Alligator Water Entry

Both Lumi and Laddie had problems on and off with water returns. It has perhaps been our single greatest training challenge, and this post is not on that general topic.

But Laddie had another problem that made his training even more difficulty, so I thought I'd highlight that problem here.

Laddie had no trouble with water entries during his first few months, but around the age of a year old, he suddenly became unable to enter water while carrying a retrieval article (training dummy or duck, for example). In a 4Q dog, the problem might have been masked by an ecollar-trained recall, but for Laddie, it became a major barrier.

In fact, it took weeks before I even realized what the problem was. For a long time, I thought it was simply a recall problem. But actually, Laddie had developed a phobia about the water entry itself.

I'm guessing that these were the steps that led to the problem:

1. Like most puppies, Laddie was uncomfortable from the beginning at crossing what I call the "swim-line", the transition when wading out when the dog is no longer able to touch bottom and must begin to swim.
2. Also like some puppies, Laddie apparently came to a solution: He would leap over the swim line as he entered the water. At the time, I thought it was exuberance, and it is a joy to watch. But I now believe that it was also an avoidance behavior.
3. That worked fine until one day Laddie must have been carrying an article in his mouth when he made one of those leaps, and it hurt. I'd guess it must have hurt quite bad because of the effect it had on him, or it must happened several times. I was not aware of the incidents at the time they happened, I only speculate that they occurred.
4. As a result, Laddie became afraid of those leaping water entries. But he had never learned to "alligator" into the water, simply pushing off when he reached the swimline. And his recall was not strong enough to pull him back to me despite the phobia.

[more to be added, on how I addressed the problem and how I'd avoid it in future]

Notes on RRR for Training Recall

[Another reply to a PGD post:]

On Jan 26, 2010, at 10:06 PM, another poster wrote:

You might try the book "really reliable recall" if you're having recall issues. The trick is to be more rewarding than whatever else is going on, so the dog wants to return to you.

I'm sorry, this is incorrect. Nearly every dog trainer -- and this doesn't just apply to field trainers -- soon realizes that if you have to be more rewarding than "whatever else is going on," it will be impossible to create a reliable recall in many dogs.

Some points about RRR in particular:

* The RRR program is wonderful for pet dogs and dogs in other sports. I used it with Lumi and it once saved her life, as documented in an article on recall by September Morn in Dog Fancy magazine some years ago.

* RRR does NOT depend upon you being more rewarding than whatever else is going on, nor does any other high-quality recall training program.

* RRR is unfortunately not adequate for training a field recall.

* Even if it were, RRR is explicitly NOT for everyday recall. According to Leslie Nelson, the woman who designed RRR, it will fall apart if you use it for routine recall. It continues to work ONLY if you save it for emergencies.

* An interesting phenomenon has been recorded by some people who've train RRR: It can actually cause undesirable responses to increase! The reason for this is that the RRR recall cue is highly reinforced, which turns it into a conditioned reinforcer, much like a clicker. For some dogs, the cue then actually acts like a clicker. For example, the dog is chasing a bicycle and the trainer calls "DARLING" (or whatever the RRR cue is). Yes, the dog puts on the brakes and comes running for treats, but in addition, the dog has just been reinforced ("clicked") for chasing the bicycle. Each time a bicycle goes by, the handler calls "DARLING" and the dog in effect gets clicked and treated again. This is called "shaping" (though of course it's inadvertent). One day, the dog catches the bicycle.

We can discuss the mechanisms of how a recall can be trained WITHOUT being more rewarding than whatever else is going on at some point in the future, but for now, I just want to clarify that nothing you can do can make you more rewarding than the things a field retriever discovers as alternatives in the field.

LL&L

The Field Recall

[This began as a reply I wrote on the PGD list; it's been heavily edited to add content I thought of after I posted it, and in this version bears little resemblance to the original post:]

On Jan 26, 2010, at 4:28 PM, another poster wrote:

One burning question for you. Do you have a reliable recall? If so what is your secret?

Hi. I'm not the person you addressed your question to, but I'd like to offer my own answer because it's such an important question.

First, a disclaimer: Both of my 2Q Goldens had failures in their most recent Senior Hunt Tests because of recall, so I have not yet proven that I have a complete solution.

