Quartering

[Judy]

Hi Pete, Agree with most of the above, except the not letting the dog 'own' anything. If the dog is bonded with you it will want to work with you regardless of what it does in its downtime. Provided that you can take away it's toys, bones whatever then the things are still yours in the dog's eyes?

[trekmoor]

This thread is primarily about spaniels quartering and I agree that with a spaniel it is easier to push it out than to reel it in ..... One look at my dogs will show you that !

Should any Hpr or pointer/setter folk read this thread about quartering however, I think the opposite can apply to them. I find it far easier to reel in a natural wide ranging pointer than to push out a naturally close ranging pointer.
I've had one GSP bitch whose natural quartering range was about 60 yards from me. I could get her to add about another 50 yards to that but it was hard and constant work. As soon as I stopped pushing her out she reverted to her natural 60 yards range again. She was a bold and confident bitch in every way but that was her natural range.
She got a lot of work among game , pheasants, partridge and grouse but still she stuck to her "boot polishing" range.

The Vizsla I'm training at present is another one that doesn't range well out even with game around. She makes a very nice "auld man's" hunting dog but her hunting range would look like nothing on a big stubble park or up on a grouse moor. Unless I knew in advance that a trial was likely to be of the "hedging and ditching" type or would be held in woodlands then I would not enter the trial . I'd be wasting my time against the big running dogs.

Wullie

[Rascal]

I've split the spin off discussion away from this thread as it had gone way off the topic of Quartering. The new thread can be found here....viewtopic.php?f=6&t=12485 as forum folk were obviously enjoying an interesting discussion.

Rascal

[Twiggs]

This makes for interesting reading...I will be keeping an eye on this as my pup grows older...

When other half taught his rescue sprocker to quarter, he initially did it on a long line and as she naturally hunted the way he cast her, only used it to give her a tug at the point he blew the turn whistle to get her going the other way. But...I suppose his work was about correcting bad habits of following her nose and chasing so having her on a long line ensured he could remain in control and teach her what he wanted at the same time, rather than teaching her to use her nose which is more what this thread seems to be about. I imaging teaching a pup will be different as there is more of a blank canvas, plus I am already playing figure of 8 games with her infront of me to get her used to moving in that pattern. Hmmm...interesting!

[Dan Newcombe]

Id slightly disagree about it being easier to push a dog on than reel one in.

You will never push a dog that doesn't want to go but with time and patience you can reel one in that goes like hell.

Not saying a dog wont go in time but it needs time and the right conditions and opportunities (ie lots of scent and game) rather than pushing

IMO anyway

[trekmoor]

Interesting the time span between posts on this thread ....the thread seemed to have ended about 18 months ago.

I greatly prefer reeling a pup in to trying to "push" it out. By reeling in I do not mean on a check-cord. Pushing a pup out is something I cannot do at all. I usually let game "pull" the pup out then I "pull" the pup back to me using voice, body language and anything else that works.

Wullie

[Hepe]

Now i answer again without having the slightest idea how i answered last time, will check after i post this. I hope i don't contradict myself too much, if so i changed my opinion and it made me a more knowledgeable person.

Absolutely easier to reel in than push on. And how do you train a dog not doing anything?

Helene

Oops now i read it, not one of my most polite posts.

[trekmoor]

Not to worry Helene.... I've just re-read what I wrote before and I have, ever so slightly, contradicted myself.

Wullie

[chrokeva]

Lots of good info on this thread !....too bad it went off track with attacks .
For me it was a bit more difficult to push her out at least in drill work. Personally my dog quartered and hunted naturally (as I am sure the case with most spaniels). For control we used buckets and dummies (a rather complex and daunting training task that really was more about obedience than hunting). I felt attacked at that time for using this method because many felt it mechanical (they were right of course) but looking back it really gave me the control I needed (stop, turn, draw) before she was on birds and in the end I was glad I put the time in on this.

[trekmoor]

I have never used buckets and dummies when working on quartering but I have often used tennis ball "lanes" and they worked pretty well. My spaniels end each shooting season as picking-up dogs with their hunting in tatters at least as far as range is concerned. I need my dogs to "sweep" through cover of all kinds at the end of almost every drive and sweeping is a wild and woolly form of hunting during which dogs hunt , unguided and often unseen, at very considerable distances away from their owners.

I used tennis ball lanes to put some pattern back into the dogs and since the balls were well within easy proper spaniel hunting ranges using the lanes caused a reduction in range too. It wasn't that the dogs needed the balls as an incentive to hunt, the balls just helped me get my dogs back in a bit in preparation for any test I might want to enter.

Wullie