[From a post to PositiveGunDogs]
On May 13, 2013, at 4:10 PM, a list member wrote:
Alice wrote: Tolerate no slowness or reluctance to come to you with the
"big prize" and no reluctance to deliver.
Can someone go over step by step how they get the speed in delivering with
only a positive method? This is an area I have struggled with young dogs
that want to "keep" the prize. I have used e collar methods in the past to
overcome it, which worked great but would love a solidly trained positive
approach to teaching this for my next retriever.
Hi. First of all, I hope I'm not disagreeing with Alice here, but I don't think young dogs should be trained to deliver to hand prior to teething (around six months). I believe that doing so discourages the dog from coming when called (the recall), which I think is the most difficult field training skill to train with positive methods. Before training the dog to deliver to hand, she should have months of just retrieving bumpers, dead birds, and flyers to the general area of the handler, then dropping the bird whenever she is ready to on her own. Typically, she drops the bird because she is being brought to the line to watch another throw and be sent for another retrieve, and the previously retrieved bird is no longer valuable to her.
Second, the intolerance Alice is speaking of, once it becomes appropriate to the dog's level of training, is based on what Alice calls the Trained Retrieve (TR), which is a more generic name for what traditional trainers call the Force Fetch (FF). That is, the FF is one kind of TR, but positive methods can train the same skills, which are Hold-Out-Fetch. I've seen a number of descriptions on training a positive TR, all based on back chaining. I like this video as one example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oFO9Z0oHBA
In other words, first you train the behavior Alice is describing, and then you proof it under the many conditions the dog will need to learn to deal with, such as when outside, when around strangers, when wet, etc. Intolerance is just another name for training and proofing.
Finally, since this is such a difficult behavior for a positive trained dog to learn, I'd expect it take a lot of time and a lot of effort. Here's an article I wrote that describes one aspect of the problem -- that chasing is more fun for a dog than fetching -- and a solution based on that analysis -- the Fetch Game, which I found to be a powerful follow-up to the TR:
http://2q-retriever.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-fetch-game.html
LL&L
PS
Here's another video that might prove useful:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LYvJYDfrr0
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Monday, May 13, 2013
Romping with Your Dog
Watching the big dogs run in a Field Trial, the handlers barely move a muscle. It seems from watching them that retrievers must prefer an austere, minimalist interaction with their partners.
I don't know, maybe they do. Or maybe the handlers feel it would be unprofessional to show the kind of enthusiasm their dogs' work could easily justify.
However, working with a young dog — that is, any dog who hasn't had a lot of training — you can accelerate the process by exhibiting enthusiasm, although it might feel uncool if you're not used to it. For many dogs, romping with people is one of the greatest reinforcers available.
Every dog has her own hot buttons. Part of working with a new dog is discovering what that dog's hot buttons are.
For example, Laddie and I were recently on a hike at a nearby meadow when we met a couple and their adult retriever along the way. They said the dog liked to chase thrown tennis balls but didn't like to bring them back.
I love a challenge.
I put Laddie in a "sit", and tossed the ball behind the dog. Sure enough, the dog ran to the ball, nosed it a bit, but then started to amble back in my direction without the ball.
I ran past the dog, called "come on, come on, pick it up, boy," and kicked the ball a few feet away. As the dog ran to the ball, I ran past him again, continuing to call to him. After a little of that, he picked the ball up, though he was ready to drop it again immediately. I placed my hands on either side of his mouth so that I could grasp the ball before he had a chance to drop it. He didn't clamp down, so I slipped the ball out and tossed it away for him to chase again. In that moment, you could see the light bulb starting to come on.
This might not have worked with some dogs. They might not have liked the physical contact, or might have been fearful of the high activity level. If I'd seen that, of course I'd have backed down. But it worked on this dog. His behavior unmistakably communicated, "What do I need to do to get this guy to do that again?"
I continued playing with the dog for a few more minutes. Sometimes I would pick the ball up and toss it a few feet, then as soon as he got near the ball, I would run away, calling out "Yipes!" and pretending to be prey. Other times I would run up to the dog the moment he had the ball in his mouth so I could take it before he had a chance to drop it, then toss it for him to chase so that he'd see the advantage of getting the ball into my hands. Some of this was about communicating the game to the dog. Some of it was about helping him get over his confusion of dealing with this weird stranger. And perhaps some of it was about building motivation in the dog, although I would discount that. I think the motivation was there, it just needed to be channeled.
