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Bee's Training Diary

bigbird

By bigbird,
in Dogs and Dog Training

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bigbird

bigbird

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I thought I'd start a bit of a blow by blow account of one of my Springer girls training - warts and all.
It will be great for me to look back on as I go and maybe others might want to read it and have a laugh at the many mistakes I'm bound to make along the way!

So, Bee is a super little Springer bitch pup.
She was born on the 7th September 2014, making her around about the 8 month old mark. The reason I've left her so long to start on is because I would like to compete her in tests and trials and I like them to be a pup for as long as possible to keep fire in their bellies. I've found it's far easier to pull in an enthusiastic young Springer than it is to 'push out' an unsure youngster. That said, leaving a dog this long will not suit a dog kept in the house or as a pet. Nobody likes a pup leaping all over them and visitors if they live in the house! For a shooting dog who is also a pet the training I'm going to do with her would probably start at around the 4/5 months old mark.

The first thing I started on three days ago was the simple 'hup' or 'sit'. Bee enjoys leaping up for a fuss and gazing imploringly into people's eyes, preferably flicking up a load of mud and grot into the aforementioned person's eyes as she does it when it's wet and muddy. It was really easy to do with her, mainly because a fuss and a stroke is so important to her. As we know, the trick to training a dog is to make it worthwhile for them to do it and make it not worthwhile to display unwanted behaviour.I'm not a big fan of aversive methods so I like to find out what really does it for the particular dog before we start. Treats, cuddles, fuss - it doesn't really matter. Quite simply, every time she jumped up I gently pushed her down saying 'hup' - just once - whereupon she sat and was rewarded with a big lovely rub on her chest. 3 or 4 repeats of that and she hasn't jumped up except when she's forgotten her manners. Funnily enough as soon as she's done it realisation dawns and she drops back down into a hup. I'm now confident she recognises and understands the voice command so we're ready to move on. I probably do it a bit back to front to a lot of people - I teach voice commands then when I'm sure they know what I'm on about I then start to introduce a whistle. I'm not saying it's right, most people don't do it that way it's just what works for me so far personally.

I haven't started on 'stay' with her yet and I won't for the time being. The reason for this is that she's so hot and wired I know very well that she's going to find it very tricky to control her natural impulses to chase, sniff, hunt etc and the last thing I want to do is knock her confidence or have to correct her without giving her the best chance of doing it right by setting her up to fail. Not only that but as she's quite a soft individual I suspect she's going to find it quite unsettling and I don't want her becoming insecure and unsure so early in her training and start to creep.

The next thing I've done with her is just a little bit of retrieving. Her hunting is absolutely fine and enthusiastic, she naturally has her nose down and is fast with lots of style. I have hunted her up our paddock after I've surreptitiously dropped some tennis balls once or twice but I'm going to leave any hunting for now, she doesn't need any help with that. I can work on a pattern later and because she's so 'hot' I want to work in some basic obedience first so she's more likely to listen to me when the really exciting stuff starts. In theory.

So, retrieving. At the moment she retrieves well on short throws. By retrieving 'well' I mean she marks it well and returns in my general direction instead of bogging off over the horizon to tear the dummy/ball to shreds. I am of course letting her run in on everything at the moment so she goes for everything with full enthusiasm and see training as The Best Thing Ever. She marks well and brings more or less to hand, sometimes with a bit of a Lap of Honour as all pups do. I simply sat on the floor and let her come into me in her own good time. I didn't chase her for it (this is where having young kids can cause a problem if they're playing with a puppy of course) because I didn't want to initiate a game of 'catch me if you can'. Having the short attention span that she does, she soon decided that leaping all over me with the tennis ball was far more fun than walking round with it in her mouth. Rather than take it from her straight away she got lots of strokes and high pitched girly 'good girrrrrrls' before gently taking it from her. I then gave it straight back to her because I didn't want her thinking that I desperately wanted the ball whereupon she might think I could possibly be coerced into a madcap hare round the paddock in hot pursuit of a tennis ball! Two or three throws of these and we were done.

