How am I doing?

[Nutter]

Hi all, novice trainer with an ESS now around 9 months old. Have been lurking for the better part of a year here to get a good feel for the spectrum of "normal" and different ways to do things... it has been really helpful but in the early months the biggest and most useful advice I read here was "training by committee doesn't work!" I am seeing a (proper gundog competitive triallist) trainer who has been mentioned on here before, so this has been my mantra whenever I have had some doubt when their methods have differed from the prevailing advice here. Having got a bit more of a feel for it over the months, I reckon I can handle conflicting advice and opinions now

I am really happy with a lot of things we've achieved, but starting to wonder if the things that aren't going so well (in my eyes) just need more patience, or whether I might run into trouble persevering and risk never training some things (eg because I just can't deliver these particular training methods as well as is needed to succeed, or they aren't working with this dog).

Things that are great with my ESS:

- On-lead heel work. Achieved with a slip lead (yanking when getting ahead). Had to escalate to a choke chain for a while because I ended up "nagging" with the slip lead and it lost all efficacy. Back to a slip lead now and for the most part it is really great - still occasionally needing to yank it in busy places/long stretches of straight line walking, but can walk 2km to the local field without any pulling and only a little drifting ahead, which I think is great for a 9 month old and novice trainer. She will reliably sit to command (+/- a very gentle tug cue) when on the lead.

- In-house behaviour. Still can't be left free in the house without supervision, but is crate trained well, will sit on her bed for long periods for treats or a bone, good impulse control. Eg I can come home from work, take my coat off, swap my shoes, etc and she will sit quivering with excitement waiting for me to pay her attention - no barking/whining, no jumping up, no running around. She assumes the down position to hold herself in check until I am ready to fuss her!

- Noise (lack of). Mostly completely silent in and outside - have worked on this a lot by not rewarding noise/removing her from situations that she was too young to handle/telling off when whining in the crate.

- Bond with me. She is an affectionate, submissive, lovely bitch who learns quickly and thrives on attention, praise and low value treats when in the house (haven't tested it much in the great outdoors - see below)

Things that might be ok but I'm not really sure:

- Retrieves. She will sit for a retrieve indoors without running in, but once she gets it, will always play keepaway. Tried lots of things (reducing distance, training lane, prostrating myself on the floor, pulling her in gently, taking long breaks from any retrieving at all) all to no avail. Outdoors she will retrieve on the lead (tricking her into heeling) but not particularly enthusiastically. She LOVES picking up a stick outside or swiping a dishcloth etc inside, and there is zero hope of her coming voluntarily back with it - have to either ignore her until she gets bored, or calmly corner her and then praise her while she holds it. She is excellent at holding things on delivery, but has started to look so sad (tail down, no eye contact) when I get her holding it in front of me that I'm concerned it's damaging her retrieve drive altogether. I've largely limited retrieving to keep it fun, but doesn't seem to be working - maybe too much other fun stuff going on in the day.

- Off lead work (lack of). Brace yourself - she has never been off lead outside the garden. I know you all hate long lines! But the trainer's plan is that she learns turning on the whistle, retrieve/recall, sit/stop reliably before learning it's possible to bog off (and to be fair, being a novice I feel I would have cocked the free running/hiding thing early on by not reading the dog well). Instead I've been doing a lot of work in open fields, turning to the whistle on the long line (yanking and running when she gets to the end). She does this reliably, and also turns of her own accord most times I turn my shoulders. Plan is to progress to without the line eventually...

