If you stand in front of your dog, hold your hands out palm down and thumbs towards the dogs nose how can you hold the dogs's scruff, he has it by the ears. The second time he has the left ear in his hand whilst he clouts the dog with the other hand. You can see that because the end of its lug is showing at the far side of his hand. Can't be doing the dog much good hitting it across the back while lifting its head back.
Yes I will hold a dog by the scruff, I did it this morning with one of mine when she broke stays down by the river and went to interfere with a puppy's retrieve. I grabbed the back of her neck and pulled her back to where she should have been, she is 7 and knows full well what she should have been doing. Little bugger sat and waggled her arras at me with a Charlie grin on her mush. Would I train a pup by scruff ing it back every time it breaks a sit? No, there are far quicker and simpler methods of getting the results you want without making the dog puff and pant, take a circuitous route back with the dummy, be constantly on its belly trying to lick me. The dog looked to be in a stew bouncing about all the time, God knows what it learned.
I do agree though, I too have seen far worse punishments.
In life, it is important to know when to stop arguing with people and simply let them be wrong.
There is already a topic running somewhere about teaching the stop whistle that I've contributed to, not sure where it is though. Basically, I don't start teaching any hunting dog the stop whistle until it is flowing freely and hunting with confidence and pace, it only suppresses it and why stop it if its not even going in the first place?. Recall is taught as pups at food time, its like the school bell, signals something positive and I've never had a problem with recall, its ingrained at such a young age.
not seen the vid...dont really want to ,to be honest.....as a fairly new trainer of a dog..ess....I see that these dogs are clever enough to work things out without being cruel...if done correctly ?
Well, I heard it squeal the second correction, the slaps looked & sounded hard, the handler definitely pulled the dog forward towards him by the ears the second time around. He might have been holding it close to the head as he lifted it back but is that any better? And we all now know the secret of training - if at first you don't succeed, then the dog simply needs ..."hitting harder". And the books tell you to drag them back by the scruff, not carry them about by the ears. I've used punishment based techniques for many years & am more proficient with them than when using positive style methods. When you routinely use physical punishment of one sort or another in your training regime you tend to get case hardened to what you are dishing out, especially if your peer group use similar methods. Hence, perhaps, some of the more supportive comments that have been posted. The acid test over what is & isn't considered acceptable in future is surely not what your peers consider acceptable in the relative privacy of the shooting field, but what the general public might think. If you wouldn't feel comfortable doing this sort of stuff to a dog in full view of the 'general public', then perhaps you should consider changing the way you go about training. If you are happy to do it then that's fine, but one day techniques such as this are bound to be tested in a court case.
What an idiot. He's behaving as if the dog is willfully disobeying - poor dog doesn't quite understand what it's supposed to be doing in the first place. Punishment before proper teaching .
Its funny how many people are "disgusted" at this.... I wonder how many of you who are have trained a good few dogs of all temperaments to the highest standard!!!
I think quite a few of us! Maybe not to trial but we buy a dog and keep it, train it to an acceptable standard for use on shoots, we don't buy and sell endlessly in the quest to find something we can either train to trial standard or find a dog which will withstand the punishment orientated method.
Who is best? The one who turns out dog after dog of an acceptable standard or one who can only work with a type of dog which can cope with their training methods and discards the rest?
In life, it is important to know when to stop arguing with people and simply let them be wrong.
Just making the point that I know of some of the best dog men in the country who would scruff a dog like that, maybe they would be quicker with the correction but scruff is a scruff.....
Its easy starting a witch hunt when the offender is not here to defends them selves, I don't know him personally but I know he has trained dogs to the highest standard and turned them in Ftw etc's (many of his own line), I have also seen problem dogs which he has had and they have turned out crackers, enough to make anyone proud on a shoot day.
Could you train dog(S) to Ft Standard.....fair play If so....but i bet you wouldn't be so shocked at the video if you could!!!
Last edited by EssGrouse on Thu Jul 04, 2013 8:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
EssGrouse wrote:Now now.....calm yourself down there toodles!!
Jut making the point that I know of some of the best dog men in the country who would scruff a dog like that, maybe they would be quicker with the correction but scruff is a scruff.....
Its easy starting a witch hunt when the offender is not here to defends them selves, I don't know him personally but I know he has trained dogs to the highest standard and turned them in Ftw etc's (many of his own line), I have also seen problem dogs which he has had and they have turned out crackers, enough to make anyone proud on a shoot day.
Could you train dog(S) to Ft Standard.....fair play If so....but i bet you wouldn't be so shocked at the video if you could!!!
Don't start.
You are doing FT Standard trainers a disservice by implying they're all like this.
We don't need to destroy ourselves from the inside.
All I'm saying is scruffing a dog is a technique used by nearly every gundog kennel in the country......If anything the lot of you on a witch hunt are tearing the sports insides out.....
And please everyone who knows anything about gundog training knows what I stated is correct so don't try to turn this around...
Climbing back in my box....Il need this breath one day!!
Can't be doing the dog much good hitting it across the back while lifting its head back. 
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