Bramble's Gundog Log

[Beanwood]

Thought I would refresh Bramble's training log, although mostly gundog work, there is a lot around reinforcing desired behaviours that are pretty relevant too, will write more about that later.

Bramble is now two and a half. Her breeding is a mixture of working line and show line labrador. I was originally looking for a working labrador, but with a calm temperament, more of a "thinker" than a "doer" if that makes sense! And actually, this is precisely what we got. Everything she does is quite considered, and very much "what's in it for me?" Cultivating a drive has been a slow process. That's not to say she hasn't a drive...but it comes at a price. Her drive is about the environment and game. Shot, although used little, was almost instinctively paired with massive motivation. Tbh, this took me by surprise, one minute I had a calm, gentle girl that took a mountain of steak to even glance at a tennis ball, and the next a dog, who fairly pulled my arm out of its socket with the merest whiff of pheasant! Her arousal levels hit stratospheric levels, and to the extent... ( and my shame..) in the early days it was not uncommon to see me standing on my lonesome in a field..well not quite, that small black dot in the distance...yup that's Bramble!

Anyhow, that is by way of introduction to madam.

So, this brings us up to date. We have used shot very sparingly recently because we needed to step sideways in training, and instead look at some basics. The two big things here are motivation and self-control. Indeed, now that motivation is on the increase, we seem to have hit a stumbling block. Increasing motivation increases arousal, and yup you guessed it, self-control has gotten a bit wobbly. To address this we have invested in Susan Garretts "Crate games", not so much about crate training, but more about self-control, helping Bramble learn how to "switch off". An example of this behaviour is she finds it very difficult to disengage now if on the lead and not "doing" stuff. OK for 5minutes, maybe even 10. Then you get the stare, frustrated play bow, and sigh...a bark...

Water Training Weekend in Devon - Training Notes

This weekend we travelled down to Devon to train with 2 positive gundog trainers. The venue was amazing! One smallish circular lake in a gently undulating landscape, and on the other side some fast flowing water complete with tricky currents and a relatively steep bank on one side, with irregular depths. We worked in 2 small groups, one beginner, or newish to water skills, and the other more advanced. This was my first anxious moment as I realised that we had been placed in the advanced group. Hmmmm...a bit of "overselling on the booking form maybe??? There were some pretty good dogs in our group too, actually, this was useful, and once Bramble settled down, I noticed she was watching the other dogs intently.
It didn't take long for one of the trainers to deduce, that Bramble kinda knew what the deal was, I was a bit "faffy" and the fact that she was also taking advantage of my loose boundaries. What I thought was a bit of sensitivity was actually more like boredom. Ouch. That. Hurt.

Back to motivation. And with this, I was introduced to the concept of "PARTY!"

Party Time!!!!

Now I have probably not quite gotten my pea brain around the concept of PARTY. In essence, it is thinking about outcomes, and the dog pairing up a REALLY GOOD TIME with an outcome. So in this case, a small (even tiny...) action.....just getting in...and out....of the water = massive party! So with Bramble, we asked her for a small retrieve in water, then as soon as she delivered to hand, it was woop! woop! Let's play chase the high-value treat, which is her favourite game! Probably chucked about 10 big treats. Then just rinse and repeat. But not too much. It really has to be high value, and consistent. This technique even in a short space of time worked well. You good see the gleam in Bramble's eyes as she neared the bank, her brain had twigged " oh my, quick!!!!...steak is gonna rain from the sky!!"! It also helped her confidence that something really good was going to happen at the end of it.

So we then moved into working both on land and water. Finally working on sending Bramble across the lake and up the bank for a mark, then turn her away for a blind. It was simply amazing to watch her confidence and skill grow.

I think the highlight and arguably the most nerve-wracking moment was watching all that new motivation, and confidence culminate in Bramble being sent across a flowing river, and instead of trying to find an easier place to cross, or giving up...she powered through a challenging current, over to the other side, picked her mark perfectly, and swimming back to deliver to hand.


The lake...

The orange netting is where the dummy is thrown into, to encourage the correct entry point. The speck on the other side is the blind

 

[Selina27]

Thanks so much for sharing all that, it sounds amazing. I'm sure Bramble was a credit to you.

 

[UncleBob]

Thanks for the update - that sounds great.

