A blondes attempt at training a Cocker

[chrokeva]

My new cocker pup is also going on 6 months old and I have to say I am amazed at how much you are doing with your young pup. I did not even think of doing blinds with my adult cocker until she was about 2 1/2 years old.

Our lab was to be frank, shite at blind retrieves as we only done marked until she was 2. I spoke to a few trainers and don't rush but start them on basics at a young age which is what I have done. It amazes me some people on Facebook have 7 month old cockers beating a full day and one chap who believes young pups should never be allowed outside the garden unless its being trained, his dogs are fully trained at 6 months I suppose its each to their own. I only started doing bits as he was very clever and training he'll tire more in 10 minutes than playing for 30 minutes. Hes a pet, lives indoors, on the sofa, lives the dream really He gets to free fun twice a day (and goes on family walks on the weekends, to farm shops with us, around the farm etc) and I do 10 minutes training (if that, usually 3/4 retrieves) at lunch every couple of days. The last day we done any kind of training was Friday. He has a puppy hood apart from those 10 minutes every couple of days .. and when he sees the dummy he loves it, so don't think its doing any harm.

I don't want to do nothing with him, or over do it. Last week he started favoring the ball over the dummy so stopped using the ball. We got a new dummy (1/2 pound orange, very chunky) on Friday so done 10 minutes at lunch today, he was hunting for it, stopped him on the whistle so he could mark dummies etc and fun bits mainly, he gets so excited and keen. Done a memory retrieve and a blind retrieve against the fence line and then took it a step further. Put down the dummy in a open cut field while he wasn't looking. Walked away from it and when he was in line with the dummy, blew stop whistle. He was about 6ft in front of me. Gave him the back command. Perfectly back he went, like a rocket, and got the dummy which was about half the field away. Always use hedge lines, paths and fences for the straight lines and will carry on for now but one off in the field I was more than chuffed!

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It sounds like you are doing everything right by what you are saying and I would be very happy with your progress if it was me.
By the description of your blind it sounds more like what I call a "hunt dead" which is just sending a dog on a line until they run into the scent. I did quite a bit of hunt deads with my older dog after a year of age because I rarely stopped her to direct her to the bird. For me a true blind is having a dog that handles (backs, angle backs, right and left back and right and left overs)and that takes quite a bit of drill work for a dog to perfect and most dogs are not up to until a older age but we do things different here I am sure.

[Aimeetess]

We haven't done much 'training' this week as been busy with work but general obedience is good and done a couple of retrieves which was good apart from the return journey.

Hes 7 months in 4 days now so still young. still my biggest problem is him not wanting to bring a retrieve back to me. Hes so so eager for it. Will sit/stay/mark it etc. I have been making it major fun with a few retrieves so hes now really keen. I haven't been taking dummy's off him straight away (I've been praising, occasionally taking it, then giving it back to him with lots of reward)

I have tried laying down, sitting on the floor, playing with something on the floor, running away. No difference. His recall and whistle recall is excellent even if on gamey ground but if hes just picked a dummy, he will ignore everything until hes ready to come back. But if not, he'll just run around in a circles like 'OOOO Look what I've got!' all excited. For some reason it doesn't look like hes being possessive, I think generally its him getting over excited with it and loosing all hearing until he decides to listen, its like he goes into a deaf mode, but I suppose it could be him being possessive. Then once hes ran in a couple of circles, he'll happily come back to me and deliver to hand and I have his full concentration. Mind he hasn't got the gist of holding things outside yet, he'll put it in my hand but hoping the older he gets the better he'll get. I can stop him on the whistle while hes messing about but he'll drop the dummy. When we do a bit of training its a local enclosed private field and occasionally elsewhere but hes the same everywhere with his return..
I tried ignoring him the other day (to see if he got bored) but that was even worse, also running. I red a forum which said run in opposite directions until he comes to you, as he'll tire.. well he doesn't tire so id be doing it for hours. A trainers website said your recall can't be good enough, but without a dummy he'll come back every time as soon as called via voice or whistle, so not sure how I can improve that for this. Once the dummy is introduced thats the problem.

Is the best way of solving this a long line?

A few said hes very young ignore it and I have so far, but its starting to irritate me now as its not improved and hes got worse with it. I tried liver treats (high reward) so thought he'd realize and may make him more keen to come back with a retrieve but it made no difference! I have never told him off or scaled him, even when he runs around I praise him once he comes back to me.

