swimming « g a l o d y

the difference between Weimaraners and SRHPs

January 13th, 2012 § Leave a Comment

I’ve been considering writing a post along these lines for a while, since people considering a SRHP often ask me what Slovakian Rough Haired Pointers are like. Especially compared to their Weimaraner cousins.

I haven’t posted on the subject before now, because I only have one SRHP and it seems a bit unfair to extrapolate from her to the entire breed. Some of the things I feel about the breed are a bit negative, and I haven’t wanted to offend those who love them.

But I have taught 5 SRHPs in the dog training classes I run, as well as many more Weimaraners. I’ve seen many Weimaraners at working events, shows and training over the years. I’ve seen fewer SRHPs at these events, but still some. I have a couple of friends with SRHPs. So what I write is informed by all this and not only by my own two dogs.

I also should state the proviso that, since this is a new breed which has only recently been developed, it could be argued that there is no such thing as a settled and established SRHP personality/character. And that all which we can describe are the qualities emerging from the different lines. I think this is true, but to separate the breed further into the different lines, would be far too complicated.

The long and the short of it, is that they are absolutely nothing like Weimaraners in everything except for coat colour and eye colour. They are definitely not Weimaraners in a wire-haired coat. In fact, it is hard to believe they have considerable Weimaraner blood in them. Consequently, it always surprises me that the breeders who are behind this breed in the UK and elsewhere are almost exclusively Weimaraner breeders.

Relationships with other dogs

To begin with a positive point: I’ve only once seen any aggressive behaviour from a SRHP, and that dog had been attacked as a puppy and been traumatised by the experience.

Most of the other SRHPs I’ve met have had great temperaments with other dogs. Most have been very playful, even once they are older, and their boisterousness can mean they are a handful for their owner: Without good training, I can imagine them becoming very dog-focussed and making a bee-line to play with other dogs, ignoring their handler.

Many of the bitches I’ve met have had a submissive and gentle quality to them, tempered with a great desire to play. The male dogs I’ve met have been a bit more full-on and boisterously playful.

Coming from owning a Weimaraner, owning a SRHP was a walk in the park when it came to encounters with other dogs. Our Weimaraner takes offence at other dogs much more easily – whether they are sniffing her bum in some way which she doesn’t like, or whether they are being too assertive and confident when approaching her, or showing too much confidence when they sniff her nose… She is much less tolerant or forgiving of social faux pas.

She has never hurt or broken the skin of another dog, but other dogs do get ‘told off’, during encounters. She was extensively socialised as a puppy and this behaviour didn’t manifest itself until she reached maturity at around 18 months – 2 yrs.

Having seen many other Weims around at working events, it has to be said that Weims are (on average) much more difficult when it comes to interactions with other dogs. By comparison, owning a SRHP has been so ‘easy’ in this respect. This ease around other dogs is definitely something I could get used to!

Relationships with people

With people, again the SRHPs I’ve met have been exceptionally loving. Many adore physical affection in an almost cat-like way, and they will accept this from anyone who will offer it. (If a random passer-by says anything to Grey, in the street, she will want to get to them, and then lean against them for fuss.)

Most Weimaraners, on the other hand, aren’t fans of big physical affection from a stranger. They may want to sniff a stranger and meet him or her in a more low-key way, but they are more ‘aloof’ in this respect. With their owners and family, on the other hand, Weims are extremely affectionate and demonstrate a lot of love for their people.

A SRHP’s affection is indiscriminate and directed at every member of the human species – whilst a Weim is more selective and reserves most affection for close family. To me, there is more of a deep understanding between person and dog – an attachment – behind the Weimaraner’s affection. With the SRHP, there is more the quality of enjoying the physical fuss and patting. There is less something deep and meaningful and selective about it.

Put another way: If I had to rehome our SRHP, I wouldn’t worry for a second about her settling in immediately – assuming her new owners were kind and met all her canine needs. Whereas, with our Weim, I would worry that she would pine and go off her food and would want us, in particular. When kennelled, our SRHP is happy to eat. Our Weim, unless she is given wet tasty food, will refuse to eat. (When usually she is a pig.)

