Airing

"Airing" is the term field trainers use to mean a dog's eliminating: peeing and pooping.

It's also used to refer to that special version of peeing that male dogs seem compelled to engage in, known as "marking" in the sense of dispensing scent to claim territory or other resources. Field trainers rarely use the term "marking" in that sense, however, since "marking" is also the term used to refer to a retriever's work on a marked retrieve.

If a dog has a strong urge to air during a competition retrieve, that can hurt the dog's scoring in several ways:

• The dog picks up the bird, then airs during the return. Some judges seem to ignore this ("We don't judge the returns," as a one-time National Open field trial once told me), but repeated incidents may be considered evidence of poor "trainability", one of the field judging criteria. Laddie, my field trial Golden, was once dropped after the third series in a trial where I thought he was in a tie for first place, and one of the judges told me that the primary reason he had been dropped was because of repeated airing (peeing) on his returns.
• The dog airs on the way out to pick up the bird. I believe that this is considerably worse, from a scoring point of view, than airing during the return. Airing on the way out is considered evidence of low desire to get to the bird, a serious fault in field trial judging.
• Even before the dog airs, or even if the dog doesn't air at all during the retrieve, the dog is nonetheless distracted by the urge. I've found this less likely to affect my dogs on marks, but can have a significant effect on handling, with the result that the dog seems to go out of control (OOC) until finally coming to a stop and eliminating. I once had this happen at the start line, when a sudden change in the running order compelled us to rush to take our turn without me having enough time to air Laddie as I took him out of the van. As I brought him to the line, he began searching and sniffing rather than looking for the throwers in the field. It was obvious to me that he needed to air, but I saw no way of giving him time to do so and instead had to repeatedly call him to me, and suffer his distraction and the appearance of poor trainability as he fought the conflict of a the desire to respond to my cues versus the biological need to continue his search for an appropriate airing site.

I'd like to make the follow suggestions on how to avoid all of these problems:

1. Develop an airing (elimination) ritual, the same ritual to be used both on training days and at competitions. No matter how rushed you are when called to the start line, insist on following the ritual immediately before running the dog, as well as earlier in the day for the dog's comfort. Try to learn how much time your dog is likely to need, and what her body language is when she needs to air, so that you can make accurate judgments about when she's ready to work.
2. During retrieves while training, treat airing as you would a slipped whistle when handling. That is, instantly call out "No, sit", then walk out to the dog, gently take away the article if she has already retrieved it or pick it up if it's nearby, gently slip on her lead, and gently walk her back to the start line. Avoid using cues (commands) during this procedure, since you want the dog to maintain focus as long as possible on the undesirable outcome from airing, rather than entering other operant conditioning processes. If the dog still needs to air, give her every opportunity to, then take her directly to the start line. Have the throwers pick up their previously thrown birds or bumpers, and simplify the setup if you feel the dog needs that in order to have good quality retrieves. Finally, with your usual upbeat demeanor as though nothing untoward had occurred, run the series again. I would suggest including gunfire to make the new series as exciting and enjoyable as possible for the dog, but I could imagine careful experimentation showing that that could marginally reinforce the incorrect response from the previous series. In any case, since the dog is unlikely to air the next time, having the opportunity to complete all the retrieves gives the dog an excellent opportunity to compare the experience of airing during a retrieve as undesirable, versus the experience of not airing during a retrieve as desirable, and build reinforcement history for the desired performance criteria. Note that while this procedure would be good to use even at group training days, try to gauge whether the other trainers will have a high tolerance for you taking the group's time in that way, and get along without it if it's going to compromise your standing with the group. Either let the dog get away with airing, or complete the Walk Out but don't rerun the dog, two less than ideal training alternatives.
3. Include Walk Outs in your response to airing even when running hey-hey throws. That is, if you are in the habit of throwing bumpers for your dog without requiring steadiness, letting her begin the high-energy race into the field even before you've thrown, make sure that she learns she still will not be able to complete the retrieve if she starts to air, or for that matter in any other way becomes distracted, during her return.
4. If hey-hey throws also happen to be part of your dog's airing ritual, as is the case for Laddie, use a specific article for those throws and always include your airing cue. For Laddie, I use a softball for hey-hey throws when he is permitted -- even encouraged -- to air. On those retrieves, I also permit other dawdle on his returns; for example, Laddie loves to stop to lie in the grass on his belly, or flip over and roll on his back. To give Laddie more information, I throw the softball with the verbal cue "Go potty." But again, when I throw a bird or bumper, even if I'm not requiring Laddie to wait to be sent, I do not permit him to complete the retrieve if he performs in any other way than returning to me immediately with the article.
5. To emphasize the significance of "go potty", I sometimes throw a bumper for Laddie immediately after letting him out of the van or when we leave the house, times when Laddie is especially inclined to seek a shrub so he can air. But I throw the bumper without cueing "go potty", so Laddie has learned that despite his desire to relieve himself, if I don't cue "go potty", he is not to dawdle on his return. As soon as he charges back with that first retrieve, I cheer and throw his softball, of course this time cueing "go potty". I think this drill has been especially helpful in Laddie learning the difference between a no-dawdle retrieve and one where he's free to air.

As a final note, I'll mention that these I've described these training procedures from the perspective of a five year old field trial retriever. With a young dog, the learning experiences may not go as smoothly, because the dog is still learning the many criteria of a desirable retrieve, and airing is only one of several undesirable responses she's learning to avoid. So be patient with the dog, and yourself, as you apply these guidelines as consistently as possible throughout the dog's career.