Training with groups

The greatest challenge to training a retriever for competition may not be training the dog per se, but rather finding groups with whom to train.

Based on my experience, training with groups is not optional, it is absolutely requisite to training a retriever for competition.  The more advanced the competition, the more critical group training becomes.

One example is that a dog required to honor flyers off-lead in an event cannot be prepared for that skill without practicing in circumstances as similar as possible to event conditions on a continuing basis.  Even highly proficient 4Q dogs, even field champion dogs, occasionally break from the line or from honor in trials.  If those dogs cannot be made 100% reliable, with all the resources available to professional trainers, imagine how much greater the challenge is for a 2Q trainer, still trying to discover satisfactory 2Q methods, who doesn't even have an opportunity to train with flyers, throwers, other dogs, and the other contextual elements the dog will experience in competition.

Another significant example of the importance of group training is that group training provides exposure to training setups that a solo trainer, especially an inexperienced one, may not come up with alone.  It's not unusual for a beginning trainer, or even an experienced one, to have no idea what problems the dogs will have on a particular setup until dogs are actually run on it.  The more experienced the group leaders are, the more useful their setups will be.

And another advantage of group training is that 4Q trainers can often provide invaluable feedback that is as useful to a 2Q trainer as it would be to a 4Q trainer.  For example, I didn't realize until just this weekend that on some of my casts, I was moving my non-casting arm as well as my casting one, which one can imagine might be quite confusing to a dog.  I wouldn't know I was doing it even now if a friend hadn't pointed it out at a group training event a couple of days ago.  Even videos never showed it to me, because the camera's on the dog, not on me.

I don't know whether the problem of finding a group is greater for a 2Q trainer than for a 4Q trainer, but I think that does make it even harder to find groups, which can nonetheless also be extremely difficult for a 4Q trainer.  The additional problems the 2Q trainer faces aren't only because the 2Q trainer's methods are unfamiliar to the 4Q trainer, though that is one factor.  Many 2Q methods are more experimental than 4Q methods and may even be freshly minted as an experiment the day of the training, experiments probably of no interest to the 4Q trainers and irritating for their unfamiliarity.

But in addition, 2Q methods can annoy the group regulars because 2Q methods may be more time-consuming than 4Q methods on training day, wasted time from the regular's perspective. And 2Q dogs may develop their skills over a significantly longer period of time than 4Q dogs, disheartening the regulars who may feel they're watching a good dog's natural talents go to waste.

2Q methods can be irritating in other ways as well.  For example, a 2Q trainer is likely to use voice, both for cues and for reinforcement, significantly more than a 4Q trainer, disrupting the auditory ecology of the session.  If I could start over bringing Lumi and Laddie with all of us as beginners to group training again, I would do many things differently.  My dogs would wear check cords until their recall was satisfactory, they would wear a tab until their steadiness was reliable if ever, I would have used less voice, I would not have repeatedly called a dog that wasn't coming, I'd have been more cautious about trying retrieves that were too hard and therefore too time consuming for the other trainers, and probably many other changes.

It's not always easy to know whether a retrieve will be too difficult for your dog.  You need to take into account group-training discount factor, similar to event discount factor, the fact that dogs sometimes don't perform as well in a group environment as they do when training alone.  Besides being sensitive about the amount of time you're taking, another reason for not running retrieves that are too hard is that the dog can learn bad habits.  For example, running a non-handling dog on a cheating water mark results in the dog running the bank, and learning that that's a good strategy.  Actually, this also can affect your relationship with the group, because training mistakes can annoy other handlers.

Another barrier to obtaining a long-term placement in a training group is that the 2Q trainers don't participate in the same kind of give and take of training ideas that the other group members do, forcing the 2Q trainer into a self-imposed social status of perpetual outsider.  Perhaps a 2Q trainers with better social skills than mine -- that would be pretty much anyone -- might find ways to solve this problem, and the other problems mentioned, that I haven't found.

