Libby's Diary

[LJR]

Will you correct any bad habits in February whilst there are still birds about?

Do dogs that only get used for beating need to be shot over as reward? Or can a dog be successfully be trained to flush without being shot over - what is their reward?

I hope your back is not giving you too much grief!

[trekmoor]

In February and March I will be encouraging her to point once more. She hasn't only found shot birds during the shooting seaon and I expect and need her just to flush without pointing any unshot birds she encounters while searching for shot birds. This will need to counteracted by having her hunt for unshot birds while I try to encourage her to point them once more.

Dogs do not need birds shot over them as they hunt in order to hunt well ....but it does sometimes help ! They do need birds shot over them in order to train steadiness to flush , dummies just do not work well for that purpose.

Wullie

[trekmoor]

A few pics of todays picking up.









Wullie

[trekmoor]

The weather was a bit better today so I took all 3 cockers plus Libby to the bowl shaped field at Bannatynes Bog to look for snipe and then for woodcock in the thick woodlands behind the bog area. I'd hardly moved 30 feet from where I'd parked my car when all four dogs flushed a hen pheasant. I watched as it flew off over the "bowl" and saw it pitch in again near the woods so I headed over to there after getting the spaniels in to heel.

By the time I'd got there Libby had left the rashes , went through the broken down fence , climbed or jumped over the little drystane dyke and was 40-50 yards inside the woods.....she then bumped up the bird ! I sat her on the whistle then cast her off to hunt again, she went off to the left so since I wasn't fussy which way I went I followed on through the fallen trees and dead ferns and brambles into a slightly clearer area, where, from about 50 yards away, I saw a big hare run off with Libby hard on it's heels. She did not stop to whistle and not until she'd lost the hare somewhere in the woods did she come back.....she stopped to whistle on the last hare she saw a couple of months ago but since then her picking up work has made her more than a little bit "self employed !"

The rest of the half mile or so walk in the woodlands produced nothing that I saw and with 3 cockers plus Libby all out hunting I think any woodcock around would have been found. Libby hunted far too far out among the woods and although I have a feeling she always knew where I was I didn't often know where she was ! Several times she reappeared from the woods which have a lot of cover at ground level from as much as 120 yards away. Only the fact that I stuck to the gravel tracks through the woods enabled me to see her .....in some ways it will be a good thing when the shooting season ends and I can begin to repair the damage it has done to her general obedience.

While picking up she has exceeded my expectations for she is steady ....mainly..... and is a good retriever of pheasants whether dead or alive. She has retrieved far more live pheasants than dead ones. I have now got the retriever I wanted so when the season ends it will be back to training the basics for her. The things she will not do during picking-up are stop to whistle , take directions and recall quickly to whistle ....unless she has a bird already in her mouth !

Wullie

[Kaiser]

Wullie how will you tackle the whistle deafness on retrieving. I have a similar problem

[trekmoor]

Start close in then gradually begin to insist on the same levels of control during longer retrieves. Libby is particularly bad at going in the direction I send her during blind retrieves with marked distractions. She marks very well but often refuses to go in any other direction but that of the marked retrieve.

I'll probably begin on short grass in a park . I will drop a dummy unseen by her then 10-20 yards further on I'll sit her , move away from her at right angles to her and the "blind, " throw a dummy out to her opposite side to the blind then send her for the blind.
She should see it if she goes even a few feet in the correct direction. She will then be praised for picking it up. Success should instill confidence in her that taking a cast away from the seen dummy will result in another dummy to pick plus praise. As I said at the start, I will start close in before making the distance to the blind retrieve longer and the distance between me and her sit position longer.

She is now a very keen retriever , back in April, May of this year I was really toiling to persuade her to retrieve. Now that I have her retrieving so enthusiastically I can add more "insistence" from me that she retrieves to suit me and not herself. I place enthusiasm before "perfection." I have been greatly aided in this by Libby having the usual Brittany trait of being game mad. Many brittanies that are , at best, extremely poor or reluctant retrievers of dummies will retrieve freshly shot game with very few problems. They are very "natural" little dogs.

