Ghillie's Report Card

[trekmoor]

I took Kurt out onto a strip of short grass for his first ever retrieve of a dead bird. I did consider putting the pheasant inside a bit of stocking but thought he'd be O.K. without that training aid - I was very wrong ! He ran out to it did a bit of sniffing , then pulled feathers galore from it . Then he picked it up and swung it about by, first a wing and then a leg. After a judicious mix (I hoped) of encouraging and bullying tones from me he brought it back dropping it and repicking it several times before finally dropping it a few feet from me.

I tried once more with an even worse result. This time he took it directly away from me to play with it and I cringed as I watched his jaws work up and down the birds body. I again used my voice to get him to return but he returned to me even more slowly than the first attempt. He dropped the bird near me again .

I decided not to do any more cold game retrieving for a while ! I carefully felt for the damage he must have done to the birds ribs and got a bit of a shock. The ribs were completely intact !

So ……..all is not lost yet. I don't think I will take him to shoots for a wee while yet though ! Maybe I will bring home another bird or two in a couple of weeks time then try again but with the birds encased in stocking materiel next time ? I will maybe put a check cord on him too ?

Wullie

[trekmoor]

I have done nothing with Kurt or any other dog for a week now , I have hardly stepped outside my house . Even very short walks are leaving me stressed and exhausted . I did go sea fishing on Wednesday though and Lady Luck smiled on me. I caught about 50 good sized fish from my perch 20 feet above the sea. The fish were onto the baits almost before they'd hit the sea-bed and those 50 fish were all caught within 3 hours of the incoming tide. ( I returned every fish I caught to the sea, I like catching fish but don't like eating them very much !)

It was too much of a good thing though , in fact the cat got choked by cream ! It was a fishing session that I will always remember. I only had to walk 15 -20 yards to get back to my car but I was already sore and tired . Once back into my car I had to just sit there for 5 - 10 minutes while I regulated and regained my breath . I'm still knackered two days later so although Kurt is here today I will not be taking him out at all.

I think I may have to give up on training him, I'm just not up to it.

Wullie

[Stacia]

Oh Wullie, I am so sorry, that sounds so sad that you will have to give up training Kurt and you are finding walking exhausting.

[trekmoor]

It is now almost a fortnight since I last took a dog out anywhere. I am now having what seem to be panic or anxiety attacks if I even think of training a dog . My breath comes in gasps and my heart goes a bit funny and I need to widdle - urgently - and even my nose starts to run. I get an instant headache too and all this before I have even left the house. It is preventing me from doing one of the things I most enjoy doing in life , I have always loved taking dogs out and training them .

Kurt was dropped off here again today and this time I made up my mind that , come what may, I would take him out. All of my usual symptoms took place but I at least got out into the garden with him before I had to sit down to regain some breath and to blow my streaming nose !

What a pity I didn't get Kurt 10 years ago or even 5 years ago. He could have been a pretty good gundog. He is responsive and very willing to work. I'd taken a whistle , a dummy and a length of cord out into the garden with me and I decided to do all of the training while remaining seated in a garden chair. The cord was never used and was never needed.

Kurt took pity on me and behaved very, very well. He remained on his backside as I tossed dummies up the garden and he retrieved them on command with no attempts to play with them or to do run-pasts. He was a bit "hang-headed" as he delivered the dummies but he did not drop them and, if I told him to sit before delivering, he did exactly that although a bit slowly. His main "fault" was his habit of bringing back dummies by the toggle end . I let it go because he wasn't trying to swing the dummies around his head !

I tried him with a stop whistle at distance ….but only about 10 feet from me. He wanted to come nearer to me and then sit … I let that go too because I didn't have the puff to get up and stop him . I ended this little session with a sit/stay done at about 12 feet from me. He remained sitting even after I'd sat back down in my chair. I left him sitting there for about 30 seconds then I returned to him, walked around him and then praised him for remaining on his backside.

