Basic Training for your Gundog - A Discussion
The foundation stone of any ‘Gundog Training’ is basic good manners. People often say they want to ‘Gundog Train’ their young dog, and ‘what age is the best to start?’… I, personally, can only say, ‘after they have basic manners that any pet dog should have to make them an easy to live with, easy to walk, companion’.
Before using your time, effort and money going to a *specific* gundog class or trainer, you really should, if an experienced dog owner self train the dog to sit calmly when told, walk to heel, at least ON the lead (but preferably offlead too), Stay for periods of time whilst you walk away a short distance, and, of course, a recall. These can best be taught verbally to a very young dog, and then whistle and hand commands can be introduced, but only after the dog genuinely understands the *verbal* command, so it has something to ‘attach’ the whistle or handsignal TO.
Gundog Training is undertaken for many reasons:
It is not easy to train your FIRST (or to be honest, ANY) Gundog entirely yourself at home. You tend to find gaping gaps appear in your dogs work when you come, at some point, to test it in company or on the *real thing* and it is very useful to regularly attend either a gundog club or a private or group trainer (or preferably, if you are fairly serious about making progress, both….)
However, there are many exercises and goals you can set yourself, and your dog, to aim towards achieving, at home, or out on walks, that will give you a taste of Gundog work AND start to establish the very basics that, later on, you may wish to take forward with a trainer.
The working gundog, trained for ANY of the reasons given above, first and foremost needs two important attributes. He needs enthusiasm and drive for the job, and steadiness almost constantly. On a shoot day, or at a competition, you may be there for 5 – 7 hours. Your dog will almost certainly be sat quietly with you or walking to heel, not retrieving, for about 95% of that time. Attaining that steadiness ALONGSIDE the required enthusiasm can be a tricky juggling act, and how to achieve it will vary from dog to dog – one size does not fit all. Some dogs need stiring up and (controlled) racing about to unlock their hidden ‘speed machine’ BEFORE they start on almost any steadiness work. OTHER dogs must be ‘anchored’ before they even LOOK at a retrieve being thrown because they lean towards the ‘hot’ category.
Many part or fully showbred dogs COULD have worked very nicely, *if* they hadn’t been slowed up and stifled in their early months of training by too many steadiness exercises which were not geared towards their individual personality and need to get keen on the job, BEFORE they get drilled with steadiness. Ideally, a balance of fun and enthusiastic praise, and plenty of short steadiness exercises is an ideal mixture for the *majority* of dogs to move forward quite progressively.
Something many novice owners or handlers new to gundog training, lack, is the ability to read how something they are doing NOW with the dog, will affect or possibly set it back for the future things it will need to learn. This is when a trainer can pay dividends as they WILL know, and will usually give you homework to practice before the next lesson, so removing the need for you to worry about whether you are doing something which will set the cards tumbling down.
These are just a very few of the many things that can be undertaken at home.
Steadiness:
- Sit the dog at your side. Leave it in a stay and walk out a fair distance from it. Quietly drop a dummy or ball on the ground, whilst commanding it to remain in a ‘Stay’. Progress to gently throwing a dummy in the air and letting it thump the ground. Move on to throwing a dummy a few feet from you with loud whooping noises and a clap or two of your hands as its in the air. ALWAYS collect these by hand yourself. Also ALWAYS place or throw these close to YOU not the DOG, so that if the dog bolts for the item you can, quietly, with little fuss, pick it before the dog reaches it, meaning the dog has had no reward for its disobedience. Every time it achieves picking a dummy it has ‘run in’ for, it learns to know that your ‘stay’ command means very little if it wishes to disobey it. If you have a helper, have them quietly place or throw an item around themselves whilst you sit with the dog quietly reminding it to ‘stay’. Prime the helper that if the dog runs in, they MUST get to the dummy first and quietly pick it and put it in a gamebag and ignore the dog, allowing YOU to take charge. Start on-lead when you are with the dog. Never try and progress too quickly. Progress to being beside the dog, off-lead, and someone throwing an item and you leaving the dogs side, and picking it by hand, and handing it to the helper. If you are alone, gradually get nearer to the dog with the tempting throws. The closer you are to the dog, the MORE the dog will be tempted, so just remember, ALWAYS be in a position to pick that dummy first, so don’t throw them over the dogs head, as he will always be able to get there first.
