It's all about the training!

[munstyman]

Noise is a vocal expression of the dogs mental state, or at least one that it thinks you may understand. As you indicate it can be `copied' from being around other barking dogs, but it can also be out of frustration and/or excitement. Don't concentrate on the symptom ( Barking ) but on the cause.
If you have a gundog but are not wanting it to fulfill its role as one you have to de-train the gundog from its natural ability, something I personally have issues with, but that is not to say I understand the need on occasions.
If your actively encouraging the dog to hunt while you are walking it ( Off lead walking without a definite alternative task, playing fetch etc ) Then your not helping to de-train the dog from its natural ability and you've created your own problem. If you want the dog to express its natural ability, then your going to have to look at all `the training' aspects of having a working gundog and then mold them to where the rewards are given only to your desired outcome, and that means the dog HAS to be under your control, no ifs buts or maybes.
Taking what you said in your post,

However, Mia flushed a hen pheasant about 20 metres away. I expected her to run about a bit, and then come back to me

This is your mistake, as your not making the flush the end result and the reward for hunting. In gundog terms yes you want the dog to want to find more birds ( run around after flushing ) or you want the dog steady to flush as the bird may be shot and the dog required (rewarded ) for a retrieve. If you want the dog to see the flush as the end result ( A walking companion/ beating only dog ) then you have to train the dog to stop to flush and/or return to you for reward (recall) without continuing to hunt after the flush ( Unless instructed to do so ). This is why the stop is so important, without it you stand little chance of de-training natural ability of a gundog.
Finding game less ground can difficult as game moves around, but in general they dislike a lot of disturbance so public parks where a lot of dogs are exercised is a good bet.... but then you have a lot of untrained dogs running about ` only trying to be friendly'
However you can manage your walks by `disturbing' the ground yourself simply by not hunting the dog, not on the way out but on the way back .
If you do close control obedience on the way out, not only will you give game a chance to move off, you will also set the framework of control and focus on you in the dogs mind. Hopefully this means when you come back over this same bit of ground and allow the dog to hunt, there will be less of an unexpected encounter with live game. ( Baring in mind the previous caveat that `game moves' ). But if there was game there previously there will still be scent for the dog to work, but you can work on the control and ingrain/proof that all important stop when the dog is in a heightened state of drive.
Hope this gives you something to think about, but like I said I'm probably not the best person to ask for advise on de-training a gundog as I'll always side with the dog. I often find they have a better outlook on life than the monkeys on the other end of the lead

[Kibble]

Thanks for taking the time to reply MM, this is very helpful.
When Mia flushed the pheseant, she barked and came a little way towards me. Then she popped back and flushed another bird a bit further away, and another. After reading your post, I am going to take this as Mia's excited attempt at communication with a not too bright lead monkey . I now don't think the barking dogs bothered her, so thank you for that. They bothered me.
I like the idea that walking and beating could make use of the same dog skills as it is almost impossible to find ground without game near me, apart from the beach.
If I work on training Mia as a beating dog, and I am successful in achieving a suitably trained dog, I could take her beating. I would need her to be really controlled. As I believe this will require 'stop to flush', it will not be easy, but anyway I will have dog that can be walked on game scented ground more securely.
I have read previous posts about whether I am too late to achieve this with Mia. I have always tried to keep her busy and engaged with me on walks. This has involved lots of playing with tennis balls. She has been allowed to run in, so I might have made stop training even more difficult.
I can sit her and walk away, but if I then try to drop a ball and she spots it, she will run in. I need a distance to get there first, but that's not a game I want to play. I have to be very careful to drop a 'seek back', or she will spot it and run back. I have to use her lead for memory retrieves. She gets very excited with this, and return to hand is far from perfect. She knows what she is supposed to do, but livens it up. Telling her off doesn't work!
At present my patience strategy is to 'stake' her, eg to a bench, and throw balls etc. She has worked this out and sits with focus. I am also taking her, on a lead, to sit and watch the seagulls.

[munstyman]

Details matter

When Mia flushed the pheasant, she barked and came a little way towards me. Then she popped back and flushed another bird a bit further away, and another. After reading your post, I am going to take this as Mia's excited attempt at communication with a not too bright lead monkey . I now don't think the barking dogs bothered her, so thank you for that. They bothered me.