P.S. I make a habit of blowing stop to the already sitting dog just before I command it to go for the retrieve. I think doing this clues the dog in to going in the direction commanded , it may also increase the chance of the dog stopping to whistle at distance, the dog stops in anticipation of the reward to come in the form of a dummy to retrieve. If the dog insists on going for the seen dummy I used to be fast enough to run out to prevent it getting to that dummy.
I can no longer run so now I toss the seen dummy over a 6 feet high mesh fence , since Libby cannot jump 6 feet I get a chance to catch her and to insist she goes the "right" way after I have replaced her in the sit position . A much easier way of doing this is to have a helper ready to pick up the seen dummy should the dog try for it . As I almost always train on my own a helper is very seldom available to me.

Maybe I should get an e-collar ?

Wullie

[h&t]

Maybe I should get an e-collar ?

nah, just engage the soup dragon in dog training or would it make it too much fun?

[cuda]

I'm sure some mutually beneficial dummy picking could be arranged - if you think your still fit enough to bend down and pick some up

Charlie

[Judy]

Maybe I should get an e-collar ?

nah, just engage the soup dragon in dog training or would it make it too much fun?

The Soup Dragon wouldn't like to be collared.

[trekmoor]

The Cauldron - 10.30 a.m. - Some sunshine but mainly cloudy, very light winds.

Dogs - Charlie , Dax, Billy and Libby

I have finally decided upon my New Years Resolution ..... it is to murder Libby just as soon as possible ! I don't think I have taken a dog to The Cauldron since I took Charlie there when he was about Libby's age , she is 14 months now. It is a sort of plateau in the centre of a loop of a small river or stream. From the plateau down to the river is an extremely steep, muddy and heavily wooded bank . At a guess the distance down to the river is about 80-100 yards ....the river must have been carving it's way through those hills for thousands of years. A pig-mesh fence with a single strand of plain wire 6 inches above it separates the plateau from the woods and steep hill leading down to the river. I had thought I could hunt Libby over the plateau for a woodcock or perhaps a rabbit or two.

My cockers were no trouble at all.... they kept within 40-50 yards from me. Libby decided the plateau wasn't big enough ....it is huge .... so she jumped the fence which has to be about 4 feet high and then vanished down into The Cauldron. I blew recall but she did not return , I blew again with the same result. It would be physically impossible for me to get back up that slope ....going down it would be difficult enough ! I stayed up on the plateau and continued to recall her.

After a moment I moved on 50 yards to a part of the fence where it was fairly level on it's far side. I hoped that when and if she saw fit to return she'd be able to jump back over there. It would be difficult or maybe impossible for a small dog to jump back over that fence at the places where it was perched on the edge of the slope.

I heard noise among the trees and bushes down below so I whistled again . Then I saw a big roe deer buck coming up the hill towards me through the bushes with a little demon running just 4-5 feet behind it. I blew stop for all I was worth but she ignored it and by now she was only 20 yards from me. The deer was panic stricken and didn't even notice me and the cockers standing there , it jumped the fence just 15 feet from me ..... and so did Libby. She then saw me and came to a skidding stop and a sit !

I must have been within her "too close for comfort" range so she decided it might be wise to stop. I restrained myself with difficulty from marmalising her ass on the spot ! I have to wonder if she had actually "herded" that deer back up the hill towards me and the rest of her pack. I doubt that very much but that was the impression I got.

We moved on over the plateau which has some high grass and gorse bushes in places. There was a lot of rabbit droppings about and quite a lot of deer droppings too. We reached some clumps of gorse and in went the cockers and Libby. The cockers came out again and back to me but of Libby there was no sign. Then I saw her, she was nearly 200 yards away over the plateau and was still running just as hard as she could go but there was nothing that I could see out in front of her. I blew stop, she ignored it and again jumped over the fence and vanished into the woods.

A man and wife team came along and tut-tutted at her lack of discipline , their two terrier crosses were pretty well behaved for terriers. Multitudinous recall whistles later and Libby returned having got back over the fence somewhere. The man and wife team began to lecture me on how to train her ..... They were right, she was out of control so I let them lecture away.

Then Libby took off hunting again and I couldn't resist it.... I let her go because one of their terrier thingies was following her. Both dogs got over the fence again and vanished into the woods down below. I gave it a minute then blew recall, the happy lecturers were now not so happy for they had been shouting at their dog from the moment he'd ran off with Libby.
Libby came back from somewhere 200 yards further along the fence but the terrier was still down below ..... I suspect there was a lot of rabbit scent down there.

I thanked the couple for the helpful hints on dog training and bogged off back to my car. Hope they find their dog or that it finds them.
Libby needs to be retrained !!!

Wullie