I can't provide guaranteed solutions to these difficulties, because after four years of active participation in the sport, I still struggle every day to find anyone to train with, much less a group, to say nothing of an ongoing group placement.  But some ideas you might try if you also face this challenge:

• Many retriever clubs run training days during the training session.  The more clubs you join, the more such training days you'll have access to.  In some cases, you don't actually need to join the club, but that may be the best way of learning when the training days are scheduled.  I have not found this provides enough group training to prepare a dog for competition, but it's a start.
• You can hire neighborhood kids to throw marks for you.  It misses the key advantages of training with experienced trainers, and it may be expensive, but it might be better than nothing, especially for the dog's early training.
• You may be able to find pros, or others with suitable skills, who run day training sessions.  They might be group sessions, a regular part of the pro's activities.  Or this may involve setting up something just for yourself, as I have in the past with friends such as Bob, Dave, and Tony, arranging for a skilled trainer to shoot flyers for my dogs to help us work on steadiness training.  Again, day training might have some disadvantages, such as significant time and monetary expense, and perhaps the social cost of imposing on a friend, but it's one more possible resource.
• You could try advertising for training buddies.  I haven't tried this yet, but I'm thinking of putting up notices in nearby pet stores.
• Every time you're around other trainers, you can make it clear you'd like to train with them, and make sure to provide contact information.  This is simply networking.  You're probably already better at it than I am, I'm just suggesting that you put those skills to use for this particular issue.

Elimination ritual

I've never seen a dog dropped from a competition if she eliminated during the return from a retrieve, though I have heard that she's likely to be dropped if she stops to eliminate on the way out.

However, ideally, you'd prefer that the dog not eliminate on the way out or on the way back.

One way to reduce the likelihood of that happening is to develop an elimination ritual to be used every time you take the dog out of the vehicle to run a series.  You would use this same ritual when training alone, when training with a group, and when competing.

Laddie's ritual is this: I take his softball out of the trunk, let him out of his crate, and toss the softball, saying "Go potty!"  When he actually does eliminate, I often say, "Good!  Go potty!"

For Laddie, actually eliminating can take considerable time.  Each time he brings me his softball, I toss it again, either in the same direction or some new direction, of course watching for other dogs or other possible risks.

After Laddie does eliminate and then brings me the softball, I make a point of tossing it for him at least another time or two.  I don't want him to learn that eliminating ends the fun, perhaps causing him to delay it as long as possible.

By the way, I use a softball rather than a bumper in order to create a specific context for our elimination ritual, hopefully increasing the likelihood of success.

Lightning

Events are often run in rain, even torrential rain, but judges suspend an event the instant lightning becomes visible.  Everyone goes to their vehicles and waits for the lightning conditions to end.

I think that's the rule that trainers, training alone or with a group, should also follow.

The Rule for Points

Note: Based on follow-up correspondence with Alice Woodyard, this post contains several errors.  I will attempt to revise the material in the near future.


Note: Laddie is a male, so I use the pronoun "he" when referring specifically to him.  But when I am speaking in general, I use "he" to refer to the handler, "she" to refer to the dog.

In a young dog being trained for water retrieves, a single rule should apply to virtually every retrieve: If the choice is between water and land, always take the water. If you are in a training situation where the group has set up a retrieve that doesn't follow that rule with a dog new to handling, my suggestion would be to modify the way you run that retrieve so that that rule can be honored. Getting on points is the dog's natural tendency, and you want the dog to have months of experience of not getting on points when swimming near them.

However, at some point in the dog's career, perhaps after the dog has her SH, you may want to train her a more sophisticated rule, which I'll call the Rule for Points: Always prefer the water unless handled onto a point. Obviously, in that case, we want the dog to readily accept that handling.

To a human, the Rule for Points seems pretty straightforward, but as I learned with Laddie, the "unless" part can be quite frustrating. At least I assume that "frustrating" explains his behavior: Once we began practicing water blinds with points, sometimes requiring Laddie to swim past the point without touching it (confirming his earlier learning), and sometimes requiring him to get onto the point so that he can then be handled off it (into the open, by the way, but that's a different topic), he began vocalizing on casts near points. In fact, he would sometimes vocalize even before any handling, just because he saw a point in front of him and realized that he could not predict in advance how to avoid being handled, which apparently is his preferred way to run.

The question being addressed in this article is not how to train a dog to handle, which is an earlier question. The question being addressed here is how to address the kind of frustration Laddie is facing, though perhaps earlier training decisions could have avoided the problem in the first place.