On the other hand, they both have JH titles, one has a WC and a WCX, both have won First placements in club trials, they both have several Senior ribbons, and they both have excellent, though not yet perfect, recall.

I won't be so presumptuous as to tell you what I think you should do. But I will give you the instructions I intend to follow with my next puppy, whom I will also train exclusively with 2Q methods:

(1) Use a standard, high-powered recall program designed for general trainers, and get as much benefit out of that program as possible. I invented a program I call the Walking Recall in 2010. I've had more success with the Walking Recall than any other program I've ever used, and I've used many.

(2) Minimize retrieves in the first few months of the dog's introduction to field work. She should be hungry to retrieve at all times, including at the end of a session. I want that hunger to grow and grow. For starters, it might be a single retrieve per session. After a week, maybe two. After a month, maybe three. That might be it for the first six months. (You can train several sessions a day, so the puppy could get perhaps nine retrieves in a day, but only a small number per session, and only if the hunger level stays high.)

(3) Do not train retrieve-to-hand until you begin formal retrieve training, which might be after six months of earlier field work. I believe that retrieve-to-hand works against the field recall and should be delayed until the pup's recall is really field-hardened.

(4) Never put the dog in a situation where she can self-reinforce by refusing a retrieve unless you are 100% certain that she won't do it. If that means you must sit out some of the retrieves other people in your group are running, so be it. This is a huge psychological barrier.

(5) Having the dog on a long line may allow you to run her in situations where her return could otherwise not be fully trusted. Don't use the long line to punish a failed return by jerking on it, just use it for management. A long line is at the heart of the Walking Recall program mentioned above.

(6) If the dog does not return on cue, do NOT let her complete the retrieve, but DO cue her to sit/stay, walk out, quietly and gently slip on her lead, bring her back to the start line (no training, just walk her back quietly), and give her another chance to do the retrieve correctly.

(7) If the dog does not return after a single recall cue (whistle or voice), do not continue to use additional recall cues, but rather use the Walk Out described in the previous paragraph. Repeated recall cues may work initially, but they quickly deteriorate for an interesting reason: The recall cue is a highly reinforced stimulus, both by the act of completing the retrieve (the retriever's most powerful intrinsic reinforcer other than sex) and by the trainer's many and varied methods of extrinsic reinforcement for a successful retrieve. A highly reinforced stimulus gradually becomes a conditioned reinforcer (a clicker is an example). This means that if the dog dawdles, and you use your recall cue, you are reinforcing the dawdling. If the dog continues to dawdle, and you continue to call the dog, you are further strengthening the dawdling. In fact, you are in effect shaping the behavior of dawdling. It's a vicious cycle that only gets worse over time.

(8) As in your recall program, develop a graded set of distractions and locations for which the dog's recall is to be proofed. Here's a hard one: a retrieve across a channel where there's no way for you to reach her. When she can do each location, add diversions like someone playing with another dog on the far side, or a training partner throwing a dummy on the ground nearby just as she's picking up the bird. No matter how many locations and diversions she's been proofed for, realize that if a novel one occurs, there's a good chance she'll fail with it. So keep coming up with newer and more difficult ones.

(9) Do not get lulled into a false sense of security by how well your puppy's recall is coming along, and by how easy it is for your buddies to train a high-quality 4Q recall to their dogs. That is not useful information to a 2Q field trainer if it leads you to take shortcuts with your own puppy's recall training. It IS fairly easy for them. It will NOT be easy for you.

(10) The declining field recall is a great example of what the Kellers called "instinctive drift" in their landmark article "Misbehavior of Organisms". The subject learns a desired behavior, gets huge reinforcement for it, is never once reinforced by the trainer for an undesired behavior, and yet begins to perform the undesired behavior more and more as the subject continues to practice. The more your pup retrieves, the more her instincts will beckon to her to fail on the recall, so even as you reinforce her success, she is still increasingly exposed to the suction of the undesired behavior. If you don't want that to defeat you (it DID in fact defeat the Kellers), keep up your guard and EXPECT a once-reliable and highly reinforced recall to start failing.

That's my list for now. It's not my complete training program, it just addresses the one subject of field recall.

Best of luck with your dog! I hope you keep us up-to-date with your adventures together.

Lindsay, with Lumi & Laddie (Goldens)