- Have a helper about 30 yards or so away infront. Take the dog off the lead as if it about to have a retrieve. Have them throw the first dummy. Then pause. Then THEY collect it by hand. They throw another one and YOU walk out and collect by hand, then the dog is sent only for the third one IF he has been quiet and steady for the first two.
Retrieving Skills:
Good luck!
Diana Stevens – Wylanbriar - 2010
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Before using your time, effort and money going to a *specific* gundog class or trainer, you really should, if an experienced dog owner self train the dog to sit calmly when told, walk to heel, at least ON the lead (but preferably offlead too), Stay for periods of time whilst you walk away a short distance, and, of course, a recall. These can best be taught verbally to a very young dog, and then whistle and hand commands can be introduced, but only after the dog genuinely understands the *verbal* command, so it has something to ‘attach’ the whistle or handsignal TO.
Gundog Training is undertaken for many reasons:
- To aim at a goal of taking part in competitions, be they Working Tests or Field Trials
- To train your dog as a well mannered shooting companion, be that for picking up, roughshooting, beating or as a peg dog (or a combination of all!)
- To work towards one of the non competitive, pass/fail assessments, that are run both, by the Kennel Club (Namely the ‘Working Gundog Certificate’), or the Gundog Club ‘grades’.
- To get outside and train your pet dog, just for fun, without the confines and artifical environment of a village hall/scout hut type environment that your average Obedience class takes place within.
It is not easy to train your FIRST (or to be honest, ANY) Gundog entirely yourself at home. You tend to find gaping gaps appear in your dogs work when you come, at some point, to test it in company or on the *real thing* and it is very useful to regularly attend either a gundog club or a private or group trainer (or preferably, if you are fairly serious about making progress, both….)
However, there are many exercises and goals you can set yourself, and your dog, to aim towards achieving, at home, or out on walks, that will give you a taste of Gundog work AND start to establish the very basics that, later on, you may wish to take forward with a trainer.
The working gundog, trained for ANY of the reasons given above, first and foremost needs two important attributes. He needs enthusiasm and drive for the job, and steadiness almost constantly. On a shoot day, or at a competition, you may be there for 5 – 7 hours. Your dog will almost certainly be sat quietly with you or walking to heel, not retrieving, for about 95% of that time. Attaining that steadiness ALONGSIDE the required enthusiasm can be a tricky juggling act, and how to achieve it will vary from dog to dog – one size does not fit all. Some dogs need stiring up and (controlled) racing about to unlock their hidden ‘speed machine’ BEFORE they start on almost any steadiness work. OTHER dogs must be ‘anchored’ before they even LOOK at a retrieve being thrown because they lean towards the ‘hot’ category.
Many part or fully showbred dogs COULD have worked very nicely, *if* they hadn’t been slowed up and stifled in their early months of training by too many steadiness exercises which were not geared towards their individual personality and need to get keen on the job, BEFORE they get drilled with steadiness. Ideally, a balance of fun and enthusiastic praise, and plenty of short steadiness exercises is an ideal mixture for the *majority* of dogs to move forward quite progressively.
Something many novice owners or handlers new to gundog training, lack, is the ability to read how something they are doing NOW with the dog, will affect or possibly set it back for the future things it will need to learn. This is when a trainer can pay dividends as they WILL know, and will usually give you homework to practice before the next lesson, so removing the need for you to worry about whether you are doing something which will set the cards tumbling down.
These are just a very few of the many things that can be undertaken at home.