Though I'm still working on the vocalizing problem, I've tentatively concluded that the way to help a dog gain a clear understanding of the Rule for Points is as follows:

1. For any mark, the dog should prefer water.  If the dog veers toward a point, handle her off it.  If she does not accept the handle in time and gets out of the water, call her back, either all the way or at least well in front of the point, and send her on the correct line.  For a dog with confidence issues about points, don't run marks that require the dog to get on a point.  If a group sets up such a mark, run a modified version or don't run the mark.
2. Set up blinds according to the dog's current confidence level of staying off points on marks.  If the dog is still learning that skill, and sometimes still veers to the point, do not run blinds across points.  But once the dog has a good understanding to prefer water, and has not attempted to veer onto a point when running a mark for some time, begin to mix in blinds that require handling over a point, gradually building to 50% requiring the dog to accept handling onto the point, and 50% requiring the dog to accept handling off the point.  If the dog's marks begin to deteriorate, and the dog begins veering toward points on marks, back off again and run no marks or blinds across points until that stops happening.
3. Do not encourage the dog to take a wide berth around the point, on marks or blinds.  For a mark, the dog might have difficulty judging the trajectory to get back on line, reducing the quality of the mark or even getting lost completely.  For a blind, the judge might consider that as not challenging the line, especially if a keyhole is formed between the point and some nearby object in the water, and the dog is expected to stay in the water and swim thru the keyhole.  Unfortunately, trying to help Laddie learn that veering too wide off a point could lead to handling just as surely as trying to get onto the point, seemed to add to his frustration about how to negotiate points without being handled, adding more complexity to the problem of his vocalizing.
4. For the dog that vocalizes when faced with a point, when you begin to run water blinds in a training session, start with one or more blinds that do not feature a point, so that the dog can gain success running non-vocal blinds.

As an additional guideline for trying to eliminate vocalizing on blinds, you might suspend running cold blinds for those configurations that make the dog uncomfortable for a time.  Instead, use a clearly visible lining pole and/or bucket, so that the dog can see the destination from the start line and visualize an appropriate line, sometimes across a point and sometimes bypassing the point, before even being sent.  This may not instantly end the vocalizing — it didn't for Laddie — but hopefully it will enable the dog to gradually gain confidence in understanding the rules.

Finally, as long as the dog displays any evidence of confusion or frustration, be 100% consistent in your setups so that dog can learn the Rule for Points without ambiguity: Never run a mark where the line is across a point.

Bird placement: marks, blinds

For a dog not confident in her lines on marks, a rule of thumb for the fall might be: hard to get to, easy to find. For example, the route to the blind might be thru unavoidable cover, or across a side slope, but once the dogs emerges from that obstacle, the bird is in plain sight. Dogs who have repeated positive reinforcement from taking good lines gain confidence in their marking.

However, for dogs who already have confidence in their marks, and especially for running blinds, the opposite strategy may be appropriate. Throwing and planting the bird in cover during training can pay dividends in events, because it gets the dog comfortable with that possibility.

For example, let's say that a blind is screened on one side by a stand of trees at the midway point, so that as handler, you will not be able to see the dog if she gets on that side of the line after the midway point. An out of sight dog is likely to be disqualified. This means that if the dog is on the open side once she's even with the blind, you'll need to cast her toward the blind and then stop her before she gets out of sight. If the blind is in cover, that task will be easier if she already expects to find the blind in cover.

A similar example is if the bird is in cover just in front of a rise. Again, if the dog disappears over the crest, you've lost her. When you blow the whistle, you need her to be aware from experience that the bird may be nearby but not in open view.

Thoughts on early training

[This is an email I sent to a correspondent.  Perhaps I could expand it into one or more articles when I have time in the future.]

[Your success in training recall] sounds great, Mark.  I would go ahead and train [recall challenges the dog can't do yet], too, including if your dog is playing with another dog.  You really need an unconditional recall.

By the way, the two cues used for a field recall are: (1) "Here", and (2) two or more tweets.  One tweet is a whistle sit, so that's different.  But tweet-tweet, or tweet-tweet-tweet, or tweet-tweet-tweet-tweet, or more, all mean "Bring the bird".

