Marking tips?

[Gillaroo]

I do see and appreciate that a fair bit of work has gone into training a dog to make retrieves like that Cracker but I also see other points of view. A dog like yours obviously is good at competing in US trials but to be honest would be mediocre when it come to sweeping up on big driven days as I sometimes do. This applies to many trials dogs who I tend to regard as pretty robotic and needy of instructions. I need a dog that works things out for himself as very few of the runners we pick up are marked by either us or the guns. Much of the time we don't know how far back it has gone and even whether it has been hit at all but 2 of these retrieved pays for us being there. On Saturday I would estimate we picked up 30 to 40 over the course of the day. My reputation does not, nor ever will come from trials but from dogs that at best you would call feisty and occasionally a bit wild. To give an example, we were looking for a cock bird on Saturday in a deep wooded gulley with a stream at the bottom when he scented a bird and shot off over the stream, out of the wood, over a barbed wire fence and out of sight across a field. Was gone for about 2 minutes and not once did I give a command. Came back with a winged hen bird while I just sat there, 100% confident in his ability. A few seconds later he picked the cock bird which was tucked up close-by. Only experience together with natural ability and my confidence in that can produce retrieves like that. Please don't take this as a dig at trials but its's just a case of horses for courses. To the OP, don't get too concerned about marking and trust in your dog and his natural ability to hunt and retrieve.

Cheers all.

Gillaroo

[cracker]

Well played, Gill - I take every word as golden. Except for the robotic bit - which is another misperception (easily made by Yanks unfamiliar with trials as well). Most of our field trial dogs in fact "live on edge" of the same feistiness and wildness you espouse - but they just don't get the chance to exhibit in the field as gundogs. Mine are atypical, they pick everything and anything - and most of the time pick it from behind (runners, and those "runners" as you've seen often Mr. Charlie). I think it actually makes for stronger competitive desire (in trials).

 

Straight, appreciate your rebuttal as well. Let's give you an idea of how having a helper throw birds improves marking - especially at distance. Take my 7-month-old. When you're trying to "lengthen them out," a pup will often run to the "gun" (thrower) for security and then "hunt out" to the thrown bird. Nothing terribly wrong with that, but it can be avoided. If you bring them along incrementally at distance, where they do in fact "process" the throw in meters (and pictures if you will), they will usually run directly to the mark. If they run wide of it, rather than "inside" the throw, rejoice over it. That means they may have watched the bird go down whilst sitting at an angle, and "fought the factors" of running over slanted ground and perhaps against a headwind to get to the bird. That's a pup with bottle - and robotic ain't got nothing to do with it. Marking ability that you've brought on and how fiercely they want the bird take that cake. Or take

 

 

that goose.

 

MG

[straightbarrel]

Robotic was not my word but is probably close to the mark. It would be good to see the dogs as finished articles, taken from their comfort zones and sent to retreive birds shot down, at distance, on unfamiliar terrain. I'm not suggesting they would not be capable of completing the task but in my opinion, a staged or manufactured trial like you posted, cant be a true yardstick for how well a dog can mark a bird down at distance.

[cracker]

Straight, again you've ironically hit the right button with the wrong understanding. Taking them out of their comfort zone is exactly the motivation at every trial and is the impetus for its being staged or manufactured. You really don't think US judges just say "Let's throw three or four birds out there - and then let's see which dogs will pick them?", do you? That would be 100 out of 100 entries, a 100 percent success rate, and how would you ever pick a winner?

 

The scenarios are staged so as to take the dogs out of their comfort zones - and usually staged on unfamiliar ground - and oh, by the way, water. (When I run a trial, chances are I'm on that ground for the first time - and likewise my dog, because unlike many in the US, I train my own dog. Occasionally there's a "home field" advantage for a certain dog, invariably it loses because a judge sets up a different "series" than what the dog's used to running on that ground.)

 

It's byzantine but you need to know that "where the birds are put" - and in what order and at what distance they go down - is instrumental in how a US trial works. Which is why these dogs have to be pure markers, and go "straight" to the bird - regardless how much of a Rubik's cube proposition is put before them. And it's even more complex in the drink - the water, which is where US retriever trials are won and lost. Now if you want to talk about marking and straight lines, H2O is altogether where it begins and ends.