Yeah, I would tend to go along with that, not necessarily about the `not to bright', as your noticing things that many others miss, and you can't understand what you don't see.
If you go back and read some of ips 's early posts viewtopic.php?t=22441 you will gain a lot of insight into someone being in much the same position as you. From your posts you are doing many of the right things but how your structuring those things is a little messy. This can happen when you don't have an end goal or your end goal is a little too far from the dogs natural instincts. This is why I brought up `beating' as it can be a halfway house for those that are not `into' shooting in general but have a good hunting dog with natural ability.
Having an abundance of game is a double edged sword, there will be advantages in the longer term if you can manage your short term training in these circumstances. If you spend too much time concentrating on the negative aspects ( distraction ) you won't see the positives of linking the training to the real life scenarios that you will encounter sometime in the dogs life, and neither will the dog.
The other aspect I see from your post is the sit. Sit means sit and remain sitting until released. By your account the dog is releasing itself, this is where I would concentrate on initially as it will self enforce the stop later on and improve steadiness. If your training on your own, stake the dog but on a loose tether/lead. ( The dog should not be `restrained' by the tether but if it breaks the sit it will be prevented from running in, and can be resat and rewarded ) Walk circles around the dog in ever increasing distances correcting any movement from the dog and encouraging calmness but focus ( not going into displacement behaviors ) Once your satisfied with this stage move on to dropping the tennis ball without the dog trying to break the sit. Often going back around the circle and pick it up yourself. Don't worry if the dog remains focused on the ball and not on you as long as it remains sitting and calm. Once this stage is completed you can drop multiple balls around the circle and watch for the excitement level in the dog , backing off before the dog reaches its limit. Then mix in returning to the dog and going out to pick the balls. Only when the dog is steady and relaxed and the tether is at the point you feel you can leave it on the dog but is unstaked, will you give it one retrieve. Repeat the exercise always retrieving more of the retrieves than the dog.
Alongside this exercise you should be alternating with a sit/recall game where you just sit the dog ( untethered ) and move further away and recall.
There is an important thing to remember when training, if you have to repeat a command to `keep' the dog doing what you ask it has not learnt that command. And this goes for visual signals as well as verbal. Even staring at the dog to keep it in the sat position means the dog has not learnt the command to sit and remain sitting without further enforcement. You should be able to walk away focusing on where your going and not on the dog, then and only then you have a dog that understands the sit. In training I always advise switching to peripheral vision as soon as you can to avoid making this mistake.
This is a very long winded explanation of a very simple 10-15 minute training exercise that can go along way in giving the dog the foundations of self control and building your confidence. If you can do this on ground that is gamey your going to be streets ahead of those training on game less ground and be the envy of many, even if at first your progress may seem slow. Trust your instincts, you know more than you think you do

[ips]

I agree with Mr munsty there is a lot of good info on my possibility thread and I don't mean from me but from the likes of Judy, naj, mm, Springfield and many more. I dont think there were very many scenarios that were not encountered along my journey, problems and mistakes on my part that were addressed and put right by my learned friends.....if you have a few hours to spare read the whole novel

[Kibble]

Thanks MM, that is helpful and timely. I now have a goal and an initial plan. I am also beginning to see how training on game scented ground might have its advantages, as well as the obvious difficulties. I can't do anything about where I live, so unless I want to settle for beach walks only, or continually tense walks in the countryside, I need to put the effort in with this dog.

The tether I am using is a bit of string attached to Mia's collar. It's not a very long tether, but it is loose enough for her to know when she has run in.
She can manage this sit and focus game fine in some places, but not too well in the woods yet. I will work more on this in the way you advise. As she will be tethered I don't even need to be concerned about whether it is a 'safe' place. I could even take her to the rabbit fields, which I have been avoiding as baby bunnies aren't the brightest.
After the pheseant incident I tethered her to a bench at the coast and we watched a family playing with a rocket toy that whizzed through the air. I am not sure this is in the rule book, but I got chance for a nice sit in the sun.

Today I tried walking round her, while she was sat on the beach. She doesn't need a tether for this (on the beach), as long as I don't drop anything. The sit and recall game also works well on the beach and avoids ball games with running in problems. In between she will 'quarter' over the seaweed in search of tasty kelp to crunch or the occasional dead fish, providing a 'leave it' opportunity. I haven't taught her to quarter the beach, she just does this. Leave it still needs some work, but I am not too bothered if she wants to crunch a bit of kelp and drag it about. I would rather she did this, and ignore other dogs.
Comming back from the woods this afternoon, there was a pheseant ambling down the field. Mia was on her lead so I got her to sit and watch for a while. I am not sure if this was the right thing to do, but it did make her calm down, after a while.
I am working my way through the previous Eze posts.i will learn a lot from these, thanks.