I think next time I'm going to try and start shaping her towards starting to get an actual 'delivery'. Because I'm very lucky in that she will recall straight to my feet and hup, the way I'm thinking of doing it is to let her jump up at me with the ball or dummy in her mouth on her return from a retrieve and gently seeing if I can get her to 'hup' without dropping it. I don't think she'll recall and drop into a hup straight away you see without dropping the ball so I'm going to need to keep the excitement levels up a bit so that she almost 'forgets' to drop it. Ordinarily if she wasn't so good at her recall I would concentrate on that first of course. If it worries her or unsettles her I'll give the delivery a miss for now to take off that particular pressure until I feel she's ready for it. I'll try and do it later - we'll see how it goes.

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bigbird

bigbird

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OK, so I took Beebs out last night to try this.

As I let her out of the kennel she went haring down to the paddock wiggling so much she looked as if she might snap in half so I'm guessing she's enjoying 'work' so far!

Ideally I should have put her on a lead to walk her down to the paddock when training a dog for trialling as the idea is that you get as much oomph as possible into the time that they're working. Considering I haven't lead trained her yet I think that's a bit unfair of me at this point to walk her down on a lead especially as she's so excited that something fabulous is going to happen - I'd rather keep the enthusiasm and not garrott my dog! Plus we use our dogs for shooting as well and YES they can work all day. It's just that we choose not to work one all day as we don't want them to start pacing themselves which any dog with half a sense of self preservation will do.

 

Down in the paddock I let her burn off a bit of steam. Bee has a lot of steam to burn off :lol::lol::lol: . I also think that you can't get concentration from a dog, particularly a youngster if it needs a wee or a poo so I let them empty themselves first. I've never seen a toddler or small child who can do a maths test when they're dying for the loo after all - I know I couldn't!

 

That done, I called her in to me and threw a ball a short distance. Beebs legged it after it and brought it back after a lap of honour. She then jumped up and dropped the ball, picked it up, played with it a bit (note to self, dummies next time, balls are FAR too exciting because they roll and everything). I just stood there until she got bored and brought it to me, jumping up. I told her 'hup' and miracle of miracles she only went and did it holding the ball! I gently took it from her and threw it again - this time straight back to me - as she came towards me, about 1.5 metres away I told her 'hup' which she did again perfectly.

 

That'll do me :good::good:

 

10 minute lesson ended on a good note, let's hope she remembers the good stuff today. Today we'll repeat last night to make sure we've definitely got it but with a puppy dummy this time. I also want to knock the lap of honour in the head so I will probably place myself in the corner of a field against the fence in a confined area so she can't do it. Mind you, this is the dog who can squeeze through the gaps in heras fencing by bending the bars so she'll probably just see it as a challenge!

 

 

I thought it might be worthwhile to just write down a good method of taking a retrieve from your dog - specifically a ball for those who might be starting out. So many people go straight in there with one hand to grab the ball. This often ends up in the dog's lip being pinched, particularly as they get older or with bigger dogs with bigger mouths making it harder to get a hold on the ball. Also if that was you, would you like a hand coming to grab something from above towards the blind spot on the top of your head? You wouldn't be too keen on giving the ball up next time and might even start employing some avoidance tactics on the way back!

 

So, how I do it with tennis balls is to sit them in front of me. DON'T go straight for the ball. With two hands, give them a lovely rub on their shoulders or chest. Gently bring your hands up either side of their neck, down the muzzle until you can feel the ball. Squeeze the ball slightly and give the 'dead', 'drop' or whatever command and draw it towards you between your fingers. If that makes sense :hmm: . Nice and easy and it also doesn't give the dog the chance to turn their heads away from you if they're rather partial to what they're holding onto!

 

So, repeat performance tonight fingers crossed. Here's hoping it doesn't go Pete Tong :lol::lol:

Edited by bigbird
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fenboy

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You know you want to.

 

 

 

Unfortunately it is going to be another two or three months before the kennel will be finished , the concrete will need to cure for at least a month then once it is up I will need to make new sleeping boxes and make it Lab proof !

