Gundog Training Forum

Back when I was half the age I am now I decided to get an HPR but knew very little about them so I started doing some homework.
There was only one book available on HPR training back then and no video programmes at all. I was considering buying the book but since I knew it's author fairly well I contacted him and off we went for a hunt and a few shots on his land with his two dogs.
A demonstration is worth many thousands of written words.

By the end of our little hunt I had decided not to bother buying the book because although his dogs hunted and pointed well they were both completely unsteady to flush, shot and fall of game and their retrieving left a good bit to be desired. The dogs ran in and if a bird was still alive when they got to it then it wasn't alive for long ! I also noticed that his dogs refused to jump walls etc if they were carrying a bird.

I liked the man , he was as helpful as he could possibly be but I did not see any sense in buying the book based on what I saw of his own dogs work.

I sent away for a few American books and soon realised that the methods contained in those books would not suit me . I don't use barrels, toe hitches, chain gangs, retrieve training benches or tables or an e-collar. I still made a very bad mistake due to having read those books though. I made my very first HPR very "sticky." I had failed to realise that the "lifting" and "styling" of an on point dog was part of the American way of training for a very staunch point. In the States the handler walks past his pointing dog to kick up the birds himself and they expect their pointing dogs to remain on point and absolutely motionless while the handler does this.

I had "skim read" this section of those books and had thought it was done just to achieve a stylish looking point. It was a big error on my part. My bitch was so staunch that it took several commands to get her to flush game ..... I'd made her "sticky on point," too much of that can lose you marks or even get you eliminated in Britain's HPR trials.

It took me many months of training to "de-sticky" her !

There wasn't much else I could use from the American books but I'd also read every book on pointer/setter training and spaniel training I could find in the library. I already knew how to train a lab and I began to train for a dog that would hunt like a pointer/setter, be as instantly steady as a spaniel to flush and which would retrieve "like a lab."
I wanted to take the best from the various purposes gundogs are used for to produce dogs that were about as good as a novice pointer/setter trial winner at hunting. As good as a novice spaniel trial winner at steadiness and as good as a novice retriever trial winner at retrieving.

To a very large extent I succeeded . Dogs are a bit like plastic. You can use "methodology" to mould them to the "shape" you need.
It is usually more difficult to train the dogs owners than to train their dogs. Trainers who have been dog owners for a few years tend to have fixed or closed minds where methodology is concerned.

I see nothing wrong with borrowing from the methodology of the various kinds of gundog work. A bit of cross-fertilization can do the world of good.

Have you "borrowed" from the training done by those who do not do your particular kind of gundog work ?


Wullie

Good read...
I have no idea but probably, I seemed to have ended up with a hybrid method based on stuff I have read on here, stuff I have seen and stuff I have learned the hard way...I call it MAM for short .....Muddling Along Method

Nice post. And I think I know which book/author you are referring to and although I found it an entertaining read, especially of the chapters on different shooting forays to highlight the various job roles, it was full of contradictions.

I think we all squirrel away nuggets of info and technique from other disciplines, whether we realise it at the time or not. There’s increasing cross fertilisation of ideas, largely brought about by the easy access to the internet that we all now take so much for granted. I’ve been heavily influenced by Scandinavian and American trainers as I’ve moved over to HPR breeds, quite simply because they have much more expertise, experience and understanding of them, especially within a hunting context.

Naj

Am curious Wullie, how did you desticky the dog?

Use whatever works. Unfortunately too many people stick regimentaly in their regime. Rather than a constant assessment through the dogs training, they get further down a road which narrows and becomes a dead end with no prospect of completing the task as the wheels fell off long ago.
Then have to retrain using a different method, rather than adapting their first try as things evolve.
I've been at that point in my younger days but I suppose progression as a trainer, more dogs under my belt iam more responsive to problems creeping in and know a remedy.
One shoe doesn't fit all and I see no problem taking information or skills from any discipline if you get the right end result.
The internet has if anything complicated some things in life as we are spoilt for choice and learning platforms through various media, YouTube, forums Faceache etc.