- Recall. She will palm touch for treats indoors and outdoors really well (provided she has nothing better) - trainer doesn't like treats (risking spitting out the dummy) so I use them away from retrieving contexts. As i've become better at reading the dog, on a normal long line "walk" I have started letting the line go and hiding, and she recalls perfectly to voice so far. I pick moments where I know she's not hyped up. She gets hyped up by the act of losing me so I tend to then pick up the end of the line again for a good while. But somewhere familiar like the garden, she simply won't come back to command unless tricked (running away, pretending I have something exciting, etc). Treats won't cut it - she simply stands looking at me from a distance so can't even tell when I have resorted to a high value lure. Can't get to reliably rewarding her for recalling in garden, because she doesn't come in the first place! I appreciate it's unrealistic to expect a reliable recall so young, but feel a bit caught between wanting to increase repetitions to train it, and not wanting to poison it by overdoing it when she's not reliable. I was doing recall-sits on-lead with the trainer (running backwards with the dog following) and she would follow me ok but couldn't make her understand a sit at the end, so was told to leave it for a bit.

I am really enjoying training and seeing her mature and learn in leaps and bounds so may be I just need to stay the course and be patient. Know there's not so many people active here these days but any opinions very much welcomed.

[Nickheref]

Yesterday I typed a long response but somehow lost it. Last night I thought back a long way to my first springer and my aspirations for her which were effectively, walk at heel off lead, recall and stay and I can still remember the joy and almost disbelief when she did walk at heel off lead on Christmas Day 1978. Laughably small thing to me now but all I wanted and probably more than I expected at 16 but I achieved much more and that effectively altered the course of my life. Push for the stars and fall to the moon.
The method your trainer is using appears to be very different to mine, I have my pups off lead out in the great outdoors as soon as they have had their vaccinations as at that point they are far more worried about losing me than I am about losing them and do not have the desire or physical ability to bog off. They do at 9 months! Although it may be the pup was much older when you contacted the trainer so that window of opportunity was already closed.
If your trainer is happy with progress then that is fine, I would have expected rather more from a 9 month old but I train in a different way so it may not be comparable. Training is not a race and I don't expect mine to be fully trained and experienced until about 24-30 months old, I could probably manage it earlier with perfect training facilities but few of us have those.
I would strongly commend you for querying if things are going ok, not many novices do they just make excuses for the bits that aren't working and hope they will change, they rarely get better on their own although some things can but that is all about experience and knowing when to push a bit and when to back off.
If it helps I have found that bitches generally prefer to keep their little trophies whereas a dog is much more inclined to hand them over without any fuss, one thing I make a point of with young pups is insisting they bring me their trophies but provided it is not dangerous or important to me immediately hand it back to them so as not to make them think they will lose everything if they come near me ie they come and show you their little prize and it is gone. You might try the "give and take game" which is effectively handing a dog something it likes, asking for it back and keep doing it or doing any retrieves in a confined area such as a corridor where the dog really only has two options - move away or come to you. They rarely try and move in the opposite direction to you.
Good luck.

[Naj]

Hi, first thing I’d be interested in is what does your trainer think of your progress, seeing it’s his/her program that you’re following.

My thoughts are similar to Nick’s. As somebody who is reward-based, not a formal drill type of trainer and who likes their pups working off leash from the get-go,I would expect a fairly reliable recall from a 9 month old pup, simply because I practice it constantly while the dog is free running from the very first time I take it out. And I start training pups from 8 weeks of age, when I first get them home, rather than leaving ‚proper’ training until they are 6 months old, as I once did. So, as Nick said, it depends where you’re starting from. For example, I was shooting game over my current dog at 10 months of age, although I’m not suggesting that you or anyone else should be doing likewise. As Nick points out 2 years plus is a more realistic timescale for most. But even when starting at 6 months of age you should be getting some consistency in response to recall training after 3 months. In fact if you’re training effectively the dog shouldn’t really fail, especially at the puppy stage. Generally speaking, if what you're doing to teach a certain behaviour isn’t showing the required results within a few repetitions then it’s always a good idea to stop, rather than ploughing on regardless, and reassess your approach. Failures in training invariably come down to a breakdown in communication and that is down to pilot error. The plus side is that we’ve all made mistakes in training but as you gain in experience you see them coming and manage to preempt them or stop them before they get out of hand.