Physical co-ordination

This might seem like a strange thing to mention, but it’s something I’ve noticed with our SRHP throughout her life.

She is not very physically co-ordinated. This means that she gives the impression of not being aware of what her legs are doing, or perhaps even of where they are, or even that they belong to her.

This manifests itself in various ways: She often falls asleep on her back, and as a puppy, she did this right next to a radiator. She managed to get one leg stuck behind the radiator, so that, on waking and turning in the opposite direction, she really hurt herself. By itself, this story is meaningless. But taken as an example of her attitude towards her appendages in general, it speaks volumes. She often sleeps with her legs bent at impossible-looking angles and her neck almost bent back on itself. She looks like a dead dog, mangled after a car accident!

If she cuts her paw and I bathe it and bandage it, when she is then released, it takes her a good many long seconds to find (by nose/smell) where the part of her is, which I’ve been administering to. She cannot locate it by finding the part of her which she has felt (in her mind) being touched. (If I took your arm behind you, and jabbed a pin in a finger, you’d instantly be able to know which finger to look at, when I freed your arm. You wouldn’t need to examine each of your fingers for a pin-prick.) It’s as if there is no in-dwelt body awareness. I’ve often wondered if Tellington Touch might be able to help to develop this, although I haven’t looked into it further. (Note to self to do so.)

Other SRHPs I’ve met have been similarly uncoordinated, although I’d think this may not occur to owners as a problem or as something needing to be resolved, but rather as quite an appealing factor. On the one hand, this characteristic is very endearing: SRHPs have a reputation for being very clownish and playing the fool. I’d suggest that part of the reason for such clownishness, is this lack of body-awareness and co-ordination, manifesting as a sort of endearing clumsiness.

On the other hand, endearing or not, it makes training certain things quite difficult: Precision behaviours, for example. Just how to train a slightly more upright sit, or a right leg leading rather than a left leg, on agility, if you have a dog whose mind is out of touch with what her body is actually doing in the first place, in order for that to be shaped otherwise? Doing competitive Obedience with a SRHP would be something of a challenge.

At the moment, this lack of co-ordination is affecting our agility training for working trials: Grey finds it hard to learn when to gather herself together and jump. (Or even – where is her self, in order to gather it together?) When encountering less formal obstacles out on walks (walls, fences), she goes about them with a gung-ho attitude and no attention to precision, just charging at them and throwing herself over them. She manages to make up for having no body awareness by just over-confidently throwing herself everywhere. (This is quite terrifying to watch sometimes, as I often expect a broken leg to be the result.)

Weims, on the other hand, often excel at agility. Our Weim, Slate, jumps really well and has a great awareness of her body and where it is. Approaching a jump, I can see her eyeing it up and calculating where to take off from, in order to clear it. If I bandage or administer to one of Slate’s paws, she instantly knows which one it is!

Focus and concentration

Just as Grey’s body often seems to be all-over-the-place, so is her mind in many ways. She is very capable – when able to focus! However, she appears to have the canine equivalent of ADHD. (Adam and I joke that she has a peanut for a brain.)

With a lot of work (a disproportionate amount of work, to the outcome!), this has become much better. But still, reward-ratios need to be high in order to keep her focus over extended periods of time.

This is one of the reasons I worry we will never be able to compete with her in working trials: How will she sustain interest in her handler for long enough to manage heelwork requirements without any reinforcement? On 10 minute out-of-sight Down Stays and when Tracking, she sometimes just forgets what she’s doing. It’s as if she suddenly comes to, and thinks ‘What am I doing here? I don’t remember!’

Slate, on the other hand, came to a new training class with me this week and followed me through an entire obedience heelwork routine without a single treat, scarcely taking her eyes off me.

Perseverance and dealing with failure

This is related to focus and concentration…

Even using entirely reward-based methods, Grey finds it difficult to bounce back from failure. When shaping with the clicker, Slate will keep trying new things if the first one doesn’t work. She wants the treat so much, that she will just keep going and keep working.