[newf]

My springer is the same age as yours. At four months of age he delivered a tennis ball in house but outside would rather run around or lie down and chew the ball. I put a light line on him, said "here" and followed through with reeling him into me. Once in, I allowed him to hold the ball for a few seconds while praising, then, I would gently take the ball and throw again with no steadiness.

He is now 7 months and can be shot over while hunting with my 6 year old lab. Presently, his enthusiasm is high on retrieving and delivering game be it fur or feather. His recall is great and so is his stopping and turning while hunting. However, when game is flushed his drive is high enough that obeying the 'stop' is not his priority and neither is it mine, at this stage. Realizing this, I have decided to not blow the 'stop' and allow him to have his way for the time being. When I have him addicted to the game and he understands his part in it, along with more maturity then I will begin to insist on solid 'stops' after the flushes.

Aimetess, just wanted to give you a heads up on how I'm conducting my training so far. However, as been said before every dog's training and progression is personal and not a race. You maybe behind on your delivery but I'm lagging on my steadiness. We both are concerned about our dogs' momentum in learning and their continued drive for the game so it is interesting to read about your experience as it relates to mine.

[Aimeetess]

Great to hear Newf, he sounds like hes coming on really nicely! Any pics?

Funnily enough I posted the above on a working dog group on Facebook with over 12,000 members and over 10 people have commented so far to say there Cocker's are exactly the same, will bring game to hand (hes picked cold game twice and always bought it back to hands oddly) but dummy's they'll do what they describe as 'a lap of victory' before coming back.

I haven't done much work at all around the birds for a month or so and haven't started any turning on the whistle or hunting work really. Purely concentrated on his dummy work, and steadiness as hes a such a fiery dog. He comes up on a shoot day but stays in the truck until elevenses, when he'll come out and socialize and all excited around the game cart.

I'll try the long line and see how we get on!

[Judy]

Funnily enough I posted the above on a working dog group on Facebook with over 12,000 members and over 10 people have commented so far to say there Cocker's are exactly the same, will bring game to hand (hes picked cold game twice and always bought it back to hands oddly) but dummy's they'll do what they describe as 'a lap of victory' before coming back.

Wouldn't pay too much attention to that. I've had four, one tried to bury the dummy rather than bring it back, a little gentle "oi!" to distract her and an excited "come!" got her back the couple of times she tried that. Two were just fine bringing to hand and one would drop it at my feet, with her I kept calling her in, giving her a treat from the hand I take retrieves with then after a week or so of her charging back to my hand I sent her for a dummy, held my hand in the position and she shoved the dummy into it. Copious praise, problem solved. Not sure what I did differently to those ten people but I guess its timing - if I think a dog is going to do something other than come straight back I get all encouraging and stupid, they come running to see what idiotic thing I'm going to do next, job done.
The trick with dog training is to stop the issue before it develops if at all possible or not to let in continue for any length of time, you are right to think you should be doing something about the run around now rather than later.

[Naj]

Pups don’t stop learning until they’re 7 -12 months old, and a lot of handlers who leave training until later have a string of dogs they’re juggling to train and experience, often on limited time and facilities. And if you want to cut down on corrections it’s wiser to start younger than older. As Newf highlights, it’s perfectly possible to be shooting over a pup at an age when some are just thinking about starting to train theirs.

Playing keep away on a retrieve is a common ploy to get you to play the pup’s game rather than yours. It’s nothing to do with the pup being naughty, it’s just a pup being a pup. I have worked around this by completely ignoring the dog and/or playing with another to make the pup think it is missing out on something but it sounds like the behaviour is too advanced for that ploy. Making yourself more fun in some way is often easier said than done and may be taken as part of the game by the pup ... how often do you see handlers pleading with a pup in gooey voices to no avail. It might work once but they are quick to learn unless you are experienced enough to ca5ch the pup early and before it has developed into a problem behaviour. As with most things the remedy comes down to training. Training a delivery to hand by developing a Palm touch as Judy mentioned, or clicker retrieve or reversed luring as has been posted on here before. All are fun for the dog and make Retrieving to hand a rewarding experience. But when you think of the history of keep away that has already developed this behaviour isn’t going to magically disappear so you’re going to have to put much more into retraining the behaviour that you want than a lesson or two with treats and then let’s try again. You need to build a reliable livery to hand and then gradually develop acretrieve back from there. And as Newf says, a light teain8ng line is always a good idea on a pup so you can prevent it from self reinforcing on behaviours you don’t want. There are other ways of training a hold etc but they’re generally less fun.