 

But guess what?: appropos of my 100 percent success with three thrown birds just flung afield, the birds are almost never thrown into the water and "splashed" - that's too easy a giveaway for a dog in having to retrieve it. Which means they're thrown beyond the water, maybe beyond two "pieces" of water or even three, and the dog has to navigate those ponds at fine angles for many hundreds of yards (swimming) and go directly to where the picture it's formed tells it that the bird went down.

 

Reiterate: Water, where American trials are won and lost - and which barely exists nor comes into play on a "natural day's shooting," a/k/a British field trial. Nor does the precise handling through water - "getting my dog to go back" as was one of the original requests in this thread - which is stupendous from the dog and handler alike. Because that's what they've been trained for, and trained to do - swim great distances how you the handler want them to swim, whether it's robotic or not (actually it's more teamwork and cooperation by the dog).

 

MG

[kent]

Building a dog up over a relatively short period of time to travel these distances is not a hard excersise IMO and we were talking about marking birds down at distance in a real situation. I would be very dissapointed if i could not get a spaniel or a lab trained from an early stage to go out in long straight lines with the odd bit of sheep-dogging to these distances. Taking a dog to a memory drop and walking it back, increasing distances each session would take care of the dog taking a line out, the distance is however far or however near you want it to be. Once you have a dog happy to take a line out at distance it's then up to the dogs nose and your handling or sheep-dogging to do the rest. Throwing a dead duck a few meters up in the air to a point the dog is probably accostomed to through association with the thrower, who by the way is there and plain to see, does not constitute a dog marking a bird down well in my opinion.

 

Like i say its what you get with any Test, our own tials are far from ideal though as dogs do not all get equal opertunties on game or even any opertunity. Like i say "little contrived" I mean they even had a little gazebo up. In the field you do get long retrieves though and from building from the memories you can get onto long "back" blinds planted in advance. As for long "marked" retrieves no i do think what was seen was truely marked, but what are we to do? take them on the marsh and try and lightly clip a goose- I don't think so

In the words of one of my shepheard friends " trialing dogs are ok ,if you want you sheep fetching back off the hill in bunches of five". I think a comparisom can be drawn here

[straightbarrel]

Like i say its what you get with any Test, our own tials are far from ideal though as dogs do not all get equal opertunties on game or even any opertunity. Like i say "little contrived" I mean they even had a little gazebo up. In the field you do get long retrieves though and from building from the memories you can get onto long "back" blinds planted in advance. As for long "marked" retrieves no i do think what was seen was truely marked, but what are we to do? take them on the marsh and try and lightly clip a goose- I don't think so

In the words of one of my shepheard friends " trialing dogs are ok ,if you want you sheep fetching back off the hill in bunches of five". I think a comparisom can be drawn here

 

I would stake my nuts on every single one of those dogs going to exactly the same place to make a retreive if the blokes that do the throwing went through the motions but refrained from throwing the birds. That in my eyes is not a dog marking a bird down.

[straightbarrel]

Straight, again you've ironically hit the right button with the wrong understanding. Taking them out of their comfort zone is exactly the motivation at every trial and is the impetus for its being staged or manufactured. You really don't think US judges just say "Let's throw three or four birds out there - and then let's see which dogs will pick them?", do you? That would be 100 out of 100 entries, a 100 percent success rate, and how would you ever pick a winner?

 

The scenarios are staged so as to take the dogs out of their comfort zones - and usually staged on unfamiliar ground - and oh, by the way, water. (When I run a trial, chances are I'm on that ground for the first time - and likewise my dog, because unlike many in the US, I train my own dog. Occasionally there's a "home field" advantage for a certain dog, invariably it loses because a judge sets up a different "series" than what the dog's used to running on that ground.)