Springcopse spaniels wrote: ↑Fri May 24, 2019 3:04 pm Use whatever works. Unfortunately too many people stick regimentaly in their regime. Rather than a constant assessment through the dogs training, they get further down a road which narrows and becomes a dead end with no prospect of completing the task as the wheels fell off long ago.
Then have to retrain using a different method, rather than adapting their first try as things evolve.
I've been at that point in my younger days but I suppose progression as a trainer, more dogs under my belt iam more responsive to problems creeping in and know a remedy.
One shoe doesn't fit all and I see no problem taking information or skills from any discipline if you get the right end result.
The internet has if anything complicated some things in life as we are spoilt for choice and learning platforms through various media, YouTube, forums Faceache etc.

I tried different stuff if I came to the conclusion that either myself or the dog could not work with whatever method we were using. With hindsight I may have given up on some methods a bit sharpish but it's all part of my MAM methodology

hprfan wrote: ↑Fri May 24, 2019 1:16 pm Am curious Wullie, how did you desticky the dog?

As is usually the case with me I used what I hoped would be a judicious mix of reward training and corrective training. I used sausages tossed in front of the pointing dog for the reward stuff . I gave the "Get in !" command then tossed the sausage towards where I thought the gamebird was.
The "corrective" stuff was done by changing the direction from which I normally approached an on point dog. I'd usually make a side on approach to the dog because this let the dog know I was coming.

I now ceased to do that and approached from directly behind the pointing dog. Then I gave the "Get in " command and kept walking .....right into the dogs backside ! This broke the dogs total focus on the bird and also made it move .....sort of shock tactics.


Between doing those two things I also praised the dog profusely as soon as the bird flushed. I still do not know for sure which of these tactics made the most impression on the dog but it did work . It took a lot of time to get it to work though and I never repeated the original mistake with any other dog. From then on any HPR I trained went in like a rocket to the "Get in " command....to the extent that one HPR judge deemed my GSP's flush on a pheasant to be a "very enthusiastic" one .....she'd jumped about 6 feet into the air in an attempt to catch it !

Wullie

Great reflections, Bill. My only insight would be that I too tried to go the pointer-setter route with the retrieve upon "reading into" rolling a bird in her gob that I had myself a hard-mouthed HPR. That meant "outfitting" bobwhites dead and alive in a spiked "suit" to prevent chomping. My bad - as soon as the birds got bigger (ducks, geese, a decapitated peregrine falcon [probably victim of a great horned owl]), the bringin' 'em back got better almost to the point of perfection.

MG

Hi Mike, I never tried any of the "spiked cures" I heard or read about for hard mouthed dogs. They all sounded pretty horrific to me with the possible exception of tying a hedgehog skin onto a bird. Since several of my dogs loved to find and bring me any hedgehogs they found I already knew the dogs would not bite down on them. I like hedgehogs and would not kill one just to make a covering for a bird or rabbit.

In my case I was very fortunate where hard mouth is concerned. I've had a border collie as my own gundog plus several spaniels, several labs, several brittanies and several GSP's. Not even one of them was hard mouthed. I must be doing something "right" but I will be damned if I know what it is !

Possibly it may be down to me never correcting a pup when it is picking up or actually retrieving any kind of retrieve article ? I have always had the feeling that correcting a pup while it has a retrieve in it's mouth could make a pup "anxious" and an anxious pup/dog may bite down out of worry or a fear of correction/punihment.

In Britain GSP's used to have a terrible reputation for being a hard mouthed breed but I have had four of them and all were soft mouthed. I therefor think that while it may be "in" that breed to be hardmouthed , it is the training they receive that brings it out and makes it happen ?

Naj will be loving this ! Me showing my soft and thoughtful side !

Wullie

Ya big wussy.