As a general rule, when things start going wrong, it’s a good idea to break down the problem behaviour into smaller bits that you can work on individually and then piece them together to get back to the behaviour that you want. So with the retrieve you could go the full clicker retrieve, or you might really strengthen your palm touch with many rapid repetitions ( over a period of time) rewarded by a tossed treat, which will also strengthen your recall, and then move on to the dog on a short training line picking dummies/balls to hand from a foot or so away. When you have a reliable retrieve to hand at this distance you can then start adding distance. I wouldn’t be insisting on a return sit to recall/palm-touch or any steadiness or sits with the retrieving. You need to keep it fun and should be looking for a few successful rapid repetitions in each session. Personally I wouldn’t risk mucking things up by including corrections when you start steadying but each to their own.

Just an observation about the use of rewards in positive reinforcement training, don’t get bogged down with the relative value of rewards, whether they be edible or otherwise. It’s the dog who decides whether a reward is valuable enough to work for, and that value will change from moment to moment as it competes with environmental rewards outwith the handler’s control. And don’t forget that we can use those same environmental rewards to reward behaviours that we like just as easily as we can use a food reward. What is far more important than the actual reward that we use is the process of reward, because this becomes self reinforcing through repetition. Once your dog knows the routine and wants to join in the ‚reward game’ with you then you have Engagement, and once you have the dog engaged with you, rather than with the environment, then the training bit becomes easy. But without engagement you aren’t going to train your dog to do anything so instead of concentrating on ‚training’ and ‚obedience’ I’d suggest you put yourvtime and effort into figuring out how to engage with your dog and maintain engagement in increasingly distracting environments and then you will find the ‚training’ bit naturally follows on.

[Nutter]

Thanks a lot for the reply Nick - especially taking the trouble to reply twice!

Yes this is a niggling fear - that things are going rather slowly with this style of training and in staying the course, windows of opportunity to do things differently are closing (have closed?). I have been with the trainer since age 8 weeks so no excuses there. On the one hand I don't mind because I am very pleased with the things that are working, and I can see slow progress with the retrieve. On the other hand, it is expensive! I would describe the style generally as tricking the dog into thinking there is no option but the one you wish them to take, which can feel quite limiting. But I suppose the flip side of limiting the dog's exposure to choices until behaviours are ingrained is that it also limits the opportunity for me to muck things up inadvertently perhaps we are maturing together

I am really curious - with the off lead from an early age/run and hide method, does the dog gradually gain confidence and range further and further away? At some point does the elastic snap? The trainer has always made it sound like a disaster for the dog to realise they dont have to come back until they are good and ready but everyone here seems v comfortable with it. Wullie for example seemed much less bothered about it (but I also pale to think of going through half of what he did with Libby/Charlie - definitely don't have the wits or experience )

Another question - the old fashioned talk about running a dog down if they ignore a command... how on earth did people ever do it? I certainly couldn't catch my springer in a small pen from an early age and it would feel stupid to even try

Give and take - interesting. I started retrieving at a young age in a small corridor, and over the weeks she went from bringing the dummy back, to moving away from me to the furthest extreme of the corridor so she could sit and mouth the dummy. It felt like as she gained confidence she realised that was more fun than giving it up and getting it back again. She also tried to get me to chase her. So in the end I gave up on it because I didnt want to ruin her until then lovely hold. That was a long time ago and I am a bit wiser so I will try again.

[Nutter]

Naj, did not see your post in the time it has taken me to mull over and write the above, but I was just thinking about one of your recommendations Acer gundogs - I am keeping the double tennis ball trick he uses (which seems like a modified version of give and take) up my sleeve to try if things really go to pot. Will read and reply at leisure!

