Set me off on the right path please

[Crosshair]

If only the first reply to my opening post had been "don't let life get in the way!" it could have been a whole different thread lol

[Rascal]

All part of life's rich tapestry as they say.......

[Polmaise]

Away ya auld romantic!
Yea wid think yea were a 'Gamekeeper'?
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=htt ... g&dur=3187

[Crosshair]

Hey, Gamekeepers are well known for their romanticism in many different ways
I don't regret one single thing I've done in the past two and a half years (got a baby due in March too ) but it did mean my priorities changed.

I was out picking up again today. On the second drive, a partridge runner landed some 150 yards away on a drilled wheat field. Seeing as I had nothing else to go for, I decided to see if I could push Hazel back there. Once or twice I had to blow the whistle twice to get a proper stop but she actually got there really efficiently.
After that though, the rest of the day she was really quite naughty at times, ignoring the stop whistle once or twice to join in a mad sprint with the spaniels after a runner. I was worried the blatent runners i've started sending her on would affect her steadyness but she watched some 60 birds bouncing on to the drilling on one drive without flinching. Which is more than can be said for her mother who not only ran in on the last drive on a bad flutterer (I didn't even try and stop her- it was dead still and quiet and I knew I could make out I'd sent her on a runner whereas a loud 'OI!' or blast on the stop whistle would have had everyone looking my way ) By the time she got there, it was dead and thus now boring, so when a runner did then get shot over her, she swapped onto that one!!! Bad I know but much better than a swap the other way around

[Polmaise]

It happens mate!...even with the 'best'!
..........
There is one sure thing that will ruin a steady dog!......enough runners on a driven shoot

[Crosshair]

Ok so, to return a little towards the oringinal aim of this thread, I come seeking lots more help
How do I go about 'polishing' Hazel now she's already had a taste of what life it like??? She is around 2 3/4 years old now and picks up with me regularly.
Annoying faults I'd like to solve: (I admit I might get to the crux of what I need to do just by thinking it through but all your thoughts / input / help / advice will be listened to with great appreciation )

* Whilst sweeping, her and my Spaniel Dog "Bracken" have an annoying habit of spotting (often from a great distance apart) that the other has found a bird or even found some scent. At this point she or he charges over to the other at great speed and they then hunt together until they find whatever it may be and then start trying to pick it up together, at which point I shout, Hazel cowers and Bracken brings the bird back
Simple case of getting her stop whistle back to 100%???
Or just lay off working them together??? (I do my best with this but some drives need all my dogs.)

*Whilst handling her, her stop whistle is inconsistant. One minute, at 100yards, she'll stop dead and spin around to look for a command, the next at 30 yards, she'll ignore me and carry on puzzling out scent herself. Trouble is, once or twice i've stopped her when I thought she was going wrong / or I knew she was going wrong and she ignored me and managed to get on to a dead bird anyway thus proving 'she knew better' this may have weakened her trust in me so how do I rebuild this??? I guess this would explain why when she's hunting further away and not yet in the 'cone of scent' she's happier to take a command because she knows she's not even close still???

*When I take her beating with me at home, at heel, she knows full well I'm not concentrating on her and has used this to once run off and flush some birds from an adjancent hedge and once to run-in and retrieve a bird from the gunline. How do I reinforce her basic heelwork to remind her that heel means 110% heel until told not to?

*In the end, I used 'left' 'right' and 'back' as her long distance commands. How to I polish these up to make sure that 'back' means back not 'veer off left handed because there's some interesting scent there' ???

*What good 'games' are there to get her hunting an area on command??? As in, push her back 50 yards to a patch of long grass, then start her casting about???


Lastly, where can I find someone to do all my work for me so I can devote all my time to the dogs

[Rascal]

I would say all your problems stem from the stop whistle not being 100% in place and something you can work on while going about your daily chores surely........?