It's byzantine but you need to know that "where the birds are put" - and in what order and at what distance they go down - is instrumental in how a US trial works. Which is why these dogs have to be pure markers, and go "straight" to the bird - regardless how much of a Rubik's cube proposition is put before them. And it's even more complex in the drink - the water, which is where US retriever trials are won and lost. Now if you want to talk about marking and straight lines, H2O is altogether where it begins and ends.

 

But guess what?: appropos of my 100 percent success with three thrown birds just flung afield, the birds are almost never thrown into the water and "splashed" - that's too easy a giveaway for a dog in having to retrieve it. Which means they're thrown beyond the water, maybe beyond two "pieces" of water or even three, and the dog has to navigate those ponds at fine angles for many hundreds of yards (swimming) and go directly to where the picture it's formed tells it that the bird went down.

 

Reiterate: Water, where American trials are won and lost - and which barely exists nor comes into play on a "natural day's shooting," a/k/a British field trial. Nor does the precise handling through water - "getting my dog to go back" as was one of the original requests in this thread - which is stupendous from the dog and handler alike. Because that's what they've been trained for, and trained to do - swim great distances how you the handler want them to swim, whether it's robotic or not (actually it's more teamwork and cooperation by the dog).

 

MG

So what you are saying is, when the goalposts are changed it causes problems. Once the set up they are used to is altered, they have problems.That to me suggests robot. R2D2.

 

If you think a splash at 400 yards is too much of a giveaway to a dog, how come you dont see the relationship between a hairy ****d bloke waving poultry around above his head as a giveaway?

Edited December 7, 2011 by straightbarrel

[cracker]

I would stake my nuts on every single one of those dogs going to exactly the same place to make a retreive if the blokes that do the throwing went through the motions but refrained from throwing the birds. That in my eyes is not a dog marking a bird down.

 

Straight, your instincts are great, your guesswork...not so. We in fact do sometimes train by having a thrower make the motion and not throw a bird at all - but have one already planted at the distance it would ordinarily travel.

 

Then it gets a little more complicated - for both a field trial retriever and the dog's handler.

 

The white coat at greatest distance then hides or goes into the hide with Judge Judy on the telly - whilst another white coated thrower (t*ss*r? ) heaves another bird but "stays out" white as a knight between the line and the long bird, and at approximately a 10-degree angle from where the long bird rests. Where do you think a dog that hasn't "marked" the long fall (or fake fall) will run to, if it hasn't been trained on this scenario? Righto, right back to where it's already picked a bird - but where no bird no longer "resides."

 

So marking isn't just marking, it's memory - and of of course the picture to be marked down into memory.

 

Kent, blind retrieves in US trials - land blinds - also make use of the previous "land marks" to influence a dog's "thinking." The blind is a series that follows the marks - and the route to it often calls for taking a dog back through where a mark (or marks) have previously fallen. Some dogs are reluctant to return to that proximity, some can't wait to get there and never leave (refuse to be handled out of it to where the blind has been planted). The greatest differentiation is that marks and blinds are never one and same as they often are in UK trials. Water blinds being the biggest bugaboo of all - with all the synchronized swimming and handling having to "hit" preordained points of land or water (or not - precision works both ways.)

 

Was just thinking - seems I've gone and all but given you the blueprint for why US retrievers ("Even the retriever breeds!") are force fetched. In short, it's all about control, only minutely about retrieving.

 

MG

Edited December 7, 2011 by cracker

[straightbarrel]

Straight, your instincts are great, your guesswork...not so.

 

So marking isn't just marking, it's memory - and of of course the picture to be marked down into memory.

MG

 

A picture that has been painted by men in white coats !

 

Crack, those white coats are nearer than you think buddy.

[cracker]

All painters and glazers in the US wear white coats, Straight - but if you're suggesting I need help, I very much appreciate your concern. I'll even reciprocate by providing something of value in return. Which upon donning your own white coat - not the one from MCC directorship, but for your immigration photo - will alleviate any hostility that might be shown you for having favoured the less-is-more philosophy when it comes to teaching dogs to mark.