 

It will be getting towards late summer before I have a new addition , or if I cannot find the right pup may even wait until next spring I am in no great rush.

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bigbird

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BB, this blog type thing will come in useful. I have copied and pasted and emailed it to Kerry as she wants to be involved in Tilly's training.

 

:) :)

 

 

 

Right, I've found a couple of old videos of Bee so those kind people who are following this can 'know' her a bit better...

 

https://www.facebook.com/alison.spenser/videos/vb.694003537/10154092032753538/?type=3&theater

 

https://www.facebook.com/alison.spenser/videos/vb.694003537/10154091964058538/?type=3&theater

 

 

She's just so adorable!

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bigbird

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She's keen alright lol :)

 

Didn't train Bee last night. After having picked up squabbling kids from school who were driving me nuts I wasn't in the right frame of mind. The most important rule of dog training (to me) is never to train if you're tired/grouchy. Unfortunately the patience which I obviously do possess doesn't extend to my kids as much as it does to my dogs! I had to giggle at some of the things they were calling one another though - 'poo face' and 'bum features' to name just two. The kids, not the dogs...

 

Will try again later, even if I have to bind/gag/download a mind numbing game for the kids!

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bigbird

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Ok, so we've just been out again.

 

Unfortunately as we went into the paddock we were joined by hubby's escape artist cocker. The paddock has a section fenced off in the corner where I used to have my chickens so Zack the Cocker was put in there to keep him out of the way. It's fair to say he wasn't over impressed!

 

The usual, a 'that'll do' to let her do her business - and then down to business.

 

I was all primed to have a heck of a job sorting out the Lap of Honour but she has completely stopped that now - straight out, straight back, hup and a beautiful delivery. Edited to add that I only threw the dummy 15ft or so away, also that I stood up straight on her return - the limited experience that I have has taught me that bending over on their return can cause them to drop the retrieve short or indulge in a spot of parading. Don't know why, perhaps they find it a bit intimidating. Absolutely over the moon with her. She's been so easy so far I wonder what horrors lie ahead!

 

It seems swapping the tennis ball for a baby dummy has made a real difference as I suspected it might, but not to this extent.

 

Once she did lie down with the dummy and I had to walk backwards a couple of steps to encourage her into me. I put that down to two things - the close proximity of Zack and the pressure she probably felt under because of my starting to insist upon a nice delivery. Dogs do the same as humans - play for time if they're feeling a bit unsure. One more throw, one more perfect delivery then it was playtime to let her just be Bee for a couple of minutes.

 

So - thrilled to bits. I'm going to lay off the retrieving for a couple of days and let it sink in. I think I am going to approach the subject of Sit and Stay with her tomorrow. I haven't told her yet ;) She's not going to be pleased but I'm going to give it a go and judge by her body language and concentration levels whether she's ready for that yet. I suspect she's going to find it hard to control her hunt and chase instincts, but she's surprised me so far. Fingers crossed.....

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bigbird

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Just been out with Beebs.

 

Notes to self:

 

Do not try be so stupid as to assume Beebs will be calm enough for sit and stay when she's been locked up in the kennel for four hours.

 

Do not try and wear her out with a few retrieves before we start naively thinking that she will be more likely once tired to wish to stay in one place for more than five seconds.

 

Do not assume that because she's been a walk in the park with the little we have done so far that she will be easy.

 

We started off in the bigger paddock. She was wired tonight - my fault, she had been locked up for four hours in the kennel. Hup was ok, beautiful retrieve and delivery. Hup and wait a second - not so much. In fact not at all.

 

Then we moved to the old chicken pen - a smaller space and theoretically not so many distractions - at least not within immediate reach. Yep, a little more concentration. Rather than set her up to fail we did a few hups for thirty seconds or so. That worked, although I had to clear my throat a few times and/ or click my fingers to get the eye contact back.

 

It's my fault though, it's been, what, four days since I did anything with her?

 

End on a good note and try again tomorrow :)

Edited by bigbird
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