Grey, on the other hand, will find failure itself to be so punishing, she will go and hide under the table if she tries something and I don’t click. I have to be very careful to reduce criteria quickly, if Grey fails at something, so that she can then get reinforcement again quickly. (In turn, this makes learning slower and giant leaps of insight less likely.)

As is evident from my attempts to teach Grey to handle at a distance – and ultimate failure - her default response to not understanding is to give up, rather than to try something.

Retrieving

The SRHPs I’ve seen do have an inherent and natural desire to retrieve. However, it’s not quite as manic and obsessive as most Weimaraners. (Who I’d equate with labradors, in their keenness to retrieve.) The SRHP doesn’t find retrieving quite as inherently rewarding, and the retrieve may require more work.

Conversely, I’ve not heard of any SRHPs with hard-mouth – and I’ve heard of many Weims with it.

I’d also add that I’ve found teaching direction work to Grey incredibly frustrating and – despite great perseverance, ultimately impossible. This is whilst having a Weim which I’ve taught to move around almost like a piece on a chess board, giving labradors a run for their money at retriever training days. (Comparing Slate and Grey’s working test results speaks volumes.)

From talking with others who’ve attempted to teach their SRHP to handle, they’ve experienced similar problems. Perhaps this is all tied in with a lack of body awareness: Perhaps it extends to a lack of geographical awareness – an inability to translate the casts from the handler into directions, to run in. After all, if you don’t know where you own feet are, how can you understand someone’s direction and translate it to your own physical body, as it is located in geographical space?

I now think that all my attempts at direction training have only caused Grey to lose confidence and to know that it’s very possible to ‘fail’ to get the retrieve or reward, when we do distance work. This has been a blow to her confidence, such that she bugs (looks in different directions when lined up), and is sticky on casts (remaining in a sit, when cast). (Quite how all this is going to translate into working trials sendaways remains to be seen.)

Were I to be starting gundog work from scratch with a SRHP, I would scrap all hope of having a handling dog and I’d rely on their excellent nose to run out and find the retrieve, even if that involved hunting up an entire field. I would prioritise developing confidence that sustained hunting will lead to a find. (Much in the way of the NAVHDA Duck Search.) I wish I had known this, before I started out with Grey. Instead, I tried to do with her what I’d done with Slate and to put her through a reinforcement based retriever training programme.

I’ve seen that it’s perfectly possible to be very successful in UK FTs with a non-handling dog. Not quite as possible to be successful in working tests, but that’s less important.

Hunting ability, range and nose

With the best examples of the breed: Excellent. I think, given sufficient game exposure when young, the SRHP will range acceptably well. There are a couple of excellent hunting SRHPs around. For an all-purpose, rough and ready gundog, the SRHP is great: They will get into bushes and dense cover, go through nettles and thorns – all things which my Weim (and most other Weims) will baulk at.

They are also excellent swimmers and tend to absolutely love water, labrador-style. Again – something which Weims are not renowned for – most Weims are reluctant swimmers.

Due to their thicker/warmer coat, they are happier in cooler weather and they can be uncomfortable in the summer. They are very happy to remain in Down or Sit Stays in wet conditions – unlike many Weimaraners, who often stand up from stays in wet weather.

And, as mentioned above, they will hurl themselves over most obstacles (uncoordinatedly!).

Grey often winds things from a greater distance than Slate and works a scent better. I’d say she has a better nose.

Noise & vocalisation

Beware of this, in SRHPs! Excitement almost invariably translates into barking, whining, yowling and vocalising whilst yawning.

Despite our relentlessly and persistently ignoring the noise and not giving her whatever it is she wants, it continues to be an issue. Even whilst writing this, Grey is whining upstairs at me, anticipating her breakfast and training. I will wait this out, but it could be a very long time and she appears unaware of the noise she is making.

I know from others with SRHPs that they also struggle with noise issues constantly, so this is not particular to Grey.