 

MG

[straightbarrel]

All painters and glazers in the US wear white coats, Straight - but if you're suggesting I need help, I very much appreciate your concern. I'll even reciprocate by providing something of value in return. Which upon donning your own white coat - not the one from MCC directorship, but for your immigration photo - will alleviate any hostility that might be shown you for having favoured the less-is-more philosophy when it comes to teaching dogs to mark.

 

MG

 

We got there in the end. Less is more...more or less.

 

I talk to the treeees

[kent]

Straight, your instincts are great, your guesswork...not so. We in fact do sometimes train by having a thrower make the motion and not throw a bird at all - but have one already planted at the distance it would ordinarily travel.

 

Then it gets a little more complicated - for both a field trial retriever and the dog's handler.

 

The white coat at greatest distance then hides or goes into the hide with Judge Judy on the telly - whilst another white coated thrower (t*ss*r? ) heaves another bird but "stays out" white as a knight between the line and the long bird, and at approximately a 10-degree angle from where the long bird rests. Where do you think a dog that hasn't "marked" the long fall (or fake fall) will run to, if it hasn't been trained on this scenario? Righto, right back to where it's already picked a bird - but where no bird no longer "resides."

 

So marking isn't just marking, it's memory - and of of course the picture to be marked down into memory.

 

Kent, blind retrieves in US trials - land blinds - also make use of the previous "land marks" to influence a dog's "thinking." The blind is a series that follows the marks - and the route to it often calls for taking a dog back through where a mark (or marks) have previously fallen. Some dogs are reluctant to return to that proximity, some can't wait to get there and never leave (refuse to be handled out of it to where the blind has been planted). The greatest differentiation is that marks and blinds are never one and same as they often are in UK trials. Water blinds being the biggest bugaboo of all - with all the synchronized swimming and handling having to "hit" preordained points of land or water (or not - precision works both ways.)

 

Was just thinking - seems I've gone and all but given you the blueprint for why US retrievers ("Even the retriever breeds!") are force fetched. In short, it's all about control, only minutely about retrieving.

 

MG

 

You say "trials" and critise my knoledge of ways on your side of the pond. Trials and tests are very different here what you have are descibing are tests. Please dont comment on our "trials" when describing tests, the words mean very different things generally. When we say trial we mean a real shooting day with judges a test is a std set of "tests"

Edited December 8, 2011 by kent

[cracker]

Kent, do you mean like shall we say the difference between the IGL champs. just ended and international working tests; between using game and aquamarine-coloured dummies; between springer (or cocker) champs. and A/V spaniel trials, J regs (in hand right now) and, oh, "test scores?"

 

Our "hunt tests" are tests within tests, too - only they're staged just like trials, replete with live (liberated) and cold game - and judges too. A lot more "normal day's shooting" than our trials or your working tests.

 

Now hie on next door and help the lad who's looking for a spaniel "go-to guy" over there. I would say, based on my Internet "inspection" one Davy Lisset of Buccleuch, as he travels for seminars and might also be inclined to bring a spaniel or two with him. And differing from what you (mistakenly) asserted about British Labs commanding a premium price here, many of the spaniels that run trials - but not tests - in the US are either imports from the UK or first-or second-generation offspring.

 

And to bring this back 'round to the original intent of the thread, many of those spaniels are fairly awful at any kind of distance marking - because they've not been trained. Now that there's personal observation, not cribbed from what "somebody said on Pigeon Watch forum."

 

MG

Edited December 9, 2011 by cracker

[Gillaroo]

I think we've moved so far off topic from the original question it's a bit like a tennis match now with the ball flying from one side of the Atlantic to the other.

 

Tests and trials are different both sides of the pond... as are requirements of our various dog breeds... as are needs of handlers in real situations... as are the types of shooting we do... as are the environments where we work them etc etc etc.

 

Probably wise to call an end to the game because my necks starting to ache on this one.

 

DEUCE?

[cracker]

Gill, lawn tennis or clay court?

 

MG

[Gillaroo]

Neither - haven't you heard of REAL tennis?

[cracker]

Neither - haven't you heard of REAL tennis?

 

You mean royal tennis? As Kent might ask, do they do "doubles" (triples?) and declare "'Net!" in that dodge? (j/k, Kent :yp: )

 

MG