Who actually works their dogs?

[caro]

 

It doesn't matter how soft you are the training is not hard its repetative and you can only get you're dogs to work for you out of love and mutual respect. 
 

Thanks Cazzie, she is really good she sits, stays and comes pretty much all the time, but when she has her nose down on a scent I can't stop her.  Sometimes she will go a whole field's length - I've been told a way to stop this is to bring them back to the spot and tell them to STAY but she always comes back - I've also been told to only call once and then hide, which we do and it works, but only once she's lost interest in what she's chasing usually because its flown up.  Any suggestions?  I am willing to try it, I just don't really know what's best.   

[Nicola]

It doesn't matter how soft you are the training is not hard its repetative and you can only get you're dogs to work for you out of love and mutual respect. 
 

Thanks Cazzie, she is really good she sits, stays and comes pretty much all the time, but when she has her nose down on a scent I can't stop her.  Sometimes she will go a whole field's length - I've been told a way to stop this is to bring them back to the spot and tell them to STAY but she always comes back - I've also been told to only call once and then hide, which we do and it works, but only once she's lost interest in what she's chasing usually because its flown up.  Any suggestions?  I am willing to try it, I just don't really know what's best.   

Alfie (15 months) would have done this with birds when he was younger. Every time he ignored the stop whistle (I don't recall him off game, I stop whistle him and then send him on working again) he got scruffed back to the spot where he was when I first whistled him and he ignored me and made to wait there. If he moved again, he got scruffed back again and so on and so on, you must be consistent and do this every time. I would then send him away in a different direction to the one he'd been going in himself, this is very important. When you are training like this you have to watch them like hawks - your job is to get her attention BEFORE she gets lost in the scent. I can read Alfie like a book now and know when he's about to 'go' and I can pre-empt him. It is exhausting sometimes but it works. He is 100x better now than he was and I can stop whistle him off flying game every time... I've yet to test him with fur (i.e. in a rabbit pen) but if the training has been done then it shouldn't be an issue.

If you are wanting to work your dog though you don't always want to whistle them off a scent as this is how they work when they are flushing. If you keep calling them back when they are working a trail then they will become confused and discouraged. They should work properly though and quarter the ground rather than just run in a straight line as far as they can, if I need to I control Alfie in this way with directional pips on the whistle and hand signals to get him to work to the left and right, although now he generally does this himself and I don't need to do anything.

[wrenside]

Hi Caro,
What I did with Bella when she was younger, to get her to stay close and not go off foraging for cheap flushing thrills in the next county  , was to take her into a field with long grass and cast her off to look fo game for me (any game had previously been cleared from the field by myself stomping around with Bella kept in a sit position tethered to a post) As she looked for game I would throw nice things for her to fetch (without her seeing me do this) in and around a 15 foot raidus of myself. Through consistent use of this method she started to learn that 'game' was only to be found close to me and that if she deviated too far from me then no game was present. If you combiine this with the method Nicloa uses then I'm sure your dog will learn that straying too far will incurr an abrupt halt to the fun of searching for game and that the best fun and most flushes only occur near you anyway so there is very little reward for her to run off for miles.

My Bella now stays close to us when we go on a walk and also when we take her beating, she really enjoys being with us instead of leading the way and going off on her own agenda.

I hope this helps! 

Mary

[caro]

Really helpful replies thanks - we have some fields so I can try it - I use the whistle to call her back - but have not taught her specific commands with it - so if she comes back anyway, should I just scruff her,tell her to wait and then we go back the way we came? (she usually legs it off course!) as I don't ever send her in a direction we just walk along together and she trots off a little bit ahead - she checks that I'm still there quite a bit though - I've got a nice toy pheasant that I might take out with me to try Mary's idea - just hope nobody sees me!  She has got LOADS better since the shooting season ended - also the pheasants are all over the place mating, so she's getting a bit de-sensitised - pheasant, what pheasant?  Oh him, yeh ok whatever !  I just want to sort it out before the breeding starts again- if she was good coming back then we might be brave enough to take her out beating, but can't even consider it at the moment!  The one good thing about her running off on a scent is that she gets triple the amount of exercise! 

[julianf]

Woody has started coming rough shooting with me. He turned 2 years old in March. Because it's still new to him I've bought an 8m/26ft retractable lead that I keep him on...it's not ideal but it keeps him at a good working distance for flushing game. On the couple of occasions I have let him off he does really well and comes back (mostly) to call but he gets excited and goes too far ahead... A perfect example was last week when he flushed a big cock pheasant at the far end of the field we were walking up...out of season I know but the bird was well out of shot when he flushed it. Other times I let him off to work a copse or suchlike he's really good, and he gets more obedient the longer we're out when he gets too tired to run off!

He made his first retrieve last week too. My friend shot a rabbit. We weren't with him at the time but came over to where he was and let Woody off, pointing him in the right direction and telling him to "Fetch it"... he went straight past it and couldn't find it but when I went and actually showed it to him he had a good sniff and after a cautious start and much coaxing he retrieved to hand. He has since been much better retrieving a crow.

Here he is with the prize!
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v74/julianf/DSC00052.jpg

[Cazzie]

Wee sole  what a good boy 

[flozac]

I take mine beating so at least I try to work them.  The dogs are better than their handler tho

[wrenside]

Hi chaps, just one word of caution, if you take your dog rough shooting and you have a lead on them, do not hold a gun yourself.
Never have a dog attached to you by a lead if you are planning on shooting yourself, as this is how many shooting accident occur every year, when the dog gets excited, flushes something and you take the gun off of safety to have a shot and the dog jerks you because it is straining on the lead 

Of course it is fine to have the dog on lead if you're not holding a gun yourself, just be careful you don't trip over a fellow shooting companion with the lead! 

Best wishes

Mary