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Hi all, just a couple of questions,

My 14 month old ess bitch is coming on really well, a few months ago I was having trouble with her retrieving, all seems ok with that apart from directions which I can work on but my main concern is this:

When I take her out and throw a dummy 8 times out of 10 she will sit and wait for my comand to retrieve, but every now and then she will run in and ignore the stop whistle aswell, any ideas peeps?

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Hi sounds like she is getting to much retrieving. Only give her one or two out of ten and you pick the rest and work on her stop whistle, also when you send her make sure you can stop her and call her back, it will take time but worth it in the end. If you put her onto game just now she will get into the habit of running in and it will be very difficult to stop.

Jim

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Thanks jim, I will try that, bit of a confession I took her out the other day with my dad, it was nice to see her working the cover, she flushed a few birds and a rabbit, you are bang on ..... she ran in, but it is awkward because she retrieved the pheasant ( only thing he shot) to my hand, so how do I discipline her for running in? Don't want to confuse her if you know what I mean don't want her thinking shes got a bollocking for retrieving

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Thanks jim, I will try that, bit of a confession I took her out the other day with my dad, it was nice to see her working the cover, she flushed a few birds and a rabbit, you are bang on ..... she ran in, but it is awkward because she retrieved the pheasant ( only thing he shot) to my hand, so how do I discipline her for running in? Don't want to confuse her if you know what I mean don't want her thinking shes got a bollocking for retrieving

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  • 2 weeks later...

The one issue I foresee with that bud is that you are reinforcing the lead as the stop signal not the command , she knows she can't run in with the lead on that's what's controlling her , it will work with lead on but the command given with lead off hasn't been reinforced, if ya get my drift,

Dogs are extremely sensitive about the context and contrasting environments

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Yes I understand casso, how can I reinforce the stop once I or somebody else has shot something when she is off the lead?

I took her out earlier without the gun as I know she's ok with shot now, so I tried to practice the stop,

I took her into a field and stopped her on the whistle then I walked 50 yards away and blew the recall whistle, as she was running to me I blew the stop and put my hand out flat, I did that in different places and distances, the one thing I noticed she stops but then starts crawling a few yards before stopping completely, how do I get her to stop straight away? ?

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Reinforcing the dog with box work is good for cementing an action,

How it works is you get the dog to do the action on an object, box or some flat surface that which is only large enough to accommodate the dog so it can't move forward but can still feel flow , it has to be at a height where it makes energetic sense to stay on the box for the dog , hopping up and down off a box don't make sense to the dog

 

The dog creeps forward in this case because movement means flow in a dogs mind what box work does is still gives a feeling of flow even when the dog is in the down , the down should lead to something exciting happening , feeding in the down works once the mutt has figured it out,

 

Figured out years ago that if a dog believes an action leads to a reward it's likely to keep occurring, the down is no different if it lead to rewards or treats , it can be an action which makes things happen in the dogs mind , it can still feel flow doing the action

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Reinforcing the dog with box work is good for cementing an action,

How it works is you get the dog to do the action on an object, box or some flat surface that which is only large enough to accommodate the dog so it can't move forward but can still feel flow , it has to be at a height where it makes energetic sense to stay on the box for the dog , hopping up and down off a box don't make sense to the dog

 

The dog creeps forward in this case because movement means flow in a dogs mind what box work does is still gives a feeling of flow even when the dog is in the down , the down should lead to something exciting happening , feeding in the down works once the mutt has figured it out,

 

Figured out years ago that if a dog believes an action leads to a reward it's likely to keep occurring, the down is no different if it lead to rewards or treats , it can be an action which makes things happen in the dogs mind , it can still feel flow doing the action

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I appreciate the advice casso but I don't understand completely, I have seen what I think you mean, where they get the dog to sit on a square sometimes with AstroTurf or carpet on but I have only seen retrieving training done on these, can you please explain again how I train the stop whistle on a box?

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Slipper, I'm thinking more of the down its a command that has a specific action and in box training has a positive outcome for the dog ,

 

A dog just can't do nothing , it must be doing something , when an action is open to interpretation from the dog's point of view, it can lead to problems ,

The box trains the down , there is nowhere to go , there can be no crawling forwards or they go over the edge , it locks the down into a definite abrupt action, the box can be up to a metre off the ground with nowhere to go ,

You can feed on the box and or use it as a start for an activity but the point is it doesn't stop the feeling of flow in the dog , the dog can feel flow in the action the dog can then control itself if it feels an action leads to more excitement

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