Steadiness:
- Sit the dog at your side. Leave it in a stay and walk out a fair distance from it. Quietly drop a dummy or ball on the ground, whilst commanding it to remain in a ‘Stay’. Progress to gently throwing a dummy in the air and letting it thump the ground. Move on to throwing a dummy a few feet from you with loud whooping noises and a clap or two of your hands as its in the air. ALWAYS collect these by hand yourself. Also ALWAYS place or throw these close to YOU not the DOG, so that if the dog bolts for the item you can, quietly, with little fuss, pick it before the dog reaches it, meaning the dog has had no reward for its disobedience. Every time it achieves picking a dummy it has ‘run in’ for, it learns to know that your ‘stay’ command means very little if it wishes to disobey it. If you have a helper, have them quietly place or throw an item around themselves whilst you sit with the dog quietly reminding it to ‘stay’. Prime the helper that if the dog runs in, they MUST get to the dummy first and quietly pick it and put it in a gamebag and ignore the dog, allowing YOU to take charge. Start on-lead when you are with the dog. Never try and progress too quickly. Progress to being beside the dog, off-lead, and someone throwing an item and you leaving the dogs side, and picking it by hand, and handing it to the helper. If you are alone, gradually get nearer to the dog with the tempting throws. The closer you are to the dog, the MORE the dog will be tempted, so just remember, ALWAYS be in a position to pick that dummy first, so don’t throw them over the dogs head, as he will always be able to get there first.
- Have a helper about 30 yards or so away infront. Take the dog off the lead as if it about to have a retrieve. Have them throw the first dummy. Then pause. Then THEY collect it by hand. They throw another one and YOU walk out and collect by hand, then the dog is sent only for the third one IF he has been quiet and steady for the first two.
Retrieving Skills:
- A retrieve is made up of an outrun and an inrun then a delivery. Most dogs enjoy the outrun, and the first part of the inrun. The most common problems occur on the second half of the inrun, and the delivery. Work on your inrun and delivery by remembering that a delivery is really just a recall with a dummy. Pratice sitting the dog up, leaving it in a stay, walking twenty yards or so, and call it to you. Ask for a nice straight sit infront of you. Then heel it back to exactly the same spot…. And recall it to you again. Take it back a third time, leave it in a stay, then check the dog is watching but drop a ball or small dummy half way between you and the dog. Recall EXACTLY as you have the previous two times but this time the dog should pick the dummy on the way to you. Ask for that self same calm sit infront upon arriving to you. Don’t be in a rush to take the dummy, sometimes even heel them back without taking it at all and then take as you heel along. The idea in this exercise is that, so often, people do nice calm recalls, but the *minute* a dummy is involved they start clapping and whistling and flapping to grab at the dog or the dummy instead of recognizing the inrun for what it really is, just a plain old recall.
- What we call ‘memory backs’ are a very important part of a dogs education as they are the prelude to starting to send the dog on blind retrieves. So heel the dog along a track. Stop and leave the dog in a stay, walk ten yards or so infront, make sure the dog is watching, and throw a dummy up the track. Walk back to your dog, slip the lead on if you don’t trust him to turn and heel away from the dummy with you, then walk maybe twenty yards down the track. Slip the lead off, and send the dog for the dummy. Repeat but rather than throwing the dummy further and further away, always put it in the same place but YOU take the dog further and further back away from it so it gets the confidence to return to the same spot even from a great distance. Don’t be in any hurry to increase the distance greatly, and if the dog stops along the way, reduce back down again. Make this harder by throwing two with a decent distance between them so the dog is not tempted to ‘swap’ or return with both in his mouth (it does happen!). Send the dog for one, take delivery. Heel further away and send the dog for the second. In time, put the dummies out before you get the dog out of the car but always to the same place for confidence, so you can truly attempt sending the dog to the familiar place ‘blind’.
Good luck!
Diana Stevens – Wylanbriar - 2010
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