Soon the dog was picking up the ball and chasing me while carrying it. I could then spin around and he'd bring it right up to me so I could place my hands around his face to take the ball and throw it again. He was a real retriever after all!
Of course you don't need a stranger to come and play with your dog. You can show him that same unrestrained joy and excitement yourself. I understand that it might be a bit uncomfortable. Well, after your dog is all trained, you can go back to being cool and austere if you like.
I don't know, maybe they do. Or maybe the handlers feel it would be unprofessional to show the kind of enthusiasm their dogs' work could easily justify.
However, working with a young dog — that is, any dog who hasn't had a lot of training — you can accelerate the process by exhibiting enthusiasm, although it might feel uncool if you're not used to it. For many dogs, romping with people is one of the greatest reinforcers available.
Every dog has her own hot buttons. Part of working with a new dog is discovering what that dog's hot buttons are.
For example, Laddie and I were recently on a hike at a nearby meadow when we met a couple and their adult retriever along the way. They said the dog liked to chase thrown tennis balls but didn't like to bring them back.
I love a challenge.
I put Laddie in a "sit", and tossed the ball behind the dog. Sure enough, the dog ran to the ball, nosed it a bit, but then started to amble back in my direction without the ball.
I ran past the dog, called "come on, come on, pick it up, boy," and kicked the ball a few feet away. As the dog ran to the ball, I ran past him again, continuing to call to him. After a little of that, he picked the ball up, though he was ready to drop it again immediately. I placed my hands on either side of his mouth so that I could grasp the ball before he had a chance to drop it. He didn't clamp down, so I slipped the ball out and tossed it away for him to chase again. In that moment, you could see the light bulb starting to come on.
This might not have worked with some dogs. They might not have liked the physical contact, or might have been fearful of the high activity level. If I'd seen that, of course I'd have backed down. But it worked on this dog. His behavior unmistakably communicated, "What do I need to do to get this guy to do that again?"
I continued playing with the dog for a few more minutes. Sometimes I would pick the ball up and toss it a few feet, then as soon as he got near the ball, I would run away, calling out "Yipes!" and pretending to be prey. Other times I would run up to the dog the moment he had the ball in his mouth so I could take it before he had a chance to drop it, then toss it for him to chase so that he'd see the advantage of getting the ball into my hands. Some of this was about communicating the game to the dog. Some of it was about helping him get over his confusion of dealing with this weird stranger. And perhaps some of it was about building motivation in the dog, although I would discount that. I think the motivation was there, it just needed to be channeled.
Soon the dog was picking up the ball and chasing me while carrying it. I could then spin around and he'd bring it right up to me so I could place my hands around his face to take the ball and throw it again. He was a real retriever after all!
Of course you don't need a stranger to come and play with your dog. You can show him that same unrestrained joy and excitement yourself. I understand that it might be a bit uncomfortable. Well, after your dog is all trained, you can go back to being cool and austere if you like.
Sunday, May 12, 2013
Preparing for Junior Hunt Tests
[From a post in PositiveGunDogs]
On May 11, 2013, at 4:25 PM, a list member wrote:
> My next question is about the actual retrieving process. I am very confused because my dogs have some retriever "training" so I am not really starting at step one. I thought I could just go back to step one and "retrain" using the clicker, but its not quite working that way. All three readily take a bumper, dumbell, toy from me and hold. All three readily pick up an object from the ground and bring it to me. So, for now, I am using the clicker to reinforce these behaviors.
Hi. I assume you mean you're using click-and-treat for reinforcement. For any readers not aware of it, clicker practice (based on science) means that you always follow up the click (which is a secondary reinforcer, or bridge) with a primary reinforcer.
> Is this the correct way to deal with this? Or should I introduce some really funky item and start the retriever process with that ( like a metal key fob or something?)
For working in the living room, yeah, it's cool to have the dog retrieve boots, hammers, ladles, keys, etc. You could also work on really difficult stuff like retrieving hot dogs.