[Nickheref]

I am really curious - with the off lead from an early age/run and hide method, does the dog gradually gain confidence and range further and further away? At some point does the elastic snap? The trainer has always made it sound like a disaster for the dog to realise they dont have to come back until they are good and ready but everyone here seems v comfortable with it. Wullie for example seemed much less bothered about it (but I also pale to think of going through half of what he did with Libby/Charlie - definitely don't have the wits or experience )

Another question - the old fashioned talk about running a dog down if they ignore a command... how on earth did people ever do it? I certainly couldn't catch my springer in a small pen from an early age and it would feel stupid to even try

They do get bolder but they also learn to keep in touch and learn the parameters I want which vary. If I let them all out together and am clearly very relaxed they know its exercise and can run as far as they want but also immediately know if we are hunting that it is different, the distance when hunting depends on the cover but they must be confident to track 150 yards after a runner if needed and not be stressing that they have gone too far from me.

Long ago running down a dog was the norm but I realised it wasn't the best way of getting what I wanted and I didn't see the chap who helped me when I was young chasing dogs about. Frankly now a geriatric shitzu could probably effortlessly distance me and 6 month old springer would die laughing watching me toil after it.
Like Naj I get a reliable recall surprising quickly, the key in the early days is not to ask if you don't think the dog will comply because you are telling it it needn't (that is the same in all early training), in practice it becomes a habit for the dog to come when called and it does so almost without thinking, conditioning really. The same with training the stop which starts as soon as I have a decent sit in front of me ( I find place boards really good for getting a good sit)and so don't need to run after a dog, I just stop it, let it gather its thoughts and call it in or walk out to it. Again if I think there is no chance of it stopping in early training as it is preoccupied I don't ask and pretend it is doing exactly what I want but a reliable stop is in usually place before 9 months.

One thing you mention is reducing the options for a dog, I do that in the early stages of retrieving if I am concerned that it might not come in so it cannot learn anything else. It is about understanding what you have in front of you. Some pups come straight in at 8 weeks others don't.

I think we have said before the great thing about experience is I expect a young dog to do what I want as they always seem to and I am sure that comes over in my body language and confidence with them. Whereas for some reason a lot of people expect a pup to want to leave them and run off etc and keep it wrapped in cotton wool until it is older when it just might feel like exploring, so they are proved right when it does!

[Naj]

Funnily enough a friend has just got a young border collie as a pet. She is already having problems and asked me if I’d have a look in. What she has are typical puppy problems and largely due to a lack of foresight through not having had a pup for a long time. One thing that she was adamant about is that she wasn’t letting it off a longline until it was much older and 100% on recall. I asked when this might be and she admitted that she didn’t know. This seems to be a common philosophy these days and the problem is that after months of using the longline as a metaphorical crutch the handler gets scared to trust the dog without it, because they haven’t had the chance to build up off leash coping strategies for when things don’t go to plan. And the dog might learn to respond while on-leash but that’s a whole different context to responding off leash. So my philosophy is simply that if you want the dog to respond off leash then train off leash. You can always revert to a training line to get you through a tricky patch. I was pretty flabbergasted that she daren’t walk a 12 week old pup off leash so met her on a local beach to see what the problem was. She was hesitant to release her dog at first because she didn’t think it would come back to her. When I asked why she thought this it was because the pup often would not come to her when in the garden!

Anyway, we let her off and all went well. Instead of just walking in a straight line every time the pup ran ahead of us I turned us around and walked the other way. Pup eventually noticed we weren’t with it and came dashing past us, whereupon we spun around in the opposite direction. She wanted to call pup but I asked her not to. Within a couple of turns, instead of scanning the horizon, pup started keeping one eye on us because we had become unpredictable and she didn’t want to be left behind. Now I started tossing treats to reward her engagement with us and pretty soon she was checking in with us and being rewarded for that, so she did a bit more of it. There were a couple of other dogs on the beach and I noticed her ears prick up when she saw them and as she went into her first bound towards them I called her and she came whizzing back. I could see this becoming a problem because pup had been taken to a puppy class which turned out to be a free for all with no management at all and she was certainly dog and people focussed at the expense of the handler. I teach my pups that the sight of another dog or person is a cue for them to return to me. Then I introduced a tennis ball and she became super focussed on that. She didn’t retrieve all the way to hand but that can be fixed later and at this stage I rewarded her anyway. She chased a couple of shore birds but we just spun around the other way and she quickly lost interest in that caper.

