but it would be a lifetime. You can always learn off of a dog, as they can learn off of you.

No Comments