However, if you're goal is to have a competition dog, here's what the dog will be retrieving in Junior competition and training groups preparing for Junior competition: a thrown bird. Sometimes it's a bird that was recently frozen and is now mostly thawed, sometimes ti's a bird that was alive in the last few hours but is now dead (those are quite difficult words for me to write, by the way), sometimes it's a bird that was alive 30 seconds ago but has just been shot, and sometimes a bird that is wounded and can't get away from your dog but is still alive (those are called "cripples", unfortunately). For all those cases, sometimes the bird is dry, and sometimes the bird is wet. Those are the "objects" that your dog needs to be proofed for, all of them.
And by the way, of all of them, I believe that the most thrilling experience for a retriever is retrieving a bird that she just watched being shot. I think that experience actually rewires the dog. After that, all retrieves are re-living and re-savoring that experience. The more often she has the experience, the more motivated a retriever you will have.
Meanwhile, please don't use birds that have been retrieved a lot and are now soggy, torn, smelly, etc. and would be unpleasant for the dog to pick up. That won't happen in competition, and I think reverses the kind of association you want the dog to have for retrieving.
Oh, when I say "bird", I mostly mean ducks. For some land series, your dog will also need to retrieve pheasants (again, all the variations of deadness). For water, I believe it will always be ducks. You may also need to train with other species such as pigeons if the group doesn't have anything else available.
For all of the above, the bird should be thrown by a human being, who first blows a duck call, and then fires a gun either just before the throw or when the bird is on the rise from the throw. In a hunt test the gunner will be hidden, but in practice the dog often sees the thrower, which promotes learning to mark well. In any case, a thrown bird is the retrieve your dog needs to learn to make, and as it happens, is the most fun a retriever can have.
Part of the proofing is for objects, and part of it is for location. You want to begin a series of venue types that Alice Woodyard calls the Seven Cities (I think it's a sci-fi reference). Let me see if I can get them right (Alice, please correct if this is incorrect):
City 1. Living room (or elsewhere indoors)
City 2. Outdoors around the house
City 3. A fenced area away from home, such as a school yard, minus the kids of course
City 4. A meadow or similar open field
City 5. A retriever training property, with the sounds and ambience of training in progress, but with you and your dog away from the group (other trainers are typically happy to throw for you when they're not running their own dogs)
CIty 6. Training with the group, attempting to simulate competition as closely as possible (waiting in a series of holding blinds while earlier dogs are running, holding blinds for the gunners, duck calls, popper shotguns rather than blank pistols when possible, the judge calling out "guns up!" and "do you have any questions" and "dog to the line" and then calling for the birds with a duck call then calling the dog's "number" to let you know you can send the dog, a gallery, etc.)
City 7. Competition
The dog also needs to retrieve thru obstacles: across water with the object in the water, across water with the object on land on the far side, thru high cover, into high cover, with the bird in a depression (such birds are often difficult for dogs to find), over a ridge so that the dog can't see you during part of her return, with the bird at the midpoint of a rise, or at the top of a rise, or at the bottom of a rise, etc.
For training with obstacles, it is essential that the dog not have a noticeable detour around the obstacle. That's because the dog is likely to take that detour, rather that the straight line that looks so obvious to humans. You eventually may want to train the dog to go thru/across the obstacle when a detour around is available, but that requires a handling dog, and IMO it's premature for you to be working on handling. If you train a non-handling dog on retrieves where she can "cheat" around obstacles, and she does so and is reinforced for that behavior by a successful retrieve, it will be far more difficult to train her not to do that later.
Those kinds of retrieves are not typically set up by Junior judges, so you don't need to train your dog to deal with them at this time. However, training groups with more advanced dogs often do set up such retrieves. It's important that you not let your dog run those retrieves, even though the other dogs are. If you can move your start line so that the dog no longer sees the detour as an option, you might be OK. But I've found dogs to be pretty resourceful at avoiding water, cover, mounds, etc. I think it's fun for the dog to evade you and your training partners as you try to block her and force her not to cheat. Definitely not what you want to reinforce.