That’s basically how I introduce a pup/dog to being with me off leash, and I exercise and train them on gamey ground. It just becomes a habit to follow you rather than you constantly following them, which is what is effectively happening when you ‘walk’ them. You are constantly competing with environmental reinforcers so you need to be more rewarding than the environment in order to keep them engaged with you, and in doing so, through simple classical conditioning, ie. being associated with providing the good stuff, you become inherently rewarding to be around. Yes, there are challenges, but that’s where the training comes in. It seems that even trial trainers are using ball games these days to keep their dogs engaged with them, as well as to teach hunting skills.

I work on developing routines and rituals through repetition, because dogs naturally learn in context. You can take this to whatever extreme that you like but as Nick points out, dogs know when they are at relaxed exercise, when they are doing gundog training stuff because you’re wearing all the training gear and going through the familiar routines, and they know when you’re on a shooting day, simply because they’ve been through these different routines a zillion times before and the various contexts involved are already cuing the appropriate, or inappropriate behaviours before ever you pick up a whistle, dummy or gun. I shoot over my dogs a lot, right through the season and also into the close season, so much so that if I’m not carrying a gun they’ll not really hunt because the context has changed. That might not suit others but it suits me. And if I did want my dogs to be switched on to formal training or working tests, then I’d work in context with those disciplines and develop new routines with all the associated rituals. I find that this approach makes life much easier for me and the dog.

[CockerCanuck]

Nutter, I am currently training an 11 month old cocker. I do as Nick and Naj suggest and start off as a little pup with as much freedom as possible and take advantage of their baby lack of confidence to teach recall, staying close and heeling. I was shooting birds over her at 10 months and am very pleased how she is turning out. However, I don’t want to discourage you because this window has closed for your girl. It is my experience that there are dozens of ways to train a dog and the amazing thing is they all work. You just need be consistent and put in some time. I don’t mean a lot of time. 15 minutes a day can provide wonderful results. Just aim for small steps and progress. Rarely are their “breakthrough” moments just small steps towards the goal. Sounds like you have invested considerable time and money in your current trainer. I assume he has had enough success in the past to develop a reputation that allows him to build a business? If so I would stick with it but relax, enjoy the journey and your dog. If you have spent the time to lurk on this forum and engage professional help you are already way ahead oh 99% of dog owners and so success is almost guaranteed

[Nickheref]

One thing that she was adamant about is that she wasn’t letting it off a longline until it was much older and 100% on recall. I asked when this might be and she admitted that she didn’t know.

That is exactly what I meant, I get it a lot as well and ask the same question - how will you know when you have a decent recall if you have never have it off a lead.
I also think some of the puppy training classes don't help when socialisation appears to mean encouraging your dog to run up to any dog it meets and jump all over it. I often tell people if I ran up to everyone I saw in town and got in their face I would either be arrested in 5 minutes or in A&E and they certainly wouldn't encourage their children to run up to any random person they met, so why do they want their dog to do it!

[Nickheref]

Slightly off topic but in a way not. A friend of mine has had 4 labs in the 40 years I have known him, every one of them has (in my view) been an absolute disaster as a gundog and not much better as a pet. His latest I watched drag him around on a shoot on the end of a lead (actually pulled him over twice in mud much to some bad people's amusement ) and to put it mildly is boisterous in the house, so much so that if you visit it is normally removed so you can actually talk normally.
He is on holiday and someone else is looking after it, by chance I popped in on them not knowing it was there and I looked hard at the dog and asked if it was my friend's as although it looked like him it was calm and relaxed and behaving quite well. It was, the difference is the person it is staying with is calm and relaxed and the dog had picked up on that and was to all intents and purposes a different animal.