Retriever Training Tips
Training Tips for RetrieversPraise & Pressure In the world of retrievers a new person will hear this word a lot, 'pressure.' Pressure is the term we use for what ever we do to a dog when corrective action is needed to change a dog's behavior. Praise is self-explanatory. When your dog does right you praise them to re-enforce a good behavior.
Many people unknowingly use both of these things improperly. Let's start with praise. Praise can be telling the dog, 'good dog, good dog.' the actual retrieve of a training dummy or a bird, or petting the dog. If you are trying to teach your dog the here command your dog is at a distance from you and you give him/her a here command. The dog starts over towards you but it is very slow and not enthusiastic about it. Give the dog some praise with a high-toned good dog good dog. Most dogs will wag their tail and start running to you. A well placed praise has now re-enforced that when you call here to your dog and they run to you, you are pleased and most retriever breeds love to please their handlers.
Now for the proper use of pressure we'll use the same scenario as above. Let's say the dog is well versed in the here command and you are trying to enforce the here command at all times. You give the dog their command and they start out running to you but decide that they had rather stop and sniff an interesting spot on the ground. Now, a well place correction is called for. At this point a good loud firm NO command and a nick with an e collar along with a firm HERE voice command will get your dog's attention. Once you have that attention back on you give another here command. If the pup starts running to you then add in the praise to re-enforce that when told to here running to you is the way you like it done. The nick with the collar will enforce let the dog know that it was told to here not stop and smell the roses. (Now, if you don't use an e collar or your dog just isn't to that level of training. Instead of a nick with an e collar a good loud firm NO or a tug on the leash along with a NO will usually work.)
Many people unknowingly use both of these things improperly. Let’s start with praise. Praise can be telling the dog, “good dog, good dog.” the actual retrieve of a training dummy or a bird, or a petting the dog. If you are trying to teach your dog the here command your dog is at a distance from you and you give him/her a here command. The dog starts over towards you but it is very slow and not enthusiastic about it. Give the dog some praise with a high-toned good dog good dog. Most dogs will wag their tail and start running to you. A well placed praise has know re-enforced that when you call here to your dog and they run to you, you are pleased and most retriever breeds love to please their handlers.
Now for pressure. Using the same scenario as above. Let’s say the dog is well versed in the here command and you are trying to enforce the here command at all times. You give the dog their command and they start out running to you but decide that they had rather stop and sniff an interesting spot on the ground. Now, a well place correction is called for. At this point a good loud firm NO command and a nick with an e collar along with a firm HERE voice command will get your dog’s attention. Once you have that attention back on you give another here command. If the pup starts running to you then add in the praise to re-enforce that when told to here running to you is the way you like it done. The nick with the collar will enforce let the dog know that it was told to here not stop and smell the roses. (Now, if you don’t use an e collar or your dog just isn’t to that level of training. Instead of a nick with an e collar a good loud firm NO or a tug on the leash along with a NO will usually work.)
Timing I have learned a lot about training a retriever to be a hunting companion over the years, but one thing that many new trainers or owners know little about and it?s hard to learn is the timing of when and when not to give pressure. Pressure meaning a tap with a healing stick, a nick or a continuous stimulation with an E collar, or a good loud firm NO. The timing of any of the before mentioned ways to pressure a dog are used when force fetching, teaching obedience or during a marked or blind retrieve when the dogs needs a correction. Dog?s can usually only remember the last thing they did. They are also very place oriented. This meaning that if your dog is running a marked retrieve and goes into a holding blind in the field to hide, a bird boy and you give that dog a big correction while in the blind; the dog will more than likely not go in there again. But this could also create another problem. The dog may start to simply avoid holding blinds and run wide of them. This could be a problem for hunt test or field trial dogs where a mark or a blind retrieve will call for a dog to run close to a holding blind.
So, you have to make sure that you time your corrections to the proper time of when your dog make s mistake. If you are working on obedience and you are teaching your dog to sit. If the dog truly understands what is expected of it; give him/her a sit command. If the dog doesn?t sit immediately then give the dog a small bit of pressure (pressure in this situation can be a nick with an E collar, tap on the butt with a healing stick, or a tug on the collar with a leash). But you must apply this pressure as soon as the dog commits an offense.
There are many more examples of timing corrections but if you think you?re not doing it right please consult a professional trainer. They can guide you through the process and your dog will love you and listen to you more and better with properly timed corrections.
Gun Shy Training As a gun dog trainer for retrievers a question that I am asked a lot about is how to break a dog from being gun shy. Well, I don’t really like to break a dog from being gun shy. I like to train them from the beginning not to be gun shy.
Many gun dog owners, in my opinion, actually unknowingly train their dogs to be gun shy or scared of gun shots. They do this in many ways. They scare the pups by surprising them with a gun shot right over their head that they did not know was coming. Or by beating pots and pans around pups too young to be anything other than scared of the noise.
With young puppies say around six to seven weeks old when they are separated from their mother and litter is the time to start training the pup not to be gun shy. I like to do this by raising the pup inside the home. This puts the pup around people all the time and noise. It goes right back to good socialization. I like to play the TV loud and the stereo loud to. I don’t just turn the volume way up but move them up steadily each day. I will clap my hands in front of the pup so they can see what’s going on. Hopefully, they will be curious and come over to see what the noise is.
The biggest thing to train a pup not to be gun shy is to train the pup to associate the sound of a gun shot with a retrieve. So start with your retrieving games. Make sure your puppy loves to retrieve.
Once you have your pup retrieving well and the pup is around 5 to 6 months old find a friend that can be your thrower. Have your friend take a starter or blank pistol out into the field a good distance from the pup, but not so far that the pup won’t make a retrieve. Have your thrower make a noise; I use a duck call, to get the pup’s attention. As soon as the pup looks then have the thrower throw the bumper and shoot the pistol. If you played your retrieving games right the pup won’t even worry about the gun shot sound. It will simply want to get the bumper your thrower threw. You can then increase the distance your pups retrieve are by walking further away from your thrower.
If you can find two people to help you have one as your thrower and one as your shooter. Start out the same way as above, but have another person shoot the gun. Then over time you can have your shooter move closer to you while your thrower is throwing bumpers. After a period of time you can reach the point were your shooter is right beside you while your thrower is out in the field. By this time you pup usually won’t even flinch at the sound of the gun. They will have associated that pop with a retriever.
From this point on you can start to hold a shot gun while you a running your dog. I like to use HRC primer shells to shoot over the dog’s head to start with. They are not as loud a regular shotgun rounds. Then next step is to use field trial popper shells. They make a loud boom just live ammo but you won’t have to worry about shot falling out in the field onto your throwers.
Here comes Inch, bringing back one of his favorite items . . .