And as long as we're talking about proofing, here's another skill that must be trained, that is, that is not natural for a dog: picking up a bumper from an area scented with birds, or from a location where a bag of birds is nearby. Sometimes for one reason or another you might ask the throwers in a group to throw bumpers for your dog while the other dogs are getting birds, and I think it's likely that you dog will have some difficulty retrieving that bumper if you don't train for it.
I've listed a lot of things above. I didn't mean that you should pick and choose among them. Your dog needs to be competent with all of them. I think they're more important for her development as an event dog than retrieving keys.
> My other question is - my goal is not a dog that is used for hunting- my goal is a dog that can get a JH, nothing more- so does the concept of not training marked retrieves until after training blinds, apply?
I'm sorry, if I understood what you wrote, I think you have it backwards. To pass a Junior test (four passes gets you a JH), your dog will not run any blinds, and will not be expected (except perhaps by the occasional rogue judge) to be capable of responding to handling cues, or to have the skills that would require handling to train (such as not cheating around water).
Rather, for Junior, what you need is a dog that will pick up all the kinds of birds described above, in all the kinds of situations described above, and bring the bird back to you so that you can take it from her mouth. That is, she needs to be able to retrieve to hand.
The delivery doesn't have to be fancy, with the dog coming to heel, sitting, and then holding until you verbally cue "out". That's a nice skill, but it doesn't have to be that involved. You can just take the bird as the dog comes running up to you. FYI, that's what I do with Laddie in competition for most retrieves, because I think it reinforces the return, which used to be Laddie's greatest weakness. Occasionally I do have Laddie heel, sit, and hold before I take the bird, just to show that he can do it, in case anyone cares.
Let me mention that a likely scenario in an event is that the dog gets the bird near you and then drops it. You'll be disqualified if you pick it up off the ground. You've got to get her to immediately pick it back up so that you can grab it before she drops it again. The judges won't give you forever to get her to "fetch it up", so she needs to pick the bird up quickly, and she needs that skill before you compete. Picking up a bird that the dog has dropped nearby is much less natural, and much harder for the dog to learn, then picking up a bird that was thrown.
I'll leave you with a link to one of my favorite drills for strengthening "fetch", a drill I call the Fetch Game: http://2q-retriever.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-fetch-game.html As a positive trainer, I have found the Fetch Game to be one of the most valuable games I've invented (along with the Walking Recall) (also the Walk Out, which you don't need right now).
And by the way, you're not a "pest"! :0) Your questions are a great opportunity to talk about dog training, my favorite subject!
> My next question is about the actual retrieving process. I am very confused because my dogs have some retriever "training" so I am not really starting at step one. I thought I could just go back to step one and "retrain" using the clicker, but its not quite working that way. All three readily take a bumper, dumbell, toy from me and hold. All three readily pick up an object from the ground and bring it to me. So, for now, I am using the clicker to reinforce these behaviors.
Hi. I assume you mean you're using click-and-treat for reinforcement. For any readers not aware of it, clicker practice (based on science) means that you always follow up the click (which is a secondary reinforcer, or bridge) with a primary reinforcer.
> Is this the correct way to deal with this? Or should I introduce some really funky item and start the retriever process with that ( like a metal key fob or something?)
For working in the living room, yeah, it's cool to have the dog retrieve boots, hammers, ladles, keys, etc. You could also work on really difficult stuff like retrieving hot dogs.
However, if you're goal is to have a competition dog, here's what the dog will be retrieving in Junior competition and training groups preparing for Junior competition: a thrown bird. Sometimes it's a bird that was recently frozen and is now mostly thawed, sometimes ti's a bird that was alive in the last few hours but is now dead (those are quite difficult words for me to write, by the way), sometimes it's a bird that was alive 30 seconds ago but has just been shot, and sometimes a bird that is wounded and can't get away from your dog but is still alive (those are called "cripples", unfortunately). For all those cases, sometimes the bird is dry, and sometimes the bird is wet. Those are the "objects" that your dog needs to be proofed for, all of them.
And by the way, of all of them, I believe that the most thrilling experience for a retriever is retrieving a bird that she just watched being shot. I think that experience actually rewires the dog. After that, all retrieves are re-living and re-savoring that experience. The more often she has the experience, the more motivated a retriever you will have.