I've come across the PARTY concept before (is it an Absolute Dogs thing?) and thought how good it was - but then forget to sort out some high value treats to use for the training!

 

[Beanwood]

I've come across the PARTY concept before (is it an Absolute Dogs thing?) and thought how good it was - but then forget to sort out some high value treats to use for the training!

I am not sure if it's from the Absolute dogs' toolkit, I think @snowbunny has mentioned using this technique but in a different context It really helped Bramble when we moved back to land retrieves today

 

[snowbunny]

It was from Amy Cook’s FDSA course on noise sensitivity. I’m excited to be taking her other course this term, and another one by Denise Fenzi on play. Registration starts today, yay

 

[Joy]

I really enjoyed reading this. Sounds a very productive course.

 

[Beanwood]

Group session - Marking

This was all about the ability to "mark" and the post-training discussion around the subject was very interesting!

Marking means simply the dog watching and remembering the fall of the dummy/bird. Some retreives are "seen" marks, literally meaning just that, the dog is encouraged to "see"...to grab the dog's attention, it could be shot or just banging the dummies together. Often a shouted "MARK!!" is enough. Memories are where they are "seen" however the dog is not immediately sent for the retrieve. It could be the dog may be sent later, or for others first. Blinds are the hardest, the dummy is placed (avoiding a scent trail..) without the dog watching. Usually in line with a landmark, or target post for lining the dog up.

So back to the training. This was a fun session, using a remote dummy launcher mounted onto the back of 4x4 go-cart.

Remote launcher, this has to be Bramble's most favourite game in the whole wide world! As soon as she spotted the launcher, she got very excited! We haven't used a launcher in quite a while, so I was interested to see how we would get on. It was good though to let her have fun, after the seriousness of last weekend's working test this was a lovely release for her!

,



We were stood randomly in the field when it was our turn, the dummy launcher was fired three times. The objective was for the dog to "mark" all three dummies. Then we sent our dog out without using hand signals, as technically these were seen.(nb: there are different cues used depending on type of retrieve) This was an unusually tough exercise, although being sent out for the first dummy was fairly straightforward, the second and third elicited a bit of confusion in the dogs. Anything other than a "seen" and the handler used hand signals, an arm stretched out to indicate the direction or line of the retrieve. In the real world of shooting, however, a number of birds could fall, and it's important the dog can mark all of them, and be able to be directed off them to an injured bird if necessary.
This is where the discussion ended up afterwards, when does a mark become a memory? How do we encourage our dogs to mark, and not refer back to the handler? If the dog assumes he will have one, maybe 2 retrieves are we in effect training our dogs to remember the fall of one, maybe two dummies? All interesting stuff. For Bramble, however, this was a breeze! Her marking has always been naturally good, and in this training context, she effortlessly marked not only her own but other marks too.
We still have a fair way to go, blinds need an awful lot of work, but since we started having parties during our short training sessions her motivation has definitely increased for retrieving dummies. I still do think however, dummies are just not her "thing" and her heart is well and truly in the shooting field itself.

 

[snowbunny]

J is currently sourcing the bits to make a remote dummy launcher for us! He found the remote control unit the other day - we can have anything from 50m range to a 4km range. MAAAAAAAARRRRRRKKKKK!!!!
I told him 150m was plenty enough range, thankyouverymuch!

I'm interested in your discussion. I would say that as soon as your dog it turned away from a mark, it becomes a memory and that a "perfect" mark is one that the dog doesn't take its eyes off (at least the general direction if it falls in cover) until sent to it. But I know nothing, so very interested to hear what the general consensus was.

 

[kateincornwall]

What a good girl she is , a credit to you @Beanwood . She reminds me very much of Sam , the thinking dog resonated with me . Your Devon training sounded fantastic x

 

[Beanwood]

What a good girl she is , a credit to you @Beanwood . She reminds me very much of Sam , the thinking dog resonated with me . Your Devon training sounded fantastic x

If I remember rightly they do have a little common ancestry between them! You are so right though, and I love her for it, a very thoughtful girl

 

[Beanwood]

4km range

4km??? No need to walk the dogs then!

I would say that as soon as your dog it turned away from a mark, it becomes a memory and that a "perfect" mark is one that the dog doesn't take its eyes off (at least the general direction if it falls in cover) until sent to it. But I know nothing, so very interested to hear what the general consensus was.

