ranging out and delayed reaction to the whistle

[colc08]

My cocker bitch is now 2 years old and being the first dog I have trained myself I made a lot of mistakes early on as I'm sure we all do first time around. Still is still very juvenile b ut I am slowly correcting a few things but am struggling to achieve the standard I want.

One issue I have is she tends to want to range out whilst hunting. Now she knows that two pips on the whistle means turn and a flurry of pips means recall but she always delays her reaction on returning/turning or continues on a wide path before doing what I want her to do. How can I correct this please? By the time I get out after her she is on her way back in so I'm then left confused as what to do as dont want to tell her off if she is returning to me as asked.....

Another issues is the difference between open field and woodland. It seems that in an open field she works ok for me and is controlable as she knows I can get to her but once in woodland I get th eimpression she thinks I caanot get to her so she takes the mick a bit and ranges well out. Of course I get out after her and I do think she is slowly learning that I can catch her in woodland as well os open field.

I must say on her day she can be a pleasure to be out with and in a controlled enviroment she can on occasion be great but as soon as she gets scent under her nose she is a different dog.

I have recently been lucky enough to enherit an excetional springer bitch that has been trained to a very high standard, winning novice trials and suchn and in having and working her it has become even more apparent how far apart my cocker is from a good well trained dog. Although I don't think my cocker will be much good I dont want to just give up on her and would love to get her to a standard where I can at least take her on a shoot day without her embarassing me.

I'd really appreciate any of your opinions.


Cheers

[Naj]

How far does she normally range/quarter when working on game?

Naj

[colc08]

How far does she normally range/quarter when working on game?

Naj

On ground where there is no scent, may 10 - 15 yards but as soon as there is a bit of gamey ground shes as good as gone, especially if she can straight line down the back of a hedge row or something.

col

[Naj]

That's not a 'ranging out' problem. That's a 'pulling' on scent problem Until it's sorted keep her away from hedgerows etc. where she can get away from you. You need to work her on gamey ground but work her much tighter & insist on immediate compliance with the turn whistle. Wullie recently wrote something on this on a recent thread. At 2 years old this will have become an established behaviour & so will take a lot of work to re-train her, so don't expect quick results. You need to assume that she will ignore the turn whistle every time that you blow it & need to be already heading in her direction before you do so in anticipation of her ignoring it & always insist on a sharp response to it with no sloppy turns that pull in a few extra yards.

Is she steady to flush? If not 100% then this is probably a better place to start.

Naj

[colc08]

Thanks Naj,

No she is not steady to flush...starting to sound like a helpless case now. It would be easy for me to just give up on her now that I have a good dog but i dont want to do that as she is an intelligent and stylish dog and its not her fault but my mistakes that have caused this. I took her to a local reputable trainer and he was blown away by her spped and style but said '' what you need is a moris minor....and you have farrari '' his advise was to go away and work tirelessly on the stop whistle (she chased game whilst i was with him) which i have been doing but that only works on non scented ground. When she get the ''red mist'' there is no stop whistle reaction at all.

Should i just give up and keep her as a pet and concentrate on keeping my springers levels up. Two experienced dog men have advised this but its easy for them as they see dogs as tools where as my little cocker was my first dog and is still young and dont want her to go to waste. Like i say in my OP i'm not expecting miracles i just want to steady her up and bit and then go from there.

col

[Naj]

You need some regular work in a rabbit pen or on really rabbity ground to steady her. Once you have steadiness you will have more control under distraction & this will help with the turn whistle/quartering control. You can work all you like on the stop whistle on 'sterile' ground but with an 'educated' dog like this one it will come to nothing when there is game about, so you must work on stop whistle control when under the distraction of game.

Naj

[trekmoor]

I agree with Naj. Naj is however, a nicer person than I am !

What you have done by accident is what I do on purpose ....that is allow a pup to get out of control on game. It certainly gees up their hunting but as you have discovered it completely buggers up their control ! I use aversive, old fashioned training methods to get the hunt crazy pups back under control and doing that does work. I haven't often used non-aversive methods so I'm not the best person to tell you how to train in that way.
I.M.O. your pup will need some physical correction applied at the right time ....which is as soon as the dog even thinks about NOT doing as commanded in order to get it under control. If that is done then I see no good reason why the dog cannot be controlled as you would want.
I have to retrain my extremely wild cockers after every shooting season if I am thinking about running them in a test or two or having someone shoot rabbits over them. It can be done, my dogs are game crazy but I have always managed to regain control at the end of each shooting season. ( I use them as picking up dogs during the winter and that makes them just a tad wild ! )

Presumably you are using a whistle for stop, turn and recall ? If so try not to use your voice when you catch and correct your dog. Put it back on the lead, blow stop and jerk the dog into the sit. For turn and for recall , put the dog on the lead , pull it back towards you and blow turn or recall. Do not confuse the dog with vocal commands .....it was a whistle command it disobeyed.

Wullie

[Naj]

I would think that you would be hard pressed to sort this out without using aversive measures.

Naj

[trekmoor]

That is what I was trying to very diplomatically say in my previous post.

Wullie

[Gundogguy]

This sounds and reads like a situation for the modern electronic digital training collar. This just the area that it is designed to handle. The perfect aversion training tool. 3-6 weeks max to help the dog understand it's role around scent. All done using finesse rather than over powering the dog into submission.