In comparison, Slate is relatively silent. She will bark if she hears a strange noise and has more guarding tendencies than Grey does. And occasionally, if we are going to a particularly exciting event, she will make noise in the car as we arrive. But on average she is a much quieter dog, which rarely whines.

In short…

SRHPs are nothing like Weimaraners. If you find yourself considering both, you may be putting too much emphasis on the appearance of your dog and not enough on other non-appearance based characteristics. You might also need to meet more of each breed, in the flesh, so these differences become more evident to you.

If you’re looking for a rough shooting companion with a gung-ho attitude and, besides steadiness to flush, you’re not bothered about a great degree of precision, then a SRHP would be a great dog.

If you want to compete in any other dog sport, I wouldn’t recommend one.

As a family pet, if you know what you’re getting into, and are prepared to put in a lot of time on the training front, they could be a good choice.

However, in choosing a puppy you’d need to steer your way through the many health issues the breed faces at the moment and you may find that there are other breeds in a better position, health-wise in the UK, which you might want to consider instead.

water – delivery to hand

July 6th, 2011 § Leave a Comment

Took the dogs to Barcombe Mills today and you can see the improvement in Grey’s deliveries to hand, on exiting the water:

water at Barcombe Mills

June 15th, 2011 § Leave a Comment

Took both dogs to Barcombe Mills today for some water training. Adam came too, as dummy-thrower extrordinaire.

Pic from Adam’s perspective, of one of the dogs swimming and me on the bank, with the other dog:

more water blinds

June 8th, 2011 § Leave a Comment

Returned to the dew pond today, for some more blinds across.

I’m not sure we can continue to use the dew pond because it’s getting pretty stinky, not being free-flowing water and there having been so little rain recently.

Anyway, continued with the same exercise from last week. Slate did this fine. Grey struggled at first to have the confidence to go across without a shot or a mark. But with a bit of pressure from me, she did it fine also.

After that, we worked on a retrieve at an oblique angle – a retrieve it would have been much easier to run along the bank for, but which I practised insisting they retrieved from where I was, in a straight line – with no bank-running. I’m not sure whether the concept has gone in, or the penny dropped. We will continue to work on it.

The good news is that Grey didn’t drop the dummy once and will now hold it when she gets back to me, until I (in my own time) take it from her. This is happening consistently and the penny does seem to have dropped on this one.

blinds across water

June 1st, 2011 § Leave a Comment

We were up at the dew pond again today, for more water training.

Last time retrieves in the water and across the water (with dummies just on the opposite bank) were going well with both dogs. So I decided, this time, to put some retrieves further away on the far bank; so the dogs would have to get out the water and then go some ways up the path on the opposite side, before finding the dummies. This is much more like the Open water tests Slate faces.

However, because we had been practising, in the same spot, the retrieves just out of the water, it meant the dogs would have to go through a previous area of fall – just out of the water, where they are used to finding the dummies. I decided to sit them, as soon as they got out the water, and cast Back.

That was the plan, anyway. This is what happened:

Grey

Grey has developed this quite annoying thing whereby, when sent with my arm out as for a blind, she will instantly dodge right or left when sent and then continue from there – rather than taking a straight line from my arm. I think this might be her response to pressure; she doesn’t want to look where I am indicating. She occasionally does this when I’m practising lining drills on land, too: I am avidly pointing at one dummy and she is insistently looking at another. No matter what I do to get her attention switched, she keeps looking at the wrong one. The only way I can solve it is to move up really close to the dummy I want her to get, so it is much closer than the ‘wrong’ one, and then she’ll look where I’m pointing. But that seems to be only because she can then see it. She needs to trust me and my directions and not second-guess them. I need to work on some drills where she lines between 2 white dummies, for an unseen orange one – that will inspire her trust in my lining.

Anyway, this time she got in the water and swam across fine. She got out the water and I blew the sit whistle. To my surprise she didn’t sit instantly – I think she was about to, but it was not snappy like it should have been. (Grey usually has excellent sits to whistle.) So I yelled at her. I guess I lost my cool. She then sat and I praised loads and loads. I cast her Back, but she was freaked out by my yelling and the pressure, and she threw in the towel on the whole exercise and gave up, getting in the water and swimming part ways back, then getting out and running around the edge back to my side. She is very soft and doesn’t respond well to pressure. This is not apparent when you first meet her, as she seems very confident and full of ‘let me at it’ attitude.