Meanwhile, I'm sure you'd like to work on other things besides recall, so here are some other suggestions:

(1) What field trainers call "obedience".  It's not formal -- for example, you can say "heel ... heel ... heel", but it does need to be distraction-proofed.  You need a heel (preferably both sides), and you need a sit.  The "sit" should also imply "stay": You should be able to say "sit", then leave your dog at a "start line", walk away, throw a bumper (and ultimately more demanding throws), walk back, and send your dog to pick the bumper up.  If you like, you could also train a whistle sit, that is, one tweet.  If you want a real challenge, train a remote sit: the dog is various distances away from you when you blow the whistle sit.  It's not important that you train a remote sit now, it's just something to work on if you want to.  But "sit" when the dog is close to you is essential immediately.

(2) I would NOT work on deliver to hand.  Even if your dog seems to be delivering to hand, watch carefully, and if she pulls her head away when you attempt to take the article, stop trying to take the article.  I believe that delivery to hand is at least mildly aversive for many dogs.  She is bringing it to show to you, not to give to you.  You can easily train delivery to hand later, as part of the Trained Retrieve.  Now is the time to build the highest possible reinforcement for coming back to you.  She'll eventually lose interest in whatever she's carrying and drop it, especially if you play with her when she arrives.

(3) You can throw happy bumpers, or even birds, on land or water, if you desire, but some cautions: (a) The dog must bring the article back to your vicinity every time.  If not, walk her down and/or use a long line.  (b) If you let the dog release herself as you're throwing instead of sitting and waiting to be sent, you risk having a tough time steadying the dog later.  It's not the end of the world, it can certainly be done, and I let my dogs release themselves on throws quite often.  But it does and did make steadiness training a lot harder. (c) A puppy retrieve session should be a very small number of retrieves, maybe as small as one.  Leave her wanting more, never feeling she's had enough retrieving.

(4) Multiples, water retrieves, obstacles, hills, crosswinds, high cover, and other challenges are great fun.  No reason your dog can't start to run small versions of such challenges.  The only thing is, if you're going to set them up, don't have her rehearse them incorrectly, because that digs a hole that you'll have to train your way out of, and you can't unring the bell in any case.  So, for example, don't run your dog on shoreline retrieves, because she'll run the bank and learn that that's really convenient and fun, and that digs a difficult hole.  You can have her retrieve in open water, or across a channel, or if the bank is far enough away that it doesn't occur to take that route.  Similarly, don't create a set-up where she's likely to run around high cover.  If you're training with other people, and they're setting up retrieves your dog can't do correctly, and you can't find a way to modify them so that your dog will have a good-quality retrieve, skip those retrieves.  Again, the dog must bring back every article.  Under no circumstances let her practice not coming back with the article.

(5) After your dog has finished teething, I'd suggest you begin work on a Trained Retrieve.  Traditional trainers typically call this a Force Fetch, and it's not a positive training method, far from it.  But you must accomplish the same goal: high quality and unconditional performance of Fetch, Hold, and Out (or Give).  If you want to train those skills before your dog has finished teething, that's up to you, but there's really no rush.  That's still a very young dog, and there's plenty to work on (as mentioned above) in the meantime.  When the time comes that you want to begin work on the TR, we can talk some more, because it can certainly be trained in a positive way and without force.  But please don't mistake your dog's natural retrieving for a TR.  Training the TR is a major and time-consuming job, and you must not take shortcuts.  When the time comes, expect it to take several focused, dedicated weeks.

I guess I'll stop now.  Please stay in touch, and let me know any time you'd like to get together, or if you have any questions.

Lindsay, with Lumi & Laddie

"Honoring" While Waiting Our Turn

[This is a reply to a post entitled "Excited at a test" on the PositiveGunDogs list]

On May 10, 2011, at 11:38 AM, Jen wrote:

Just looking for some advice as to how to break down criteria. I have a 2 year old FS Black Lab that has her JH, SR, and WC. She is a very nice working dog that gets very excited at a test. She can be very anxious waiting for her turn but is silent and still once we are at the line. While sitting in holding blinds she can be a bit vocal and doesn't want to sit still at all. I am looking at breaking down the criteria so that I can teach her to wait her turn. To me it is a self control issue but wanted advice from others as to past experience you may have had. This weekend in the holding blind we were having her nose and paw target and offer down to keep her busy but long term I wold like her to sit or lay there quietly. Thanks in advance for your advice.

Hi, Jen. I realize that in the extreme what you describe can be a problem, but this is not something I worry about very much with Laddie. I like the fact that he's excited. At the line he can channel it into focusing on the field, but it's not easy for him to focus it on anything useful in a holding blind. Maybe I should be worried about it, but so far, I have not been.