With regard to trusting your direction here's a useful link....

http://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=relmfu&v=42UnIqUqyWE


With regards to holding an area have you taught her a hunt command? Like there or hi lost.. .Again something you could do whilst out and about drop a ball or dummy in cover close to for a start unseen by her and set her off hunting once she gets close tell her there or high lost, once she trusts you that there is something to find when you say that then extend it to longer distances. You will need the stop in place at longer distances so you can stop her and ask her to hunt that area and to keep her in the area...

Rascal.

[Polmaise]

Not easy working 'two at a time'! Andrew
Using the stop whistle and 'your two arms' ..one for each dog helps!!
Of course ,it is double'y hard when they have also been pre-trained to 'Go' on their name,when working with other dogs! ...Even more difficult I think?>>> when you have a 'pop' and a 'Pip'
Like everything else ,you have to train for it though? ...Here is one of these training sessions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZiVag7LW7c

[Crosshair]

Thanks guys.
Rascal, I guess, if i'm honest, i've been prioritising my latest puppy over and above sorting out problems i've already got. Also, the dogs are working fairly hard- I take them all out on 'my' shoot days in the truck so I can use them all for blanking-out thick woodland or if the picker-ups need some help after a heavy drive (Sally and I picked some 55 birds between us after our big drive the other week- on top of what the picker-ups collected) which is on top of two or three days a week picking up on other shoots. Therefore she isn't as attentive for training as she is say in the summer when there's nothing else going on- I'd certainly be wary of giving her repeated long retrieves on dummies in case I put her right off. I reckon I could add in a bit of 'there' training on picking up days though- she did used to know what 'there' meant

Robert, great video as usual, two springers hunting in unison hanging on your every word was a joy to watch!
Mine do all know their names though- I can call all seven of our dogs in and out of the truck, kennel or garden by name. In the summer, when I do the odd group dummy session, I can sit them up, throw a dummy, call one dog forward by name, send it for the retrieve, stop it half way, send it back again, accept the retrieve, return the dog to the 'parking zone' and repeat 5 times with each of the others (hopefully 6 times next year ) I can also send one for a retrieve, stop it, throw another retrieve then send a different dog for it whilst the other one remains sitting, then send that dog once the other retrieve is complete.
The wheels fall off though under the pressure of a shoot day.
I do try as much as possible to keep Hazel at heel until the other dogs are busy sweeping, then give her a set area to hunt within or a marked retrieve to aim at. The trouble is that the other 4 dogs come looking for me, see me hunting Hazel, then come and join in. I can't think of a way of replicating that in training or a way of communicating the dogs 'why' it's important not to keep pestering Hazel when she's getting all the fun, or why i'm clearly looking for something over 'here' but they must stay looking for something else over 'there'

Excuse the unfathomable Wiltshire accent ("Good girl Hollser' " is what I say at the end ) but here's 'Holly' and 'Lilly' showing that they do know they've got different names http://youtu.be/EzexK7cYGug

[Crosshair]

Rascal, I finally managed to get that vid you linked to play. I'm not sure really what i'm seeing, or what i'm supposed to be seeing in it (I mean by the guy who posted it- not by you). The dog has clearly done that before right there. It looked like the kind of thing you would set up in the field opposite your house to try and sell a dog There's no way, that if that dog didn't know that 'he always puts the blind down the track' it would have gone as fast and as directly to it as it did in that video. There's also no way that any dog that had done a seasons picking up would ignore the 'diversion' dummies with gunshots in the same inattentive way that that dog does (it keeps looking over it's shoulder at ??? )- they would at least keep looking at them wouldn't they??? (I realise that the dog in the video is a young, unfinshed dog but if I replaced the yellow dog with Hazel, she would be a little more fixated on the 'diversion' heap than that dog is )
Thank you for taking the time to post it- I think you're dead right and that drills along those lines are what are needed but tbh, the whole thing- that guy, his arrogant demeanour, the trailing check-lead, it is all so 'American' that I'd almost rather have the problems i've got than listen to what he's got to tell me
No offence to any American board members- I had an amazing time there on my honeymoon this year and met some lovely people!!!