It's all about the training!

[Kibble]

Kibble, your dog will quickly learn to follow the correct direction of the track rather than take the ‘heel’ scent.

What I think Mia does now is follow the trail of a moving bird forward to flush. Whether she then chases or comes back to the area, (nearer me) where she picked up the scent trail, to hunt for another bird rather depends on the ground. Her experience will already tell her that where there is one bird there is often another.
Stop is a work in progress, and I understand why stop matters. She has no experience of shot birds, but I take her (on lead) to a minor road overlooking a valley where there are often pheasant to flush and/or watch.

I don't know if I should stop her on a bird scent trail, even if I could. I suspect she might be able to follow a trail and turn the bird towards me. I had decided this was coincidence until Nick posted about his dog. Is this possible?

I now have a hierachy of training venues. The field has scent temptation, but not usually too much. She is allowed to hunt the verge as long as she stays close, and obeys occasional stop and recall. She is obviously hoping to find something and I am hoping she doesn't!

I was pleased today that she quite quickly left the verge and went over to the track to engage in training. She knows the track is for training.
All was going really well....

She was sniffing along beside the track, between retrieves, when a hare popped up quite close. It might have been a big rabbit, but I don't think rabbits run as far. It put its ears back and went hareing off up the hill, with Mia in persuit. I whistled her once and walked quickly away towards the gate. She caught me up before I got to the gate. Obviously hare chasing is undesirable, but once she came back she was happy to resume training, which is a big improvement.

[Kibble]

I always like a bit of behaviour theory, when it is helpful (thank you Naj). I have thought about yesterday's hare chasing incident in ABC terms. The field has unpredictable distractions!
A) Mia was engaged in retrieving games in a field. This involves her being told to 'walk on' so we can practice 'stop' and/or I can drop a seek back or throw a dummy out to the side. A hare popped out of the long grass very close to Mia. The hare ran off up the hill, through the fence and into the wood
B) Mia chased the hare up the hill, but didn't go into the wood.
C) I blew recall and walked off towards the gate. Mia ran back to where the hare came from, ran back up the hill, ran down and then followed me. She didn't go through the fence into the wood. We resumed training.
So, with a better 'stop' I could have prevented Mia from chasing the hare. QED MM.
I didn't use 'stop' because it is still a work in progress. I didn't take her straight home, because she came back quite quickly and was keen to resume training. A year ago I think she would have gone into the wood, so at some point she thought better of hare chasing.

I should be pleased to have the chance to train in an unpredictable, gamey field. However, we are going to the beach today.

[Naj]

Kibble, your interpretation of ABC is far too wide to explain what went on behaviourally. It’s much simpler than that. The dog saw the hare and that was the Antecedent, or trigger, to the Behaviour, chasing. The dog finds the Consequence of chasing hares hugely enjoyable so it reinforces the chasing behaviour and is repeated when the trigger (Antecedent) in the form of a hare pops up again. Traditionally you would have made the Consequence of chasing hares to be an unpleasant experience by punishing the dog. But the problem with punishment is that it’s administered after the event, after the unwanted behaviour has occurred, often way after in the case of hares, and so there isn’t a clear cut link to the behaviour and, more importantly, what is triggering it.

The smart money is not in concentrating on the Consequence, which is akin to closing the stable door after the horse has bolted, but in changing the relationship between the dog and whatever triggers the unwanted behaviour (the Antecedent), in this case the hare. There are various ways you can do this but essentially you change the behavioural response to the trigger from that of chasing to something that you want the dog to do instead. As Munstyman and Nick have said this is often an incompatible behaviour like ‘sit’. If the dog is sitting it can’t be chasing. And adding a hare into the equation is simply an extension of distraction proofing the ‘sit’ behaviour. However, getting a chasing dog to sit when in full flight after a hare is still a pretty tall order. The dog has already enjoyed its reinforcing Consequence for chasing by then so that little behaviour chain has been and gone.

