There have been quite a few developments in the training stakes. It's difficult to know where to post to be honest, because I'm striving to produce a really polite well behaved dog on the one hand and potentially a satisfactory gundog on the other. It all got rather depressing when Poppy decided she would forget everything and pretty much go back to being nice but wild. She's even gone to being unpredictable with other dogs. Our trainer keeps the faith, though. She keeps drumming into me that Poppy is a fantastic dog and we just need to find a way forward.
Last week Judy got in touch to say she'd like to try clicker training coupled with a slightly different approach. I duly bought a clicker from Amazon and spent the next few days "charging" the clicker and then yesterday made the 28 mile trip to another session. It went well. I think it was sufficiently interesting to report on it.
We used the small paddock so Poppy had limited range. It's about 200 yards long by 75 yards or so wide, stock fenced and with some nice bits of cover in it. Judy said she'd been doing a bit of homework on how Poppy had probably been trained and she was going to try and skew our sessions around what should be familiar to Poppy. We kicked off with what commands to use with Poppy having decided the existing ones were probably poisoned now. I said I'd recently started to use "let's go!" for recall so we agreed on that. I had been using "out" the out run but we decided to use "get it!" instead as a general catchall for go out and find.
While we were chatting about that we'd let Poppy wander off to investigate a bit and "empty" so she was more settled and comfortable.
We kicked off with heal work on lead, so walking up with stops and sitting and click and treat on eye contact. We then progressed to off lead and sit/stay with a recall and click and treat on eye contact. I think this was to get me organised with clicking and clicker timing.
Judy then took Poppy and placed a (shock horror!!!!) BALL ON A ROPE in the long grass and heeled Poppy away from it. She had high value cheese treats secreted in a little Velcro dummy and treated Poppy from it when she sat. This involved that Velcro noise when you undo it. Then she sent Poppy out after the ball on a rope. I have to say I expected the Pop Dog to rush off all over and indeed she started to veer off but pulled right back on target at the sound of the Velcro, and delivered. That's amazing really because a ball on a rope was her reward when working and she'd been allowed to run all over with it.
I took over and heeled Poppy down the paddock while Judy placed the Velcro dummy in cover unseen by Poppy. Judy walked down to where I had Poppy sat up next to me on the lead. Aim and fire with "get it"! Poppy heads off at a fast trot in the general direction with reinforcing "get it's" from me. She picks up the scent, homes in, picks, recalls and delivers, sits and click and treat.
We repeated this a couple of times with different dummies and all good with just one tendency to veer of on one of the retrieves. I was really encouraged.
So the short term plan until the next session is continue to reinforce the clicker, and try Poppy on the occasional completely blind retrieve where she has not sighted where the dummy has been placed. It's essential that she has to use her nose. If she's successful leave it at that.
We are working on her very strong desire to use her nose coupled with completely structured training around that - heel work, sit and remain sitting until the next command etc.
Poppy was exhausted when we got back yesterday and slept like a log so I think we had her using her brain and I think that's good.
On another subject, we have a lot of holidays backed up after delays from the time of Covid. One in particular worried me because it's for 15 days in November and was booked long before we had Poppy. We wouldn't have done that if we had known she was going to be around because I think that length of time in kennels would not be good for her mentally or physically. Well she's now booked with Judy for the 2 weeks with her and her dogs in a working/training environment. Poppy love Judy and I think that time with her will really pay dividends as well as being much better for Poppy.
Last week Judy got in touch to say she'd like to try clicker training coupled with a slightly different approach. I duly bought a clicker from Amazon and spent the next few days "charging" the clicker and then yesterday made the 28 mile trip to another session. It went well. I think it was sufficiently interesting to report on it.
We used the small paddock so Poppy had limited range. It's about 200 yards long by 75 yards or so wide, stock fenced and with some nice bits of cover in it. Judy said she'd been doing a bit of homework on how Poppy had probably been trained and she was going to try and skew our sessions around what should be familiar to Poppy. We kicked off with what commands to use with Poppy having decided the existing ones were probably poisoned now. I said I'd recently started to use "let's go!" for recall so we agreed on that. I had been using "out" the out run but we decided to use "get it!" instead as a general catchall for go out and find.
While we were chatting about that we'd let Poppy wander off to investigate a bit and "empty" so she was more settled and comfortable.
We kicked off with heal work on lead, so walking up with stops and sitting and click and treat on eye contact. We then progressed to off lead and sit/stay with a recall and click and treat on eye contact. I think this was to get me organised with clicking and clicker timing.
Judy then took Poppy and placed a (shock horror!!!!) BALL ON A ROPE in the long grass and heeled Poppy away from it. She had high value cheese treats secreted in a little Velcro dummy and treated Poppy from it when she sat. This involved that Velcro noise when you undo it. Then she sent Poppy out after the ball on a rope. I have to say I expected the Pop Dog to rush off all over and indeed she started to veer off but pulled right back on target at the sound of the Velcro, and delivered. That's amazing really because a ball on a rope was her reward when working and she'd been allowed to run all over with it.
I took over and heeled Poppy down the paddock while Judy placed the Velcro dummy in cover unseen by Poppy. Judy walked down to where I had Poppy sat up next to me on the lead. Aim and fire with "get it"! Poppy heads off at a fast trot in the general direction with reinforcing "get it's" from me. She picks up the scent, homes in, picks, recalls and delivers, sits and click and treat.
We repeated this a couple of times with different dummies and all good with just one tendency to veer of on one of the retrieves. I was really encouraged.
So the short term plan until the next session is continue to reinforce the clicker, and try Poppy on the occasional completely blind retrieve where she has not sighted where the dummy has been placed. It's essential that she has to use her nose. If she's successful leave it at that.
We are working on her very strong desire to use her nose coupled with completely structured training around that - heel work, sit and remain sitting until the next command etc.
Poppy was exhausted when we got back yesterday and slept like a log so I think we had her using her brain and I think that's good.
On another subject, we have a lot of holidays backed up after delays from the time of Covid. One in particular worried me because it's for 15 days in November and was booked long before we had Poppy. We wouldn't have done that if we had known she was going to be around because I think that length of time in kennels would not be good for her mentally or physically. Well she's now booked with Judy for the 2 weeks with her and her dogs in a working/training environment. Poppy love Judy and I think that time with her will really pay dividends as well as being much better for Poppy.