Yes, it was a very interesting discussion although a bit over my head!

So, I think the gist of the conversation was that in training steadiness, you could inadvertently train the dog to look at the handler, THEN send out you can get into a bit of a habit, instead of marking, dog is constantly referencing you for feedback. This compounded with a lot of single or double retrieves in training. The dog then expects to be handled, so when it comes to marking true seens you see hesitancy after sending your dog out initially.

What this looked like in training. 3 consecutive dummies fired. The dog is given the cue to "go!" (as you would in a seen mark..) Dog goes out to the mark and straight back to handler. Perfect. Immediately dog is asked to go for the second dummy. Dog runs out 5m or so and stops looks back at the handler. Then after a fair amount of handling, and then encouraging the dog to hunt in area, finally the dog finds the dummy. The third time is very much a re-run of the second run out. So the question was, did the dog actually mark dummy 2 and 3? Should he have needed handling? From the trainer's perspective, the dog should have marked all three as seens and gone straight out on cue. The handler thought after dummy 1, 2 and 3 were memories and were treated as such.

 

[Stacia]

A mark is when the dog sees it and is then sent. If something else happens after the dummy landing, in this case being sent for dummy number one, then 2 and 3 are memories and need to be directed. Though of course one could do it easily by orientating the body toward the dummy. Many dogs can remember three dummies but have some difficulty after that.

 

[snowbunny]

What do you mean by "handling"?

I guess from a handling perspective, I would go like this:
For marks, I don't use my hand to direct from the sit at heel. For memories and blinds I do.
So if there is just one mark, I send the dog on just a verbal cue, no lining up with my hand. However, if more than one has been fired, I will line the dog up with my hand because they need to know which one to go to; it may not be the last one, or the closest one. If they have seen the three dummies fall, then once I had lined them up, I would expect them to go out directly to them without needing to be stopped and handled any further. Maybe a hunt whistle once they reach the area, but I would expect them to remember the general position. That would be true of a memory as well as a mark, so I'm not sure I catch the differentiation the trainer and handler were making; the only difference I would normally have in my handling of them would be whether or not I use my hand to line the dog up. In any case, the dog can mark long or short, surely?

I'm not saying I could do that, but that's how I would expect it to look

 

[Stacia]

Exactly, you say it so much better than I do, but that is what I meant. Handling was the wrong expression in this case, by handling I should have said directing, ie lining the dog up.

 

[snowbunny]

I should have said "what does the trainer mean by 'handling'"; I was questioning that, not you; I think you said it just fine

 

[Beanwood]

guess from a handling perspective, I would go like this:
For marks, I don't use my hand to direct from the sit at heel. For memories and blinds I do.

Absolutely! However, it was obvious that handling was a bit of habit, even in a seen marked

And this was the consensus of the discussion. Anything that happens after the mark, ie: turning/walking away, doing something else, or someone else retrieving, meant handling was needed so the dog understood what was needed. If the dog had previously "marked" that fall, all the better as minimal handling would be required, which ultimately (after a neat delivery to hand..) is the goal.

"what does the trainer mean by 'handling'";

Yup...lining up, directing the dog with cues...

The point that the trainer was getting across, is that our dogs should be able to mark 3 dummies. I meant to add that the fall of the 3 dummies where in roughly the same place, (well 10 feet or so...) so we didn't need to change our positions, for example, turn 190 degrees...

 

[Stacia]

A bit strange firing off three dummies within 10ft of each other, though perhaps it is a gentle way of introducing remember three marks? Risk of swapping as well.

 

[MellowYellow]

I always use the mantra "Use as much handling as necessary, but as little as possible".

What a lovely girl Bramble is!!!

 

[Beanwood]

A bit strange firing off three dummies within 10ft of each other, though perhaps it is a gentle way of introducing remember three marks? Risk of swapping as well.

The dummies were quite far away from us, and when they landed they were deep in the long grass, so not easy to spot. The dogs tbh were quite advanced in training, and the purpose was about marking. Regarding swapping, good point, and maybe a concern for a less experienced dog, or one that where swapping was a habit.

 

[MellowYellow]

I tell Poppy 'mark' when I want her to note something. Not that I really need to, she is a natural born marker. But I agree it's good to help dogs learn their marking skills (and also good for the handler to sharpen up on marking, too).