I’m sure that N&M would agree that the preparatory work starts well before this stage and is geared to getting an instinctive response to the sight of a hare, either for the dog to automatically sit, return to the handler ot ignore it. If you choose the sit option then stopping to ‘movement’ is an easy intermediary and you can use tossed things/ rolled things as a cue for sitting as the dog is moving about. Some trainers use flirt poles and bolting rabbits. Once the dog sees anything unexpectedly flying through the air or rolling along the ground as a cue to stop/sit and can be called away or stopped when in full flight after a toy or running towards a food bowl and can do this in a variety of locations/distracting environments you’ll then be in a position to think about introducing the dog to hares again, but in a controlled manner. But what you don’t want in the interim is for the dog to have any opportunity to keep rehearsing the hare chasing behaviour.

[munstyman]

I pretty much agree with what Naj has said ( again ) I would just add one caveat. Not all dogs are stupid, and some learn for themselves that a hare chase is pointless, and so steady themselves. Others, however are eternal optimists and never learn that more often than not that them closing in on the hare is at the hares blessing and it is just coursing them.
Every encounter with wildlife is a new `context' so has to be trained and proofed. A dog steady on bird (s) may not be steady on fur, till you go through all the steps you did with birds. Likewise, hares and deer, all will have a different stimulus to the dog as will the distance of the encounter. One of the biggest problems with Hares is that they often sit tight until the last minute then spring up right in front of the dog which naturally releases adrenaline in the dog which raises the natural instincts over the learnt behaviors imo. This is why I train the stop to `instinctive ' levels not just `thinking' levels to answer kibbles question. The brakes are being applied the moment the dog gets the command be it from you the handler or the action of the game associated with it ( flushing ). If the dog then breaks, you know it has `thought' about it and your on a better footing to redress the training.
The other thing that I learnt from one of my own dogs, is that we sometimes do not see what the dog sees, as a `predator' . My extremely steady `deer' dog. Once took a few meaningful steps forward when a group of Roes were moving across a field in front of us. It required a reminder from me, although I think he had already stopped himself. It made me take a closer look at the group and it was only then that I noticed one was slightly lame on the front which had the dog fully focused.
I often wonder how many `unsteady dogs' are because handlers are not paying attention to the dog and giving the `guidance' the dog needs prior to seeing the dog sprint off in pursuit.

[Naj]

Yes, we’re singing from the same song sheet again, Mr Munstyman. And no apologies to Judy required! We of the brotherhood of the Pointy Noses are at an advantage, I think. If you follow the bump and chase protocol for developing the point on wild game then a young dog will quickly learn that chasing is pointless, in all senses of the word. Mine usually quit chasing by around 4 or 5 months of age. And I agree that this then needs generalising to every other game contact that the dog is likely to meet. And that the flush should become just another cue for a ‘sit’. I don’t actually stop a pup from chasing but wait until they learn it’s not profitable and they’re then more interested in going back to sniff the haunt than in the departing bird or hare. It’s easy then to slip a ‘sit’ cue in if that’s what you require because they’re in a receptive state of mind. I also train a stop to wing using pigeons but don’t use any cue/command, or corrections, to teach this. The released bird becomes the cue for the dog to stop, so there’s no need for a ‘command’.

This early conditioning is powerful stuff. My current Viz is five years old now and this afternoon I took her out shooting and she came on point within 25 yards of my front door. My neighbours are long suffering but I refrain from shooting under their noses and so just walked in to the point. As expected, a snipe jumped up within two yards of her nose and she instinctively flopped into a down position. No command required. I’ve seen this so many times before and it all stems back to that basic foundation work I did on pigeons when she was less than six months old because other than a gentle introduction into the shooting field in her first year she’s had no other training on it. The ‘basics’ are all important and can last a life time.

[Kibble]

Many thanks as always Naj and MM for your patience and detailed replies.
I have only recently dared to go back to these fields. She was fine here as a puppy, but not last autumn.

I think Mia smelt the hare before it popped up. She had her nose down, so effectively flushed it. I probably saw the hare a second before she did. If I had had a good stop/sit to whistle and quick reactions I should have been able to prevent the chase. Of course if Mia was conditioned to stop to flush I would not need quick reactions, so that should be my aim.

