Training in drive?

[Springfield Pointers]

So I ask again, is your dog is in full drive and displaying the behaviours that you associate with drive 24 hours a day 365 days a year?

You will find my answer if you carefully read all my posts here. I'm done.

[Judy]

Hi All,


Obviously the idea is that the dog wants the toys to excite it and over time learns that the compliance with commands issued by the handler flicks "the switch" to bring it to life.

Is this something that is or could be used in gundog training?

Any help/advice will be greatly appreciated.

I find picking up the dummy bag or coming downstairs dressed to kill (!) in my green trousers is more than sufficient to wind up my dogs without having to invent new ways of increasing their focus / excitement levels / drive / enthusiasm.

If I were attempting to train a dog for something it wasn't designed to do such as agility, heel work to music, obedience competition, etc then I might consider using a wind up reward for the poor dog when training it.

A dog doing what its been bred for for hundreds of generations doesn't need winding up before training, in some cases, the Flatcoats in particular, it needs calming down before training.

[Luked]

OK, so as you are refusing to answer that straight question, lets try another

Define what in your mind constitutes "Drive"

I'm not trying to argue, I am seriously struggling to see how you can say that your dog has "drive" and yet you feel that it is not switched on or off. That would surely mean that your dog was "driven" all day long? Which suggests to me that your definition of "drive" is very different to mine, or that of the trainers of pretty much every service or detection dog in current existence.

[Springfield Pointers]

A dog doing what its been bred for for hundreds of generations doesn't need winding up before training, in some cases, the Flatcoats in particular, it needs calming down before training.

Yay! At last... someone who understands the issue. Phew.

[Springfield Pointers]

OK, so as you are refusing to answer that straight question, lets try another

Define what in your mind constitutes "Drive"

I'm not trying to argue, I am seriously struggling to see how you can say that your dog has "drive" and yet you feel that it is not switched on or off. That would surely mean that your dog was "driven" all day long? Which suggests to me that your definition of "drive" is very different to mine, or that of the trainers of pretty much every service or detection dog in current existence.

Luked. No not refusing at all, in fact I'm rather exasperated as I've attempted on numerous occasions to answer the question.

Again. Read my previous posts, the answer is there. Further to that, here is a quote from a suitably experienced fellow:

BREEDING IS THE MOST IMPORTANT FACTOR IN THE PURSUIT OF A CLASS BIRD DOG. YOU CANNOT TEACH STYLE, DRIVE, NOSE, RANGE, OR HEART.

[Alice]

When Will Sloan bred a litter of spaniels, when weaned, they were taken to a chap call Declan Murphy who lived/lives in Kircubbin. Strangford Lough is dotted with islands and islets. All different sizes and various mixtures of rock and grass. Declan of a suitable Sunday afternoon would row out to one of these islands put the pups ashore and back out and sit and smoke a pipe or two. Mean while Armageddon would be visited on the inhabitants of the island. Rabbits would be chased, barked at, chased again. Whole litter scrums would be formed and the pups, depending on age, would be allowed to hunt and chase till they were knackered. After four or five months of this sort of regime Will would go down and select the four, or whatever number he needed, most boisterous pups to keep on for further training. These were hard dogs and even harder going dogs. This wasn't done to train drive in it was done to bring the drive out. To see what they were made of.

Brilliant, I would buy a puppy started in this way in a minute- I'd probably spend the rest of my life trying to get on top of it, but I'd have fun trying!

[Luked]

Hi All,


Obviously the idea is that the dog wants the toys to excite it and over time learns that the compliance with commands issued by the handler flicks "the switch" to bring it to life.

Is this something that is or could be used in gundog training?

Any help/advice will be greatly appreciated.

I find picking up the dummy bag or coming downstairs dressed to kill (!) in my green trousers is more than sufficient to wind up my dogs without having to invent new ways of increasing their focus / excitement levels / drive / enthusiasm.

If I were attempting to train a dog for something it wasn't designed to do such as agility, heel work to music, obedience competition, etc then I might consider using a wind up reward for the poor dog when training it.

A dog doing what its been bred for for hundreds of generations doesn't need winding up before training, in some cases, the Flatcoats in particular, it needs calming down before training.

And I suppose Judy that your statement is in part why I ask the question, I am wondering if the reason that this style of drive training is not utilised (consciously) in the gundog world? Is because the exact form of work that the dogs are asked to complete is in itself training and operating "in drive" hence all the elements of Drive training are there

initiation
Drive build
Drive satisfaction/completion

Hence gundog training is more about "shaping" the behaviours whilst in a "drive" state, rather than trying to artificially create a "drive state" to obtain the benefits?

[Luked]

OK, so as you are refusing to answer that straight question, lets try another

Define what in your mind constitutes "Drive"

I'm not trying to argue, I am seriously struggling to see how you can say that your dog has "drive" and yet you feel that it is not switched on or off. That would surely mean that your dog was "driven" all day long? Which suggests to me that your definition of "drive" is very different to mine, or that of the trainers of pretty much every service or detection dog in current existence.

Luked. No not refusing at all, in fact I'm rather exasperated as I've attempted on numerous occasions to answer the question.

Again. Read my previous posts, the answer is there. Further to that, here is a quote from a suitably experienced fellow:

BREEDING IS THE MOST IMPORTANT FACTOR IN THE PURSUIT OF A CLASS BIRD DOG. YOU CANNOT TEACH STYLE, DRIVE, NOSE, RANGE, OR HEART.

Then answer the question, you keep using the word DRIVE, please share your definition of DRIVE. You keep insisting that your dogs have it 24 hours a day 365 days a year, all I am asking is for you to define what it is.

[Springfield Pointers]

Hence gundog training is more about "shaping" the behaviours whilst in a "drive" state, rather than trying to artificially create a "drive state" to obtain the benefits?

You do not train a dog to hunt, you buy a dog that hunts and you train it to behave.

[Luked]

Hence gundog training is more about "shaping" the behaviours whilst in a "drive" state, rather than trying to artificially create a "drive state" to obtain the benefits?

You do not train a dog to hunt, you buy a dog that hunts and you train it to behave.

So as I said you take the behaviour and innate drive and shape it.

So again, please define what you see as "DRIVE"