[ips]

Kibble
You mention that you have the opportunity to go beating ......how serious about this are you ? If you have the opportunity then take it, you won't regret it, a day beating with your dog is one of the best days you will ever have, if you intend to work towards that then it may effect the way you train from now on so you may be better making the decision now .....just my opinion

[Kibble]

Thanks ips. I am going to try training Mia, with the goal of taking her beating. She is a fast, confident dog, with natural ability, and I sort of feel obliged to try. I don't want to make walking her harder than it already is so MM's post is very helpful.
Mia worked out what she was bred to do, long ago. I just need to catch up, or start again with fewer mistakes.
I am now getting some amazing practical help, but it is still good to be able to ask this forum and I have learnt a lot from here. One of the posts I found pivotal was about reading the dog.
I have read through the early Eze posts. I find it brilliant that people who really know what they are doing offer slightly different views on possibilities.
I have lots more posts to go. It's a good read.

[Nickheref]

One common thread you will find is that the stop whistle must mean stop! If it does, it works no matter what the issue is and saves a lot of heartache, sheep, pheasants, other dogs, cars - you name it! It also prevents other problems developing and simplifies a lot of other things, I am just doing a little bit of directional training with my young dogs, I don't do a lot of handling as I want my dogs to try their best using their ability not rely on me but like to be able to help if absolutely necessary - I am doing the diamond pattern or three card trick, call it what you like but it is one dummy to the left, one to the right and one further out behind the dog (so the handler and dummies form a rough diamond shape with the dog sat in the middle) if a dog goes for the wrong dummy ie one you didn't indicate you wanted, with a good stop you can prevent the dog picking the wrong one straight away and redirect it to the one you did ask for, without a good stop the dog achieves its aim of picking the one it wanted to go for and doesn't learn anything.

[Kibble]

I realise that I don't have a reliable 'stop' and I am not helping this by letting Mia anticipate a rewarding 'seek back' I don't even have a reliable 'sit' until I know she will wait for me to throw and pick dummies. I am not going to achieve this without using a tether as suggested.
I have used memory retrieves to make getting her lead on unpredictable for her. I don't want to loose this although I realise that releasing her is not the same as sending her.
Nick's diamond pattern training sounds like a whole new level. Hovever, I can see how this would help to avoid anticipation,eventually!
I used a booked training field this morning. Doing this is a bit extreme, when there are plenty of fields, but it shows me what she knows when there are no distractions. She knows quite a lot.
Now I just need her to understand that we can only walk the woods if she stays close, which she did at one time. I made the mistake of trying yesterday. All fine for 5 minutes, until she flushed a duck that flew across right in front of me. She didn't chase, but didn't recall either. I was reduced to walking back towards the exit gate. She caught me up. I put her lead on and we went home. No way would that level of control be good enough for a beating dog.
More training is needed.
I suppose she has succeeded in training me if I am now focused on training for beating. MM's insight is spot on.

[Nickheref]

What appears to be happening is what I and many others do but without the earlier training. She is learning how to use her nose and how to hunt, I do allow mine to do that but only when I already have the stop etc so I am still in control.

You are not alone - many do the same and until the dog really starts to learn how to hunt they are quite happy, it is only when the dog does learn what it can do that the owner realises they have a problem. Usually they then just brand the dog "mad or bad" particularly with spaniels. Fortunately you understand that this is not the case.

I only mentioned the diamond pattern to try to explain how a good stop is useful or needed in many other aspects of the dogs training or life, not suggesting you should be doing it.

A good stop possibly prevented one of mine being killed or badly injured over the weekend, I was walking in woods and had parked on the opposite side of a very small quiet road where vehicles come very infrequently, as I came back to my vehicle one of mine was investigating something 50 yards back in the wood and I was lazy as it had started pouring with rain and I crossed the road with the rest without calling him in first, knowing he would quickly catch me up, as I got the rest in my vehicle I heard a car coming up the hill and saw my dog was now coming back flat out oblivious to the car and would likely cross the road at the same time as the car got there, a quick stop had him sat on the other side until the car had passed and I went back for him. All entirely my fault but that would only have made it worse for me had something bad happened. Lesson learnt and next time I will make sure they are all with me before I cross!