Meanwhile, please don't use birds that have been retrieved a lot and are now soggy, torn, smelly, etc. and would be unpleasant for the dog to pick up. That won't happen in competition, and I think reverses the kind of association you want the dog to have for retrieving.
Oh, when I say "bird", I mostly mean ducks. For some land series, your dog will also need to retrieve pheasants (again, all the variations of deadness). For water, I believe it will always be ducks. You may also need to train with other species such as pigeons if the group doesn't have anything else available.
For all of the above, the bird should be thrown by a human being, who first blows a duck call, and then fires a gun either just before the throw or when the bird is on the rise from the throw. In a hunt test the gunner will be hidden, but in practice the dog often sees the thrower, which promotes learning to mark well. In any case, a thrown bird is the retrieve your dog needs to learn to make, and as it happens, is the most fun a retriever can have.
Part of the proofing is for objects, and part of it is for location. You want to begin a series of venue types that Alice Woodyard calls the Seven Cities (I think it's a sci-fi reference). Let me see if I can get them right (Alice, please correct if this is incorrect):
City 1. Living room (or elsewhere indoors)
City 2. Outdoors around the house
City 3. A fenced area away from home, such as a school yard, minus the kids of course
City 4. A meadow or similar open field
City 5. A retriever training property, with the sounds and ambience of training in progress, but with you and your dog away from the group (other trainers are typically happy to throw for you when they're not running their own dogs)
CIty 6. Training with the group, attempting to simulate competition as closely as possible (waiting in a series of holding blinds while earlier dogs are running, holding blinds for the gunners, duck calls, popper shotguns rather than blank pistols when possible, the judge calling out "guns up!" and "do you have any questions" and "dog to the line" and then calling for the birds with a duck call then calling the dog's "number" to let you know you can send the dog, a gallery, etc.)
City 7. Competition
The dog also needs to retrieve thru obstacles: across water with the object in the water, across water with the object on land on the far side, thru high cover, into high cover, with the bird in a depression (such birds are often difficult for dogs to find), over a ridge so that the dog can't see you during part of her return, with the bird at the midpoint of a rise, or at the top of a rise, or at the bottom of a rise, etc.
For training with obstacles, it is essential that the dog not have a noticeable detour around the obstacle. That's because the dog is likely to take that detour, rather that the straight line that looks so obvious to humans. You eventually may want to train the dog to go thru/across the obstacle when a detour around is available, but that requires a handling dog, and IMO it's premature for you to be working on handling. If you train a non-handling dog on retrieves where she can "cheat" around obstacles, and she does so and is reinforced for that behavior by a successful retrieve, it will be far more difficult to train her not to do that later.
Those kinds of retrieves are not typically set up by Junior judges, so you don't need to train your dog to deal with them at this time. However, training groups with more advanced dogs often do set up such retrieves. It's important that you not let your dog run those retrieves, even though the other dogs are. If you can move your start line so that the dog no longer sees the detour as an option, you might be OK. But I've found dogs to be pretty resourceful at avoiding water, cover, mounds, etc. I think it's fun for the dog to evade you and your training partners as you try to block her and force her not to cheat. Definitely not what you want to reinforce.
And as long as we're talking about proofing, here's another skill that must be trained, that is, that is not natural for a dog: picking up a bumper from an area scented with birds, or from a location where a bag of birds is nearby. Sometimes for one reason or another you might ask the throwers in a group to throw bumpers for your dog while the other dogs are getting birds, and I think it's likely that you dog will have some difficulty retrieving that bumper if you don't train for it.
I've listed a lot of things above. I didn't mean that you should pick and choose among them. Your dog needs to be competent with all of them. I think they're more important for her development as an event dog than retrieving keys.
> My other question is - my goal is not a dog that is used for hunting- my goal is a dog that can get a JH, nothing more- so does the concept of not training marked retrieves until after training blinds, apply?
I'm sorry, if I understood what you wrote, I think you have it backwards. To pass a Junior test (four passes gets you a JH), your dog will not run any blinds, and will not be expected (except perhaps by the occasional rogue judge) to be capable of responding to handling cues, or to have the skills that would require handling to train (such as not cheating around water).