I am still working on stop. I am delighted that I can do this at all. Also I am still working on improving steadiness to thrown dummies etc.

At present steadiness to thrown dummies is still in the context of 'stay sitting'. Tethering works fine until the tether is taken off, so we are mixing up with untethered sit/throw/don't break/reward. If she breaks (and I don't get the dummy first, I just take it off her without comment). Of course I should have got this sorted ages ago.

I understand that training the moving dog to stop in response to a thrown dummy is also something I can work on. Everything is a bit back to front and she is used to running in so it might take a while. I have to break one habit and establish another.
Sometimes I can now call her back from anticipating a seek back, and then sit and send her. This is an improvement.

I use 'lead on' to throw marked and memory retrieves, but I am used to making her sit/mark/throw/(walk away) lead off/send. I guess I could throw a dummy while walking her on lead and then make her sit and send?

In the hare chase incident, I saw my walking away as a consequence (negative aversive) for her undesirable behaviour. I felt like the kid with the football as in, 'I'll be playing striker or I'm taking my ball and going home.' Mia doesn't like me walking away.

Coming back along the beach the other day, a flock of sand birds were bobbling along in front of us for ages. Mia didn't even bother to set them up, which was encouraging. I was once told not to let her chase the sand birds because chase is rewarding. It is one of those confusing edicts. I couldn't prevent her chasing sand birds unless she was on a lead. I could make 'playing' more fun most of the time, but if she lets off steam on the beach, where better.

[Naj]

Walking away and/or hiding is always a good ploy when they do have a chase, especially with younger dogs that can’t keep on terms with a hare. They quickly learn that they can’t catch the hare and they also lose you in the process. It also encourages a quick return straight back to you, which should be well rewarded.

With retrieving, as you point out, it’s common to train young dogs to run-in to a retrieve so it can cause issues later when you want to train them to wait for a command to retrieve. But you can have both if you put the running-in behaviour on cue. In this way you can use a (cued) ball chase as a reward, even for a steady retrieve. Just a thought.

[Kibble]

Thank you Naj. That is helpful and reassuring.

Walking away, when Mia is busy on a chase, is not easy. There is an element of 'chicken'. However, I know she is learning and she has more self control now than a year ago. As long as I pick the right places I can do this.

I have found using a chucked ball as a reward for a steady and prompt dummy retrieve to be effective, although as you imply it seems contradictory. A dropped or chucked food reward also appears to be more rewarding than food given by hand. This also has the advantage of slowing her down to sniff close by for a second or two.

I am taking advantage of 'pheasant watch', while they are about and I can see the birds across the valley. I didn't realise how much pheasants just walk. They seem to follow the tracks left by something else, probably sheep. I don't know whether Mia sees the birds or smells them. The immediate ground appears to be deliciously scented and Mia gets too excited to make lead walking comfortable, so she has to sit. I would like to think she is getting better at this. The idea that she could sit nicely with this degree of temptation and no lead could be a way off.

[Kibble]

I am probably not cueing the ball reward properly, so I will make that better, thanks.

[Nickheref]

I "allow" mine to chase when young mainly because I won't have a reliable stop at that age so I won't even try but at 4 or so months they don't have the pace or determination they do when 2 or 3 years old.

I think the turning birds towards you is really something some dogs, not all, learn when actually having game killed over them because it gives them something they really want, a retrieve of a warm bird that is much more exciting than a dummy or even a cold bird. I have no proof of it but with experienced dogs it is surprising how many come across you rather than just going straight away. It is a real skill in my view for a hunting dog as it puts a lot more birds in the bag especially if you are not George Digweed (Kibble - he is a multiple world shooting champion over many years and misses little!). However they can't do it all the time as sometimes the bird is intent on another way out or the cover is such that the bird is always going a different way. It always surprises me just how much a successful flush - shot - retrieve teaches a young dog and how few it sometimes takes to go from a dog who hasn't really put the pieces together to one that has.