However, I have put that time waiting for our turn to one use I haven't seen before: a sort of cold honoring. An explanation:

I have a set of honor cues for my dogs: The dog is in a sit facing the field, I'm standing in a particular position and orientation that are both very different from when the dog is going to be running a mark or blind, and my verbal cue is a quiet string of "just watch . . . just watch . . . sit . . . just watch . . ." etc. After the working dog has been sent, I step in front of the dog, use a target hand to get his/her focus off the field, heel him/her behind the judges, and slip on his/her lead while offering him/her hearty congratulations, which will be followed at the van by much play and possibly some treats.

Of course, the main time I use those cues is when honoring, and I try to take every opportunity at training days to practice honoring, especially if the next dog is going to be getting a flyer and especially especially if that dog is going to be getting a multiple with a flyer. I don't ask Lumi to honor any more, but I always try to arrange our position in the training day running order so that Laddie will be running right in front of a dog getting a flyer, preferably one who will be getting a multiple including a flyer.

While I feel that the greatest benefit in practicing an honor comes from practicing hot honors -- that is, immediately after running the series yourself, as is the usual sequence in a test -- I'm not aware of any harm from practicing cold honors -- that is, honoring even though you haven't just run the series yourself.

Therefore sometimes, when Laddie and I are in a holding blind, or even on the grounds waiting for our turn to get in the first holding blind, I'll keep my eyes on the start line. As the next dog is brought to the line, I cue Laddie to sit, take my honoring position and orientation, and begin a stream of verbal honoring cues in a soft voice: "just watch . . . just watch . . ." Of course, Laddie can't actually watch, because the field isn't visible. If it were, we'd be in violation of the rules. But luckily, Laddie doesn't understand English. What he does know is that duck-calls are about to be blown, guns are about to be fired, birds are about to be thrown, the judge and handler are about to say some things, a dog is about to be sent, and Laddie is to remain steady thru all of that.

Then, after the dog has been sent, I perform a modified version of the post-honor routine: I step in front of him, get his attention with a target hand, quietly heel him in the opposite direction of the field for a step or two, and lean down to ruffle him up while saying, "great job, good boy."

We might do such cold honors two or three times before we get to the last holding blind.

This may or may not actually help Laddie's honoring when his turn comes. But it does give us something to do together while waiting our turn.

LL&L

Gun Shyness

[From a post to PositiveGunDogs list on December 27, 2010]

On Dec 27, 2010, at 6:59 PM, a poster wrote:

One of my Vizslas got 2 passes toward his Junior Hunter title before I fired my pistol too close to him and scared him gun shy. We've given it a break of about 3 years and now I'd like to try and finish his JH title. Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to repair the damage I've done?

Hi. My first Golden, Lumi, was terribly gun shy at the age of three, when we first started field training. Lumi eventually got over her gun shyness to the extent that, if I wasn't careful, she would sometimes leap out of the parked van thru a half-closed window when she heard a shotgun blast in order to "help" the working dog get the bird.

I was guided thru the process by an expert in dog behavior, especially Desensitization and Counter Conditioning (D&CC), named Amy Cook, who worked with me on the project on the DogTrek list. I'll try to give you an outline of the D&CC process we used as best as I can recall, and will then try to answer any questions that come up:

* The process took Lumi about six weeks, working every day. Several experienced dog trainers, in both field and other sports, later told me they'd never heard of a dog recovering from gun shyness, so I don't have any data to compare that to.

* Every day, Lumi and I went out with a helper (not always the same person), a blank pistol with minimal-loudness cartridges, two walkie-talkie radios, a bag of high-value treats, and a bumper. We went to a number of locations over time, but I don't know if that was necessary.

* For each session, Lumi and I stood near a creek with Lumi on a short leash (Lumi loves water). I had the treats in a bag in my pocket, and I would hold the bumper. The helper with the gun was far enough away that the gunshot was barely audible in the early sessions, and the helper wasn't visible to Lumi and me (we trained at creeks that were in the woods). The distance was shortened at the end of the process.

* The helper and I each had a radio.