Rather, for Junior, what you need is a dog that will pick up all the kinds of birds described above, in all the kinds of situations described above, and bring the bird back to you so that you can take it from her mouth. That is, she needs to be able to retrieve to hand.
The delivery doesn't have to be fancy, with the dog coming to heel, sitting, and then holding until you verbally cue "out". That's a nice skill, but it doesn't have to be that involved. You can just take the bird as the dog comes running up to you. FYI, that's what I do with Laddie in competition for most retrieves, because I think it reinforces the return, which used to be Laddie's greatest weakness. Occasionally I do have Laddie heel, sit, and hold before I take the bird, just to show that he can do it, in case anyone cares.
Let me mention that a likely scenario in an event is that the dog gets the bird near you and then drops it. You'll be disqualified if you pick it up off the ground. You've got to get her to immediately pick it back up so that you can grab it before she drops it again. The judges won't give you forever to get her to "fetch it up", so she needs to pick the bird up quickly, and she needs that skill before you compete. Picking up a bird that the dog has dropped nearby is much less natural, and much harder for the dog to learn, then picking up a bird that was thrown.
I'll leave you with a link to one of my favorite drills for strengthening "fetch", a drill I call the Fetch Game: http://2q-retriever.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-fetch-game.html As a positive trainer, I have found the Fetch Game to be one of the most valuable games I've invented (along with the Walking Recall) (also the Walk Out, which you don't need right now).
And by the way, you're not a "pest"! :0) Your questions are a great opportunity to talk about dog training, my favorite subject!
Sunday, May 5, 2013
Getting Started
[Posted on PositiveGunDogs list on May 5, 2013]
On May 5, 2013, at 10:30 AM, a new list member wrote wrote:
> I am hoping to get the youngest good enough to be able to pass a JH test. I . . . will mostly be training by myself as it seems that most trainers here think force fetching is the only way to go. My golden was force fetched.. I will not do that again.
>
> How do I get started? I have been told that I should start with blinds first?( as opposed to focusing on marks).None of the girls have any whistle training- so I start with that?
Hi.
With respect to Force Fetch (FF): Lumi, my 9yo Golden, and Laddie, my 6yo Golden, both have their WCX and SH (after having gotten their JH first). Laddie also has six JAMs (including two Reserve JAMs) in Field Trial Qualifying stakes. Neither has ever been trained with physical aversives, including the ear or toe pinch used in FF. So trainers who believe that FF is necessary are wrong.
On the other hand, FF is standardized. Achieving the same results without FF is likely to be more time-consuming and no particular method is well established for competition-quality results. However Lumi and Laddie show that it can be done.
With respect to blinds: Junior tests have no blinds and require no handling. Junior judges generally do not expect the dogs they're judging to have been trained to handle, and I'd say that most Junior dogs have not been trained to handle.
An aside: Every once in a while Junior judges set up a water test on which dogs that have not been shore-trained, which requires handling, will run the bank ("cheat"), and the judges may count that against those dogs. In my experience, such tests are rare in Junior, though common in Senior and Master. We did once take a Junior test where the judges apologized for having set up such a test despite the fact that the Junior dogs were not expected to have been trained yet for that situation. In that test, the judges didn't penalize the dogs who ran the bank, but they recognized that they were digging a training hole for those dogs ("Hey, look, I can run the bank in the context of a competition and I get to complete the retrieve! Yay!"), and that's what they were apologizing for.
With respect to getting your 5yo, or any retriever, ready for Junior: That, of course, is a big subject, and varies widely per team. I'll mention what my priorities would be, and then I'll look forward to any future posts describing how you and your dog are doing, so that list members (including me) can make additional suggestions based on your reports.
For my dogs, the most important and yet most difficult training challenge was a field recall: The dog needs to come when called (most field trainers use the cue "Here", with the synonym being two or more whistle tweets). She needs to come with or without a retrieval article, she needs to come across land or water, she needs to come when she can't see you some of the time (for example, thru high cover or from the far side of a rise), she needs to come when she's distracted by the opportunity to play/cool off/swim in water, by humans, by crates of live birds, by dead birds on the ground or in sacks, and occasionally, by live birds such as swimming ducks or a flock of birds in a nearby field. As you can see, a high-quality pet recall is nowhere near enough for field work.
