Gundog Training Forum

Has anybody got any ideas how to stop an 8 month ESS from chasing game?

Somebody has asked me to help him with it, but I've not come across this problem as I always train from 8 weeks old more or less! Help!!
He doesn't want to use a whistle either!
Thanks!!

if he doesnt use a whistle he guna have a sore throat, lol, why not use whistle?

Advise the handler to see a professional trainer with the dog; no disrespect to your skills but if you have not encountered this as a problem how will you help address it? Would you want to be responsible for some disaster befalling the dog later on down the line because your advice didn't help?

Cathy

I think you have indirectly answered your own question, you train from eight weeks old, the other person has skipped that bit by the sounds of it so take the dog right back to basics and get control over it before letting it loose near game again. Basic obedience is basic obedience regardless of breed, its just some take a bit longer to train than others!

It shouldn't be too hard to train an 8 months old dog not to chase game. My own dogs were allowed to find and chase game until they were a few months older than that.

The dogs owner should make up his/her mind what the dog is going to be and then continue from there to either teach the dog to totally ignore game or to begin to develop the dog as a controlled hunter of game.

Wullie

engineswede wrote:if he doesnt use a whistle he guna have a sore throat, lol, why not use whistle?

Because if he goes on a shoot everyone has the same pitch.
So I told him to just get a different pitch whistle! Personally I do everything with the whistle. And I'd teach the dog the stop whistle. But if the owner doesn't want to use one, how on earth are you going to teach it to stop?
Apparently it's got recal when nothing is about. But not when there's game about!

Judy wrote:I think you have indirectly answered your own question, you train from eight weeks old, the other person has skipped that bit by the sounds of it so take the dog right back to basics and get control over it before letting it loose near game again. Basic obedience is basic obedience regardless of breed, its just some take a bit longer to train than others!

I think you're right.

Minijen wrote:Because if he goes on a shoot everyone has the same pitch.

Makes no difference at all - the dog learns to respond to your whistle, not your pitch of whistle. We may all have the same pitch, but we all sound different when we blow it

Teach the dog to stop to the whistle.

But he doesn't want to use a whistle - a bit 'Catch 22', this one!