Anyway, this was a disaster and I immediately sent her again for a re-try. I thought about simplifying the exercise, but there just was no way to do that without going back to the exercise they’ve done repeatedly very well (with the dummies just out of the water). But this time it went like clockwork: She sat to the whistle first time, she took a great Back cast, and she swam back with the dummy.

Great, I thought, we’ve nailed it now. After Slate’s turn, I gave Grey another go. Only for pretty much the same thing to happen again exactly: The first attempt failing and her giving up (although I put no pressure on her that time and was resolved to be entirely positive and control my frustration) and the second attempt going like clockwork. Weird. We will have to persevere.

But her deliveries to hand were, on the whole, great today. There was one time where she just spat it at me, but the others were great. I realised that, if I put my hand out for the dummy, it is more likely to be spat at me (because she has been trained to see that as me asking for it), than if I say ‘Hold’ and don’t put my hand out to receive it yet. So I am now seeing if things work better if I say ‘Hold’ and don’t put my hand out until she is right at me and I am sure I can get it in time when she releases.

I am debating whether to retrain the whole delivery of the clicker retrieve more thoroughly: If I wanted, I could train her to hold it whilst I tap it, touch it, move it, wiggle it in her mouth – and she should hold whatever happens until I either click or say ‘Give’. The reason I’m hesitating on this is because it will mean I have to say ‘Give’ at the end of every retrieve, if I’m going to be consistent with this. And I’m not sure Adam and I are going to remember to do that – and to remember that Grey has a different ‘rule’ about this than Slate does. And, after literally years of seeing my hand as the cue to give me the dummy, it’s going to be hard to de-train that as the cue to give and to let go.

Slate

Slate is a pain in the arse with her sit-stays. Especially when wet. Essentially, she will just stand up. She doesn’t move anywhere, she just stands there. If you say ‘SIT!’ at her, she will sit again. We reward good sit stays with treats throughout, frequently, and this keeps her bum in position – but it’s very difficult to decrease the reward ration any. And sometimes it’s necessary to move away from her – as when setting up retrieves or doing something with Grey – and I can’t reward as frequently then, and the high reward ratio she needs for this behaviour, she doesn’t get. Anyway, it really REALLY bugs me that she stands up like this. But Slate is 6 years old now, and she is a bit of a princess (in that, she doesn’t like her precious butt to get cold and wet by sitting down). So I don’t really address this much, beyond telling her to sit all the time. I am probably being slack.

Anyway, Slate also did not sit on the first sit whistle. But she is much less soft than Grey, so when I yelled ‘SLATE! SIT!’ after the ignored whistle, it had the desired effect.

Obviously this exercise needs more practice for both dogs… Casting on the other side of water is obviously not the same to them as on land.

3HC & water & over

May 27th, 2011 § Leave a Comment

Grey

Well, Grey, for the first time ever this week, did not drop the dummy once on exiting the water. Has the penny dropped instead? I hope so.

This came about after some work on the clicker retrieve, where we revisited ‘hold’, one of the final stages of the clicker retrieve. Here, the dog must hold the dummy even when shown a treat – proving that the concept of ‘hold the dummy until you hear a click’ is firmly established. I can now show Grey a treat, once she has left the water, and she will hold the dummy and look at the treat – whilst she is soaking wet – and only drop when I click. I believe this is a huge step forwards…

As for her directions, I have moved all the poles in much closer and this has resulted in much fewer no-gos. There are still, however, some no-gos happening, so I’ll keep the poles at this distance until we have a day without no-gos before moving them out again.

Slate

Slate did some good work on her ‘over’ this week, using a large, fallen tree. She jumped over almost every single time on one command and appears to be learning the word. We could really do with some more obstacles though as, besides this tree, I’m not sure where else we can practise this. Most fences have barbed wire over the top of them.