The easiest way to train a field recall is with an ecollar, since I believe that returning to the handler is a fairly natural response to a dog being "nicked" or "burned", even without any collar conditioning. But of course as a positive trainer you won't be using that tool. That means that instead of training a high quality recall in an afternoon or so using an ecollar, it may take you many months without an ecollar. That, at least, was my experience with both my dogs. I wrote an article describing a method that I eventually hit upon, which I call the Walking Recall, that made a big difference. Perhaps if I'd known about it sooner, the process wouldn't have taken nearly so long. Here's a link to the article: http://2q-retriever.blogspot.com/2010/05/walking-recall.html
For your 5yo, another key training requirement would be a Trained Retrieved (TR), which is Alice Woodyard's term for the skills that are taught via the FF regardless of training method, and for a positive trainer of course those skills are trained without aversives. The TR is basically three skills: Hold, Out (or Give), and Fetch. You'll need to train all three skills thoroughly in close quarters indoors, and then outdoors for land in increasingly challenging environments, and then all over again for water. You'll need to train with bumpers, and then with dead birds, and then with live birds and just-shot birds (flyers). Your dog's TR will eventually be stretched out to combine with the dog's recall for the return, so that all the recall situations I described above -- returning across water and thru high cover, for example -- finish with delivery to hand, and that will be your competition retrieve. Just training a TR in your living room could take weeks. Of course weeks more will be needed for all the scenarios.
Many descriptions of how to train a TR using positive methods exist, though as I mentioned, no positive method has become as standardized for training the TR as the FF is for traditional trainers. As one example of training the TR with positive methods, I like this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oFO9Z0oHBA
The reason I said "For your 5yo" with respect to training the TR is that for other readers, who might be working with much younger dogs, I don't think a dog should be trained to retrieve to hand until after teething, because I believe that retrieve to hand is intrinsically aversive to many dogs. By waiting until after teething, the dog has had months of learning to love retrieving without having to worry about giving up the article, and also you're past the stage where the dog might experience teething pain that might become an unpleasant association with the TR.
The last point I thought I'd make in this post may prove the most difficult, but I believe it's crucial, and it's the step that has most hampered Laddie's progress as a field trial dog: You need a training group that you and your dog can regularly train with at the level appropriate for your dog. That means training with traditional trainers, who will have the same training objectives as you, but will be using different methods to achieve them. Training with a group is valuable in many ways, and I won't even try to list them. I'll just say that it's not merely highly valuable, it's indispensable.
If you can achieve a field-quality recall, work thru a complete set of contexts for a thoroughly proofed TR, and gain some experience with event-like scenarios by training with a group, I believe your dog will have a good chance of earning a Junior Hunter title. She'll also have a solid foundation for more advanced training if you decide to do so.
I'll look forward to future reports about you and your dogs. Best of luck!
Lindsay, with Lumi & Laddie (Goldens)
Gaithersburg, Maryland
> I am hoping to get the youngest good enough to be able to pass a JH test. I . . . will mostly be training by myself as it seems that most trainers here think force fetching is the only way to go. My golden was force fetched.. I will not do that again.
>
> How do I get started? I have been told that I should start with blinds first?( as opposed to focusing on marks).None of the girls have any whistle training- so I start with that?
Hi.
With respect to Force Fetch (FF): Lumi, my 9yo Golden, and Laddie, my 6yo Golden, both have their WCX and SH (after having gotten their JH first). Laddie also has six JAMs (including two Reserve JAMs) in Field Trial Qualifying stakes. Neither has ever been trained with physical aversives, including the ear or toe pinch used in FF. So trainers who believe that FF is necessary are wrong.
On the other hand, FF is standardized. Achieving the same results without FF is likely to be more time-consuming and no particular method is well established for competition-quality results. However Lumi and Laddie show that it can be done.
With respect to blinds: Junior tests have no blinds and require no handling. Junior judges generally do not expect the dogs they're judging to have been trained to handle, and I'd say that most Junior dogs have not been trained to handle.
