Honoring

[Here's a discussion of training steadiness, especially on the honor, on the PGD list:]

On Apr 19, 2010, at 1:50 PM, Amanda wrote:

Secondly, how do I start training the Honor. I am a newbie to field training, and I have a VERY noisy Toller in the blind, who screams and cries once the calls start. She is not steady on the line (working on this as well.) I have started to stand facing the opposite direction as someone suggested last week, but need to know what else I should be doing. C/T for quiet doesn't seem effective as she is off food once birds are in sight.....

Thanks for the kind words, Amanda.

And congrats on having a Toller. I love Tollers.

Here are my suggestions on the honor:

(1) Never miss an opportunity to honor after running your series. I don't care if you're the only one out there honoring, that's their loss. IMO, the single most important key to learning to honor is having the dog understand that first you run your series, then you honor. You, little miss Toller, will never be sent on those throws a second time, so you may as well relax. Try to arrange to run in front of someone who's going to run an interesting series -- preferably a multiple -- so you get a good honor opportunity.

(2) Yes, use a totally different posture for honoring than for running the dog. That's actually two things: First, develop a nice, consistent set of line mechanics. And second, do something completely different for honoring. This may be more of an issue for 2Q dogs than 4Q dogs. I often see people stand next to an honor dog no differently to my eye than if the dog were marking, yet the dog is completely relaxed and in no danger of breaking. Must be nice, but until my dogs are like that, I do like you do and face backwards, always off the dog's right hip. I also use a special cue -- "Just watch", repeated quietly over and over, with an occasional "Sit" thrown in -- that of course I save exclusively for that context.

(3) I cannot emphasize this enough: The dog must never succeed in breaking. Ever. Either train a controlled break -- good luck doing that with a young 2Q dog, but if you can, great -- or have the dog on a tab in any practice situation where there is even the faintest possibility of her breaking. Do NOT rely on the thrower picking up the bird. The dog's adrenaline-pumping outrun is still too much reinforcement for the break, even if the dog doesn't get to pick up the bird.

A tab is a short line attached to the dog's collar like any lead and with a knot at the other end for traction. L&L's tabs are 9" so they can't catch in the dog's toes when running. Of course you don't want the dog to become tab wise, that is, only being steady when wearing the tab. So put the collar with tab on at the beginning of every practice, and take it off at the end. The dog then has no idea why she's wearing it, and becomes habituated to it. Alice would say the tab becomes "neutral". When honoring (and also at the start line if the dog is at risk of breaking), hold the tab tightly but with a slight amount of slack. The slack is so that (a) the dog has no idea you're holding it and tab awareness doesn't become part of the context for not breaking, and (b) the dog can't build up any momentum and injure herself if she does break and takes up the slack.

(4) If you want to borrow this idea from me, you can give the dog a well-rehearsed pattern of great things happening back at the van after the honor. This is a mixed bag. The good news is that the dog has something to look forward to after the honor, making a break less likely. The bad news is that having a highly excited dog at the end of honor, like I do with my dogs, means you've got to figure out how to keep the dog in control when the judge releases you, instead of the dog racing back to the van before you can get on her leash. I'm thinking I won't do this with my next dog.

LL&L