I was ridiculously pleased with his obedience and his attitude towards being trained today. It was ridiculous because every previous GSP I've ever owned has been doing all of this baby stuff since it was about 4 months old !!!

I have got another shoot to go to in about 10 days time. If I manage to go at all I won't be taking Kurt. He's not ready for a shooting day yet and I'm not up to hanging on to him during one ! I don't know if I ever will be either !

I still feel ridiculously pleased with that little training session though . It went better than I'd thought it would .

Wullie

[Alice]

I'm so pleased you managed to get him out for a bit, but sad to hear how shit things are with your health and the anxiety. As you know, it's not a rational or logical thing - it sounds like your brain on some level is anticipating the pain that taking dogs out is causing your body and doing all it can to warn you off. Unfortunately the really crap thing about anxiety is goes way over the top when it does this and puts you into sort of fight of flight mode.

Would your daughter take over Kurt's training with you as an instructor or is that asking too much of her?

[trekmoor]

My daughter only wants the dog to be a nice pet that she can have running beside her when she trains for marathon runs. She is in no way anti - field sport but she has no interest in doing it.

I have been advising her on a few pet and gundog related things though. She got a fright a month or two back when Kurt found and chased and grabbed an escaped farmyard hen . She made the big mistake of chasing after the dog to rescue the bird ! Kurt really enjoyed the new "game" and she had a hell of a time getting him to give up the hen . She eventually got him to release the hen and it, apparently, ran off O.K. but minus a lot of feathers !

Within the last week he found and chased two cats while out on countryside walks. The first cat clawed his face and then escaped and my daughter thought he wouldn't try that again. She was wrong for a few days ago he found another stray cat and went after it looking for vengeance ! The cat escaped over a high wooden fence ….thank god !

I have seen a gsp kill a cat and it only took seconds to do it. A grab, a couple of good shakes and it is goodbye cat ! I used my daughters worries about him chasing, catching and killing something to , I hope, persuade her to train him to stop to whistle. If she can do that it will help me a lot. I can stop him to whistle if nothing is distracting him but only up to about 8 - 12 feet away from me. I've told my daughter how to develop this but it is up to her whether to do it or not.

It's a shame really for he is a dog that actually greatly enjoys being trained . He is not a "hard" dog and is very seldom physically corrected by me or by my daughter. For a dog with his nature doing that would be counter productive. He is a big softy where people are concerned.

My daughter was taking him to obedience classes but then stopped going . All of the training done was inside a hall and she wants Kurt to be obedient out where birds and animals live. My daughter goes out to work and looks after her son and her house so she does not have lots of free time in which to train Kurt to behave outdoors . I will continue to prod her towards doing a bit more training while she is out walking him however ! A dog can learn a lot from 10 minutes worth of training done during a half hours walking.


In the real sense of the word I have never hunted Kurt. He has only been allowed to hunt by me twice while I did some dogging - in on the estate. I was favourably impressed by how naturally he took to hunting. He hunted down the hedgerows looking as if he'd been doing it for years and when I took him back to my car by taking a short cut over a rough grass and weed filled field, he opened out at once to take in more ground . All I had to do to turn him was to whistle recall while beginning to walk away from him , he responded very well for a complete beginner.

There is nothing wrong with his natural instincts or with his willingness to please. All that is wrong is that I can't walk well enough to train him properly.


Wullie

[Gundogs11]

Sounds like you need a quad

[Stacia]

Or an all terrain 'scooter' thingy.

[trekmoor]

Or a 4 wheel drive zimmer frame !

Wullie

[trekmoor]

The pup was dropped off here again today and I am girding my loins ready to do battle with him. I have found it is often better to let him play with Ghillie out in the garden for 30 minutes to an hour before training him . She knocks the excess energy out of him and he concentrates a bit better ...usually ! If I let them play for a little bit too long though, he loses too much enthusiasm ...

It's a bit of a balancing act and I sometimes judge it wrong.

Wullie