Naj

[chrokeva]

I agree that if you plan on "cutting down on corrections" it is best to start while the dog is young and pliable.
For me if my pup was different I would go with the early route but my pup is a born people pleaser that quite honestly reminds me of border collies I have owned in the past but with a bold temperament so I have made a conscience decision to hold off on starting any obedience with him until he has some age on him. I do not think waiting to do obedience is a mistake nor do I think starting early to be a mistake. Read your puppy and you will be fine imo.
As far as keep away it was a issue with my first dog (at least in my mind at that time) but honestly it was cleaned up very quickly by working diligently for a few weeks on the come (without dummy, bird, or ball) and using a placeboard. Then the dummy was re-introduced and ta da a perfect delivery. Again there may be many other ways to do it including a long line but that is how we went about it and it was a very simple task.

[Naj]

I would think Place board would be great for this type of issue.

[newf]

Great to hear Newf, he sounds like hes coming on really nicely! Any pics ?

Go to photos to see "Tibbs Eve hunt".

[Aimeetess]

Thank you all for the advice!

Since posting nearly 2 weeks ago he has gradually stopped doing his lab of victories and delivering nicely to hand. He won’t sit and hold it yet but delivering to hand and will hold it if I walk backwards, he sat and held it once which I gave him an absolute ton of praise. We have been doing 10 minutes dummy training a day, a few blinds and making it fun as hes so keen. He has been doing absolutely amazing. To the point when I done a bit of dummy work with our trained 4yr old lab, my cocker would find dummies she missed and go back further on a straight line. He has also been living a puppy hood bar 10 minutes training a day.

Anyway.. let’s just say he has definitely entered a teenage stage, to the point, as sad as it is and ashamed to say it, I led on the sofa close to crying a couple of days ago.

Literally in the last 3-4 days his recall has been terrible, he’ll ignore my voice even shouting and the recall whistle until he decides he is coming back. The stop whistle has gone to pot. He has suddenly started going way too far ahead self-hunting and ignoring all attempts to get him back, meaning I’ve had to run after him and grab him by the scruff and put back on the lead until calms down. He almost goes into a ‘frantic obsessive hunting phase’ where he won’t listen to anyone or anything when hes off, he shakes. He also suddenly decided he didn’t want to pick anything up, dummy, ball, nothing and would sit next to me and ignore it completely, rolled it, chased it, nothing. It could be as I have told him off a few times when hes ignored the recall whistle and voice, I have had to run after him I grab him by his scruff and put him on the lead which I think has put him off retrieving possibly or he just isn’t interested. Totally unlike him as he has been SO keen for the dummy. All he wants to do is self-hunt, no interest in anything else and it doesn’t help he flushed a pheasant the day before all this started so thinking that is the cause.

He basically resembles a wild untrained out of control spaniel within a few days and gradually got worse. If hes close and not onto scent, he’ll listen but if hes slightly further away and hunting, he’ll completely ignore me.
I think It’s as I started to give him too much free time and didn’t stop him going further so hes cottoned, and got worse so quickly.
I didn’t have access to the forum over the last 2 weeks so posted on a Novice training group on Facebook for advice. A few recommended a long line and some scent work training and leave any dummy work, get him hunting for you rather than himself. The last 2 days he hasn’t had any free running, he’s been on a long line constantly and we’ve started ‘seek’ training getting him to hunt for a treat I’ve placed and changing direction when I beep the whistle twice, so a kind of zig zaggy movement. He absolutely loves it, tail wags like hell. Took him off the long line for a couple of minutes today as he was concentrating on me and he done a good job, seemed to be changing direction already when I beep twice hunting for the treats. I’ve been adding sit/stay and heel work too all instead of letting him free run/hunt but have kept him on a long line at all times.

I am finding he isn’t tiring and when we get back home he’s still full of energy as he has always been able to free run before I go to work and had a bit of training at lunch so he doesn’t seem hes tiring like before.

I’m going to a local gundog trainer (who was recommended on this group) but hes busy for 2 weeks so going to see him mid-January. I didn’t want to focus on getting him to hunt as bought him to purely pick up but suddenly all he wants to do is hunt which has worried me. I have owned collies and never had a problem with recall, even our lab has never carried on running while being called – or maybe we’ve been lucky, also only ever owned bitches but wanted a dog and hes the most sweetest thing when inside.. but then again everyone keeps drilling into me I own a Cocker and they aren’t easy but I think its me not him.

Any advice or recommendations hugely appreciated!