* Each session consisted of several reps. The early sessions had fewer reps (maybe three or five) than the later ones (maybe ten). Each rep went like this:

-- I would stand around with Lumi in quiet mode. We would engage in some quiet activity such as meandering in a small area and looking at something in my hand or on the ground. It was important during this period before the gunshot that nothing exciting was going on.

-- I would use the radio to tell the gunner that we were ready, then go back to quiet activity with Lumi.

-- The gunner would wait about 30 seconds. This long interval was to minimize Lumi's association of me speaking on the radio with the gunshot.

-- The gunner would fire the blank pistol.

-- Instantly, I would do my best to create an exciting and highly pleasurable environment for Lumi.

-- Since Lumi is more food-motivated than play-motivated, in the early sessions I would offer Lumi a bite of the high-value treat. In the earliest sessions, though the gunshot was barely audible, it still scared her and she would not take anything. I experimented with tossing the bumper on land or water, but she also had no interest in that. As the days passed, Lumi became willing to accept food after a gunshot sooner than she became willing to play. By the end of the process, she would readily take food as well as chase the bumper on land or water, or play a rousing game of tug. That was weeks later.

-- I would also make quiet comfort available to Lumi, who would have run away in the early sessions if not for the leash. She could push against me or between my legs, and I would pet her and talk to her gently. I would comfort her as long as she wanted.

-- After she calmed down, that ended one rep and we started the next one. As I recall, it might be five or ten minutes before we'd start the next rep.

The single most important aspect of this training, as I understood it, was the sequence of events:

(1) Quiet time.
(2) Gunshot.
(3) Availability of high-value stimuli such as treats and play.

Note the word "availability". It was not necessary that Lumi actually avail herself of the high-value stimuli, and we had to continue for days before she ever took even the first nibble of food in these sessions. Yet the process was still working (Amy knew it was, I didn't at the time). It was only necessary that the gunshot PREDICT that such stimuli would instantly become available. Eventually, Lumi would learn that the gunshot predicted the availability of good things, and eventually she would begin to take advantage of their availability.

Don't rush the process. What you want is to maximize the dog's willingness to take advantage of your high-value stimuli (such as treats and play), NOT to be in a big hurry to shorten the distance between you and the gunner. Eventually, when the dog is completely comfortable with the gun being fired from a significant distance, during your last few sessions you can have the gunner gradually fire from a closer distance. By the end of our training, the gunner could fire within a few feet of Lumi, and she would still take food, and play chase and tug games.

I didn't have access to a shotgun, so our D&CC was limited to the blank pistol. Lumi did need a little additional work when we started going to training days where shotguns were being fired. But once she discovered that shotguns predicted the opportunity to retrieve flyers, her gun shyness was over.

I hope you're able to use some of this information. Please let us know how it goes.

Lindsay, with Lumi & Laddie (Goldens)
Laytonsville, Maryland

The Master Walk-up

Both Lumi and Laddie had to run several series as walk-ups during the part of their careers while they were earning their Senior Hunter titles, and neither ever had a problem with them. In fact, we never even practiced them. The only time either dog, or I, ever practiced a walk-up was in tests. In each case, the dog would sit as soon as the action started, look to the second throw which was the go-bird, pick up that mark, and then pick up the throw that had come during the walk-up. In fact, I never needed to cue "sit", though that was permitted. The only problem we ever had on walk-ups in Senior was one time when I tripped over Lumi. :0)

I have now learned, both from experience and from correspondence with Alice Woodyard, that Master walk-ups are far riskier propositions. In fact, Laddie was DQed on two of his first three Master tests because of walk-ups:

