stopping spaniels

[beccles]

been training my own springers for about 45 years now, and they have turned out pretty good.

what i wondered, when watching sheepdogs working, is how the owners get them to go down/stop so quickly. i can stop my dogs at a distance, but never that quickly..

what's the secret? or is that just collies?

[Nickheref]

My expererience is dogs who think fast, stop fast!

[AlandJake]

My expererience is dogs who think fast, stop fast!

Yup!

I have seen labs with good response to stop whistle, but nothing compared to my young ESS.

In mitigation, a lab moving at speed has more momentum to deal with than a spaniel half its weight or less, but in terms of reaction/response time I would agree with Nick.

[Naj]

Breed characteristics.

[Springfield Pointers]

I think a lot of people who run bird dogs expect them to be robot like, and react within milliseconds to every command.

The difference with Sheepdogs and Birddogs, is that we employ them for separate requirements. The responses to commands are, and can be, different.

The breed characteristics are also different, we require different things from the dogs.

Sheepdogs are working by command of the handler - the dynamics of the partnership is different. Although it is true that I have witnessed a healthy proportion of spaniel owners who think their dogs need to be handled like border collies, we should remember why we own these dogs, and ask of them what we do.

[trekmoor]

I've owned two border collies, one lab and two GSP's that stopped to whistle as if their legs had been chopped off. All of those dogs were trained to stop dead by use of a lead and then a check cord. I don't train that way now and my last several dogs have all taken time and distance to come to a definite stop.......if the b*ggers stop at all !

I think this sort of stop depends on a fast going and fairly "hard" sort of dog that can take a correction without becoming too wary to still run at speed and that sort of training should be done only when the dog is red hot to "go" due to a very strong incentive.....

Wullie

[hprfan]

I've owned two border collies, one lab and two GSP's that stopped to whistle as if their legs had been chopped off. All of those dogs were trained to stop dead by use of a lead and then a check cord. I don't train that way now and my last several dogs have all taken time and distance to come to a definite stop.......if the b*ggers stop at all !

I think this sort of stop depends on a fast going and fairly "hard" sort of dog that can take a correction without becoming too wary to still run at speed and that sort of training should be done only when the dog is red hot to "go" due to a very strong incentive.....

Wullie

Interested to hear the process you used previously Wullie, as like the OP i struggle to get the stop as sharp as i would like it to be.

[trekmoor]

I like dogs that go like the clappers. To get that I didn't train dogs to stop until they'd taught themselves to "go." Sometimes a dog would be pushing 1O - 11 months old before I began to change the previously taught "should stop" (to whistle) to "must stop." I'd let the dog become a retrieve or a hunt fanatic (or both) before beginning to insist they stopped in their tracks if I blew the whistle.

Like most, if not all training, this was done very close to me to begin with before I gradually extended the distances. Back then , believe it or not , I could , quite literally "run a dog down." If the training done near to me ( jerked to a stop in mid-run by a checkcord or by me having set the situation up) failed at distance, I would at once ,after the very first whistle, run the dog down , catch it and make sure it stopped to whistle. Yes, I was pretty hard .....but only on the dogs that could take that sort of training.

Running a dog down is best done when you know the dog will not stop, the handler sets up a training session done in a place where the handler can actually run .......not through thick woodlands. The handler should not wait to see if the dog is going to stop, he should begin running as soon as he has blown the whistle. If the dog does stop quickly the handler stops running, walks to the dog, praises it then casts the dog off again to hunt or sends it onwards to the retrieve.

The biggest enemy to obtaining a fast stop is to repeat the first blow done on the whistle .....whistle only once and insist the dog stops to that first command.

I get very annoyed and very ashamed of myself nowadays because now it is me that often repeats whistled commands to stop. Having said all that I do think some dogs "naturally" stop far faster than others.......

Wullie

[crackerd]

Breed characteristics.

Nooooope, Naj - that would be training characteristics - if you're talking full stop at distance. I could get my old Sussex to spin around to a face me as if she were starring in Flashdance, not a breed characteristic but characteristic of a retrieving gundog having been trained non-slip, 'Merican style. Even more ('Merican) stylish in a 'Merican spaniel like a Boykin.

MG

[Naj]

If you've ever worked a sheepdog on sheep you'll see that the dog flopping down into an immediate lie down is the default position with or without a learnt command. I don't think you can compare them with gundogs in that respect. As regards a sharp stop with gundogs, what tends to happen is that, handlers being only human, we let things slip by degrees as we progress through the shooting season where, unlike on dummies, we don't have control over all the variables, and our nicely trained sharp stop slowly deteriorates as the season moves on. If a sharp sit/stop is really important to you then, as with all other trained behaviours you particularly value, you need to work at maintaining them whether in the training or shooting field. Easier said than done!

Naj