I’m feeling that Slate is a little under-stretched: When I am practising water and directions with Grey, Slate can do everything I’ve set up for Grey – easily. She is, after all, 2 yrs ahead of Grey in terms of amount of training time spent on her. Yet it is hard to set up 2 completely different large-scale exercises for their different needs (too time consuming). At the moment she doesn’t get much out of the direction and water sessions, which are designed almost totally for Grey.

So I’ve decided to revisit a couple of my favourite books to get some more training ideas to stretch her a little more. A book I like very much is a US book called ‘Drills for the Hunt Test Enthusiast’ by Carol F. Cassity. It is written for US retrievers, but don’t let that put you off: UK HPRs are expected to handle and US retrieverdom has cornered the market in terms of an orderly system for achieving this. I leave out all ecollar-related stuff; the drills themselves can be taught using positive methods.

water & ‘Lost’

May 18th, 2011 § Leave a Comment

Went to the big dew pond at Stanmer Park today for some water training.

With Grey I was working on delivery to hand and with Slate, being sent for a blind across, from a ways back from the water.

Grey dropped her first retrieve on the floor (sigh), but the subsequent 5 retrieves were delivered to hand. But we only get one chance in a test! Every time I get a delivery to hand, she gets a click and I become a continuous treat-dispensing machine for about 30 seconds, giving treat after treat to make a great impression. If it’s dropped on the floor, she gets nothing and no treat for any other behaviour until the next one is delivered to hand.

I keep thinking the penny has dropped in her doggy mind, only to go out the next day and for her to drop it on the floor on the first retrieve again. I’ll know that this is sorted when I can, several days in a row, go out and have the first retrieve of the day delivered to hand. Then it will be fixed. Until then…

Slate was great today: The dew pond is perfectly circular and manmade. The benefit of this is that I can stand around it anywhere and practice retrieves across it, so there are multiple different entry points. I stuck a blind pole in the ground with 2 dummies by it, and I sent Slate from opposite. She swam straight there and then took the water back as well. (It is possible to run back around the edge.)

I sent Grey for the 2nd dummy at the blind pole, and she was also great, taking the water out and back and delivering to hand.

On our way back to the car, we practised ‘Lost’. (The command which means ‘hold that area and hunt it hard’.) This was one of the many things I learnt when Slate was a young dog and we went on a residential training week with Phillippa Williams, who is a retriever trialler and has made up several retriever FTChs. To practise this, you need a clearly defined area of bushes or scrub or sticks or something which stands out from its surroundings. I used a small copse in the middle of a grassy field. I sat the dogs outside the copse and walked into it, hiding 3 dummies in there. You then send the dogs on a retrieve. When the dogs enter the ‘clearly defined area’, you begin to call ‘Lost’, which tells them to come off a straight line and start to hunt that area.

Well both dogs completed the exercise both, perfectly. Then I sent Slate for the last one and this took bloody ages. She seemed to get stuck on an area at the front of the copse and not to widen her search to include the whole copse. She came out of the copse a couple of times and had to be sent back in. I really did not want to help her, but her confidence failed and she ended up pootling around instead of hunting. So I walked in there, and showed her the bloody dummy, then took her back out and sent her for it. She knew exactly where it was, so this wasn’t an exercise in Lost anymore, but I hoped it showed her that there is something there, when I say there is!

Slate’s first Open test

May 17th, 2011 § Leave a Comment

After winning out of Graduate a few weeks ago, Slate did well in her first ever Open test. She was a few points off 5th place, in a class of 18.

She hunted absolutely terribly though. I know I should not utter pathetic excuses, but she was assigned a patch of stinging nettles, where it was almost impossible to move anywhere and not get stung. Adam said she kept holding her paw up and looking sorry for herself and showed no desire to hunt anything. I don’t know if he is exaggerating, as she still got 14 for hunting. But she might have been in the awards, had she hunted better.