• In Laddie's second Master test, the first series was a complex set of retrieves that included a walk-up to a diversion bird.  That is, after the walk-up and the throw at 60 yards accompanied by shotgun fire, the judge called the dog's number, but the dog was not to retrieve that bird.  Instead, the handler needed to send the dog to a water mark 60° to the right.  After that, the dog could pick up the diversion bird.  Apparently it wasn't that hard for most of the dogs in the test, but when I tried to swing Laddie around to run the blind after the judge had called his number, he thought I was sending him.  I learned later from Alice that I could have blows a sit whistle, and if he'd responded, handled him to the blind for a possible pass, but to me, it looked like a break and I tried calling "here" several times without success.  I guess we would have been knocked out even if he had come back, since we were really supposed to be running the blind.  My real error, in retrospect, was not in cueing "sit" as soon as the judge called his number, with however much emphasis and repetition was needed to get him unlocked from the diversion bird.  Of course, I didn't know that at the time.
• In Laddie's third Master test, the second series was a triple with a walk-up and a flyer go-bird, plus two blinds.  Hardly a gimme, but seemingly easy enough that Laddie could get thru it without much difficulty.  We hadn't handled in the first series, so I would have been comfortable handling on one of the marks if needed.  What I didn't allow for was the fact that a bitch in season had run some time before Laddie, and he became obsessed with following a scent to the start line as soon as we left the holding blind.  Following normal protocol, the judge called for the first mark as soon as Laddie reached the start line, but Laddie never saw it.  He got a good look at the other two marks and did well on them, but he was totally confused about the first one, and refused too many casts during handling for the judges to allow us to run the blinds.  OK, one mistake, I guess, was that I've never trained Laddie to deal with the scent of a bitch in heat, and another was that my cues to "heel" were inadequate for this situation.  But I think that the worst mistake was that we approached the start line so that when Laddie broke forward, he was facing the center of the field. The first throw was 90° to the left, and was thrown suddenly and without warning.  Laddie looked up, but not in time to see the fall.  If I had it to again, yes, I'd have tried to be more vigilant and emphatic in my "heel" cues, but I'd also have made certain that when that bird was thrown, Laddie was facing in that direction, even if his nose was down.

No doubt Laddie and I have other Master walk-up challenges ahead of us, but for now, we have those two experiences to learn from.  Here's a drill I came up with to work on those:

1. While setting up, place Laddie in the van so that he can't watch any placements.
2. At the start line, place the worst distractions you can come up with.  I placed a duck and a pheasant on plastic bags, which flapped noisily in the wind.  Then I added a dog food bowl with several bites of sliced ham.  A melting ice cube made from the pee of a bitch in heat would have been even better, if I'd had such a thing!
3. In a location not visible from the start line, but as close as 10 yards if possible and far to one side of the field, place a thrower or a Bumper Boy.
4. In a location in the center of the field, place a blind.  Since Laddie is also being trained for Field Trials, I tried to make the blind as long and difficult as possible in this set-up.
5. Get the dog from the van, take a position behind the start line where the dog cannot see the start line — a holding blind, a tree, a telephone pole, a shrub — and then simulate a test walk-up.
6. Unlike my mistake in our third Master, have the dog face toward the location of the thrower, but walk the dog past the distractions at the start line, cueing "heel" and/or "leave it" as necessary to keep the dog at heel and nose up.
7. Call for the throw without duck-call or other warning.
8. Cue "sit".
9. Swing the dog to your other side and run the blind.
10. Send the dog for the mark.
11. Gesture for the dog to enjoy the contents of the food bowl.

A practice situation is never full practice for a test, and this drill may not help the dog much at all.  We ran it in two locations as mirror images, and Laddie had no trouble with it.

But at least it does give you practice aiming the dog properly during the walk-up, maintaining awareness at the necessity of keeping the dog at heel in the presence of distractions during the walk-up, and saying "sit" before swinging the dog away from a diversion throw.

Loss Aversion and the Walk Out

[This was a post to DogTrek and PositiveGunDogs lists on January 28, 2011]

I recently found a reference to something called "loss aversion" and checked out this article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_aversion

Although "loss aversion" is not a behaviorist term, and its applicability to a non-human species looks pretty tenuous in the article, I found this statement compelling within a behaviorist context: "Some studies suggest that losses are twice as powerful, psychologically, as gains."

I wonder if loss aversion is involved in a training procedure I call the Walk Out (WO). I use it to strengthen the whistle sit, typically on a blind retrieve: If the dog doesn't sit when I blow the whistle, I immediately call out "No, sit", repeating if necessary until the dog sits or if the dog gets up again, walk out to the dog, gently slip on a lead, quietly walk the dog back to the start line, and re-run the retrieve.

I understand that not all dogs will respond correctly to the verbal "sit" cue in this situation, so this can't be used for all dogs. But I've found it to be a powerful tool. Jody Baker has mentioned that WOs are also effective in other sports. At my dog's experience level, a WO significantly improves responsiveness for many retrieves afterwards.

