CockersOnline Forum
Cocker Specific Discussion => Behaviour & Training => Topic started by: mcphee on July 31, 2009, 10:30:13 AM
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Advice needed please. Went out on the harness and long line round the maize and through the wood this morning. Rufus was subdued but well behaved. When we got back to the green, I wanted to do lots of exercise to make up for his tame walk. With the present harness which is duff, I remove it, because he is generally no trouble on the green. Today I had to get strict because he wanted to eat an old bacon rind a bird must have dropped. I wasn't having that and managed to get it out of his mouth. All was well and I threw the ball and he dashed off to retrieve it. I went to put the poo bag in the bin, a few yards from where I would normally stand with the ball thrower. He would usually come back to me wherever I am, so I can walk around and I use this move to enhance recall. However when I turned round he was heading home! I then saw the owner of the evil terrier who goes for his jugular, and assumed he was whimping out as although he turned his head when I called, he was clearly set on going home. I picked up my stuff and legged it, catching up with him at the side gate (thank DOG no roads are involved) only to find a wood pigeon in his mouth. It clearly was not dead when he found it and he must have surprised it behind the oak tree while my back was turned. I fully confess to not liking to grab birds from his mouth after wing feathers came out once. He looked very furtive and went off into the garden, no doubt to bury it. I still haven't found the last one he caught in the garden.
He is reasonable at giving up toys and balls. Is there a good way of making him give up prey?
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Not sure if this is the right thing to do buuuuut...
Florrie caught a bird on a walk and she would not give it up for anything. After we had tried swaps, asking nicely, scolding, trying to prise jaws optn etc etc my friend was getting really quite stressed (her dog) and I thought OK nothing working I'll......put my fingers over her nostrils so she has to open her mouth to breathe ph34r and it worked :o
I'll probably get a right earbashing now but would be very interested in other solutions. :D
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Apart from drowning or suffocating them which may/may not work and isnt adviseable then unless you have a 100% drop command you have nae chance! There's very rarely anything of higher value to play swapsies with so best idea is to leave them to it unless its a danger to them. Arwen lurcher is the only one of mine who can catch things and the one time she brought me a bunny she dropped it right at my feet so obviously comes from working lurcher lines as I've never had to teach her a drop command! Lilys had a dead rotting frog, rabbit and bird before and there was not a hope in hell of me trying to get it off her so I've left her to it and walked off...... >:(
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Not sure if this is the right thing to do buuuuut...
Florrie caught a bird on a walk and she would not give it up for anything. After we had tried swaps, asking nicely, scolding, trying to prise jaws optn etc etc my friend was getting really quite stressed (her dog) and I thought OK nothing working I'll......put my fingers over her nostrils so she has to open her mouth to breathe ph34r and it worked :o
I'll probably get a right earbashing now but would be very interested in other solutions. :D
the only thing that will achieve is causing a dog to guard and teaching it to stay as far away from you as possible when it has something high value.
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Not sure if this is the right thing to do buuuuut...
Florrie caught a bird on a walk and she would not give it up for anything. After we had tried swaps, asking nicely, scolding, trying to prise jaws optn etc etc my friend was getting really quite stressed (her dog) and I thought OK nothing working I'll......put my fingers over her nostrils so she has to open her mouth to breathe ph34r and it worked :o
I'll probably get a right earbashing now but would be very interested in other solutions. :D
the only thing that will achieve is causing a dog to guard and teaching it to stay as far away from you as possible when it has something high value.
not an earbashing but I agree with Jo - dogs that have been let to hunt and catch game will not easily give it up. Unless you can get the dog to give game to you in a controlled manner than I don't see the point of bullying it into giving it up, will only create more problems in the long run.
I probably would have asked Rufus firmly, and then if he decided to play silly beggars and treat it like a game just ignore him and let him take it home - but I would have kept my beady eye on him at home and unless he eats the game I would make sure it's removed once he's lost interest.
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I taught the drop or leave command from puppyhood and its worked ok for me.
As I dont touch dead fur or feather or want it near me I have it to a fine art. The drop is instant. I cant take any special praise for it as I just taught drop no swapsies just drop. from any distance as well. In fact the further away the better as I hate hate hate dead things.
It may be the note of hysteria in my voice that is the speed factor :005:
I can watch OH with my dogs and dead rabbits as long as I am far away and they wont come to me with them instead of him. they always present to hand otherwise.
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Not sure if this is the right thing to do buuuuut...
Florrie caught a bird on a walk and she would not give it up for anything. After we had tried swaps, asking nicely, scolding, trying to prise jaws optn etc etc my friend was getting really quite stressed (her dog) and I thought OK nothing working I'll......put my fingers over her nostrils so she has to open her mouth to breathe ph34r and it worked :o
I'll probably get a right earbashing now but would be very interested in other solutions. :D
the only thing that will achieve is causing a dog to guard and teaching it to stay as far away from you as possible when it has something high value.
not an earbashing but I agree with Jo - dogs that have been let to hunt and catch game will not easily give it up. Unless you can get the dog to give game to you in a controlled manner than I don't see the point of bullying it into giving it up, will only create more problems in the long run.