We realised that there are a few things we need to work on, now she has moved into Open. One such new area to focus on is: Obstacles. And the ‘Over’ command. It appears that obstacles are pretty standard in Open tests, and the test this weekend had a blind retrieve over a stile. Not only that, but it was a reasonable distance away and the dog was out of sight once it reached the stile. Slate reached the stile but came back into sight for help, not realising she was expected to jump it. Adam sat her and re-cast her right, and she then jumped it and came back with the dummy. But she needs to be able to do that without the extra command, and to be more used to jumping over things in her path.

So today, I had a session using a massive fallen tree. I placed the blind pole and 2 dummies out on one side of the tree, and we started up close to the tree. I said ‘Over’ just before she had to jump and gave ‘Yes’ on each jump. (‘Yes’ is a clicker word to her, but it is a word which means ‘keep working’ – the clicker itself means ‘exercise over’ and she would then run to me for a treat. ’Yes’ instead means ‘you are on your way to a treat, if you continue’. It’s a ‘bridging word’, if you want the lingo.) This tree was a bit tricky, since she could also crawl underneath it and run around the edge of it, but actually that made it a useful training exercise because she was able to try those things and not get ‘yes’ or a treat for those routes. (Instead, she got me going ‘Uh uh.’) By the end of the session, we had progressed back to the start of the path and she was able to jump over going out and back with the dummy.

I then thought I’d give Grey a go, and moved back up close to the tree again. Grey loved this and did it right every time, never even attempting to run around or crawl under the tree. Although it might seem that therefore Grey ‘knows’ it better than Slate, it is actually the opposite – Slate has had the chance to try out other routes and to learn that they don’t result in rewards. Grey, having never tried these alternative routes, hasn’t learnt that yet. (This is why just getting your dog to flukily do something right a few times is not really training.)

So, I am now on the look-out for obstacles on all walks, to continue this ‘Over’ training.

The Open Water test was a blind retrieve across a river, with the dummy placed quite a ways back down a track. Slate did this well, once she had gotten in the damn water. She piddled around at the edge and hesitated and Adam had to walk forwards and encourage her to get in. Once she was in, she took directions from him well and no problem on the way back or delivery. It was not a stylish performance for lots of reasons, but she got the job done.

Conclusion: More practise needed at standing back from the water when we send her, and again perceiving the water as an obstacle she needs to carry a straight line through when directed at it.

Grey’s directions & water

May 12th, 2011 § Leave a Comment

Bugger, we are still having problems with stickiness on casts. Not every cast, but I’ve never been able to cast all 3 directions on the T-drill and had no stickiness. She does always get it right, when she finally goes though. At the moment I’m working on the theory that hesitation means uncertainty and anxiety about getting it wrong, and that repetition will lead to confidence and no anxiety – and therefore no hesitation!

Some more water work yesterday, working on her holding the dummy and delivering to hand. The way I am working on this, is using the clicker as used in the original clicker retrieve: If she drops it on the floor, she doesn’t get a click or treat – even when she subsequently picks it up and delivers to hand. She only gets a click if it is directly delivered to my hand.

This proved quite interesting: I discovered that, if I put any pressure on her once she has emerged from the water (even just a stern ‘Give’), she is much more likely to drop it right where she is. My best chances of getting a delivery to hand come from extreme excitement and loads of encouragement, so she will hurry to get to me asap.

I would say I am getting two-thirds of water deliveries to hand now. Unfortunately, the first one is most likely to be dropped on the floor – something to do with her coat having just become wet, and an increased need to shake it out as a result. And, in a test, we only get one retrieve…

duckie is dead

May 4th, 2011 § Leave a Comment

Duckie is a green plastic duck who honks when squeezed. He is one of our ‘water toys’ (toys used only for water retrieves, as extra motivation).

Well, today Duckie’s wing came off and water got inside him, and he sank. It was very sad. I shed a tear for Duckie.

So I stopped by the pet shop and picked up a resurrected Duckie, and another couple of water toys. Now we have not only Duckie, but also Mr Lion and a Kong Zinger.

(Look, we’re SERIOUS gundog trainers, ok? Duckie was an integral part of our training equipment!)