All that's happening is that the dog is losing the opportunity to complete the retrieve on that send-out if she doesn't sit on the whistle, so she becomes much more likely to respond correctly. I'm not sure why that would work as well as it does. Maybe because it's a kind of loss aversion.

LL&L

Twitter and Dog Training

[This was a post to DogTrek and PositiveGunDogs lists on January 23, 2011]

When Twitter first came out, with eventually millions of people answering the question "What's happening?", I didn't see the point. I tried it for a few days, and couldn't imagine why anyone, even those closest to me, would want to see a running account and/or commentary of my life. As with FaceBook, I used it for a while, then lost interest. I haven't looked at FB in months.

But recently I've come to see Twitter as a valuable resource. I happen to be a news junkie, and I suddenly became aware a few weeks ago that Twitter is a great way to stay on top of news and also on top of news comment. The 140-character limitation is irrelevant, because often the tweet serves as a headline, with a link to the in-depth story. Click the link when you want to read more. Every day I get links to articles in blogs and online newspapers that I'd never have known about if I hadn't seen tweets about them from one of the people I follow. These generally aren't people I know personally. In some cases they're aggregators, in other cases journalists whose stories and posts, which might come out several times a day, I often enjoy reading. Of course often I'll glance at the tweet, decide I'm not that interested, and will ignore the link. If I find I'm not interested in the lion's share of tweets from a particular user, or find particular tweets too annoying, I "unfollow" that user.

Today I was thinking how useful it might be if skillful field trainers used Twitter. Some might write articles in a blog, others might limit themselves entirely to tweets. Some readers might get their tweets on their phones as text messages -- that's how I get most of the tweets I read -- while others might use the twitter.com website, or even some Twitter utility or app.

Let's say that a particular field trainer I was following tweeted: "Too cold for H2O, so today we worked on reverse hip-pockets. Doubles for the young dogs, added a short mark as go-bird for the older ones." Then the next day he tweeted that he worked on something else, but in a week, it was more reverse hip-pockets. How long would it be before I got a sense of the guy's training rhythm, priorities, and methods? "Ah," I might find out, "when you want to turn a reverse hip-pocket double into a triple, a reasonable way to do that is to throw the extra bird last, and have the dog run the RHP as the last two marks." (I'm not saying that's the case. I actually don't know the best way to add a third mark to a reverse hip-pocket double.)

And what if I were following a dozen trainers, and each of them were sending out that same kind of information day after day, week after week, year after year? Then I'd see the areas of consensus, and the individual variances. Wow, what a resource!

Tweets could be used for other material as well. Maybe one guy is a humorist and sometimes just tweets a funny way of saying something. Another tweets when he wants to forward a link (probably first shrinking it with tinyurl.com or bit.ly). Another intersperses his "training journal" tweets with thoughts that he thinks might be interesting to his followers (that's Twitter's name for people who read the tweets being broadcast by a particular user).

Twitter has a few refinements I won't get into here -- for example, re-tweets (RT), mentions, and hashtags. Those sorts of things might turn out to be valuable, too. So far, I haven't figured out how to leverage them effectively.

In any case, I'd going to follow thru here in two ways:

First, if you're someone who's sending out tweets on field training or related topics, I hope you'll send us your Twitter username so I (and possibly others) can try following you. And second, I've added my Twitter username to the bottom of my signature block, for anyone who wants tweets on what I'm up to with my dogs. Since I'm also a blogger, I think I'll tweet brief captions and links to blog entries on my two blogs when I post there as well. That's the way I've seen Twitter used in the area of news and news commentary.

Given my lack of experience, I don't think I have that much to offer by myself, though my dogs have come pretty far by 2Q standards. On the other hand, a broad Twittersphere of field training might be quite useful. Maybe it will become clear to me after awhile that my tweets are a waste, and I'll give it up. For now, I think it's worth a try.

Lindsay, with Lumi & Laddie (Goldens)
Laytonsville, Maryland

Field training blog: http://lumi-laddie-test-series.blogspot.com (see "Archive of Video Blog Entries" in right margin)

Reference blog "The 2Q Retriever" (work in progress): http://2q-retriever.blogspot.com

YouTube playlists:
-- Lumi: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=BC338082E0B890DB
-- Laddie: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=9A44913FB240932A

To further explore the frontiers of dog training, join our DogTrek list at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DogTrek

Twitter: @LindsayRidgeway