An aside: Every once in a while Junior judges set up a water test on which dogs that have not been shore-trained, which requires handling, will run the bank ("cheat"), and the judges may count that against those dogs. In my experience, such tests are rare in Junior, though common in Senior and Master. We did once take a Junior test where the judges apologized for having set up such a test despite the fact that the Junior dogs were not expected to have been trained yet for that situation. In that test, the judges didn't penalize the dogs who ran the bank, but they recognized that they were digging a training hole for those dogs ("Hey, look, I can run the bank in the context of a competition and I get to complete the retrieve! Yay!"), and that's what they were apologizing for.
With respect to getting your 5yo, or any retriever, ready for Junior: That, of course, is a big subject, and varies widely per team. I'll mention what my priorities would be, and then I'll look forward to any future posts describing how you and your dog are doing, so that list members (including me) can make additional suggestions based on your reports.
For my dogs, the most important and yet most difficult training challenge was a field recall: The dog needs to come when called (most field trainers use the cue "Here", with the synonym being two or more whistle tweets). She needs to come with or without a retrieval article, she needs to come across land or water, she needs to come when she can't see you some of the time (for example, thru high cover or from the far side of a rise), she needs to come when she's distracted by the opportunity to play/cool off/swim in water, by humans, by crates of live birds, by dead birds on the ground or in sacks, and occasionally, by live birds such as swimming ducks or a flock of birds in a nearby field. As you can see, a high-quality pet recall is nowhere near enough for field work.
The easiest way to train a field recall is with an ecollar, since I believe that returning to the handler is a fairly natural response to a dog being "nicked" or "burned", even without any collar conditioning. But of course as a positive trainer you won't be using that tool. That means that instead of training a high quality recall in an afternoon or so using an ecollar, it may take you many months without an ecollar. That, at least, was my experience with both my dogs. I wrote an article describing a method that I eventually hit upon, which I call the Walking Recall, that made a big difference. Perhaps if I'd known about it sooner, the process wouldn't have taken nearly so long. Here's a link to the article: http://2q-retriever.blogspot.com/2010/05/walking-recall.html
For your 5yo, another key training requirement would be a Trained Retrieved (TR), which is Alice Woodyard's term for the skills that are taught via the FF regardless of training method, and for a positive trainer of course those skills are trained without aversives. The TR is basically three skills: Hold, Out (or Give), and Fetch. You'll need to train all three skills thoroughly in close quarters indoors, and then outdoors for land in increasingly challenging environments, and then all over again for water. You'll need to train with bumpers, and then with dead birds, and then with live birds and just-shot birds (flyers). Your dog's TR will eventually be stretched out to combine with the dog's recall for the return, so that all the recall situations I described above -- returning across water and thru high cover, for example -- finish with delivery to hand, and that will be your competition retrieve. Just training a TR in your living room could take weeks. Of course weeks more will be needed for all the scenarios.
Many descriptions of how to train a TR using positive methods exist, though as I mentioned, no positive method has become as standardized for training the TR as the FF is for traditional trainers. As one example of training the TR with positive methods, I like this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oFO9Z0oHBA
The reason I said "For your 5yo" with respect to training the TR is that for other readers, who might be working with much younger dogs, I don't think a dog should be trained to retrieve to hand until after teething, because I believe that retrieve to hand is intrinsically aversive to many dogs. By waiting until after teething, the dog has had months of learning to love retrieving without having to worry about giving up the article, and also you're past the stage where the dog might experience teething pain that might become an unpleasant association with the TR.
The last point I thought I'd make in this post may prove the most difficult, but I believe it's crucial, and it's the step that has most hampered Laddie's progress as a field trial dog: You need a training group that you and your dog can regularly train with at the level appropriate for your dog. That means training with traditional trainers, who will have the same training objectives as you, but will be using different methods to achieve them. Training with a group is valuable in many ways, and I won't even try to list them. I'll just say that it's not merely highly valuable, it's indispensable.
If you can achieve a field-quality recall, work thru a complete set of contexts for a thoroughly proofed TR, and gain some experience with event-like scenarios by training with a group, I believe your dog will have a good chance of earning a Junior Hunter title. She'll also have a solid foundation for more advanced training if you decide to do so.
I'll look forward to future reports about you and your dogs. Best of luck!
Lindsay, with Lumi & Laddie (Goldens)
Gaithersburg, Maryland
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