I probably would have asked Rufus firmly, and then if he decided to play silly beggars and treat it like a game just ignore him and let him take it home - but I would have kept my beady eye on him at home and unless he eats the game I would make sure it's removed once he's lost interest.
Yup I agree with this too. Mine are all taught to hand over anything, but anything, that they have in their mouths from day one but if your dog isn't trained to do this then I wouldn't start wrestling with them or forcing them to hand it over as at best you'll teach them not to come near you when they have something and at worst you'll make them start guarding stuff. There are few things you'll be able to bribe them with that are more appealing than a nice carcass; it's not going to do them any harm to carry a bird or rabbit along for a while and you can just whip it away once they've lost interest in it. I would try to avoid the scenario in the first place by teaching rock solid 'leave' and 'give' commands - I use leave if I don't want them to pick something up in the first place and give if I want them to hand something over to me.
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Sorry to hijack thread. Thanks everyone for their feedback. It was one of those things that I did in the panic of the moment. I'll pass on that it isn't to be repeated! Thankfully I don't have the prob with Molly. In this case, Florrie and Molly were right beside us in long grass, there was no 'chase' she just suddenly had it :P Think it may have already been dead.
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jack is briliant with anything thats dead and will come and give it to me except dead rabbits.
when jack was about 10mths the area we walked him in got mixi. lots of dead rabbits and at first we didnt have a problem but because of bad handling we soon got a major one.
Its really not something you want to happen, it took 6mths of training to stop jack guarding dead rabbits. its not an easy thing to work on once it starts and jack carried/chomped on quite a few of them while we were working on it.
even now he will not give me a rabbit to hand but i can get him to drop it and leave it 99% of the time.
Anything else dead he comes across i either tell him to leave it and he does or he comes and brings it to me and sits on front of me shoving it into my hand
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Sorry to hijack thread. Thanks everyone for their feedback. It was one of those things that I did in the panic of the moment. I'll pass on that it isn't to be repeated! Thankfully I don't have the prob with Molly. In this case, Florrie and Molly were right beside us in long grass, there was no 'chase' she just suddenly had it :P Think it may have already been dead.
I don't think you did hijack it . You prompted some very useful advice so thank you. Although occasionally Rufus will want to pick up carrion, if I see it I can usually control with a stern leave. Normally he is only interested in live prey. Again if I see it I will shout leave, and this either distracts him, stops him or scares the animal so it is not at risk. I simply had no idea there was a pigeon at risk. I did think a chap who saw him with it in his mouth gave me a wry look, as it is not every day that you see a dog calmly walking up the road with a large pigeon in it's mouth! :shades: To the best of my knowledge he has never eaten what he has caught live, but likes to go and hide or bury it for later!
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To the best of my knowledge he has never eaten what he has caught live, but likes to go and hide or bury it for later!
I really would find it and remove it - just continues the cycle and increases the value of it if he has buried treasure to go back to...
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To the best of my knowledge he has never eaten what he has caught live, but likes to go and hide or bury it for later!
I really would find it and remove it - just continues the cycle and increases the value of it if he has buried treasure to go back to...
Right ho. I will look in all the usual burial places. Prey is usually completely covered in the garden, whereas other stuff like shoes is usually partially visible. I will look for a suspicious mound, get him inside and remove it. At least it will still be fresh.
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If Coco won't swap her treasure for food, then I usually leave her to it and walk off in the vain hope that she will lose interest eventually. :-\ If I try too hard to get it off her, she just enjoys it even more. >:( She has found all sorts of nasties - deer legs, full poo bags and a couple of weeks ago the remains of some sort of foetus (not sure if it was a deer or cow :o ) - and there are just some things are too valuable to give up ::) :005:
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If Coco won't swap her treasure for food, then I usually leave her to it and walk off in the vain hope that she will lose interest eventually. :-\ If I try too hard to get it off her, she just enjoys it even more. >:( She has found all sorts of nasties - deer legs, full poo bags and a couple of weeks ago the remains of some sort of foetus (not sure if it was a deer or cow :o ) - and there are just some things are too valuable to give up ::) :005:
:o :-\ :020:
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I'm impressed you got the bacon rind off him, that would have gone down Roxy in less than a second!!
She will 'drop' and 'leave' things in return for a treat but only if its something she doesn't really want, e.g socks, paper etc. Anyhting really good especially edible then we have no chance. I try just to spot stuff first so she can't get things otherwise I just leave her to it...
She once carried a dirty nappy round our entire walk because she wouldn't swap it for a treat, I couldn't prise her mouth open so I just thought If we keep going she will end up dropping it cos she can't eat it - Naaahhh ahhh - carried it the whole way round, had to get 'daddy' to do the stern daddy 'drop it' voice and swap for a biscuit when we got home...
Cockers are mingers!!