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Subject: [working-gundog] Cross post - "Training dogs to point, or not?"

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jmurr

MH
Posts:158

07/09/2007 2:04 PM
By request from a lurker on another forum, I send this which I put there. Some of you will see your own influences on my thinking. I thank each of you for same. on the subject: Training dogs to point, or not? In response to the questions: "what do you guys see as training a dog to point. Is whoa breaking a dog training him to point, is whoaing a dog after he has already started pointing teaching a dog to point, is doing a lot of fly aways teaching a dog to point, or is using a check cord and pulling the dog back teaching a dog to point." I wrote - slightly edited: Anything done by the trainer that disrupts or adversely influences the interaction between the dog and bird which precedes a point is contrary to the dog developing or holding a solid natural point. "Point" can neither be trained nor taught, it is an hereditary behavior. In the great majority of cases pointing is not the young dog's first choice response to locating a bird. Most dogs will initially pressure the bird excessively and chase after the resulting flush. After some experience at this futile, energy intensive endeavor, most dogs with decent natural point will stop pressuring birds into flush. They will start "flash" pointing the birds and then may over-pressure the bird but no longer chase. This is the usual starting point for developing trained steadiness. Fly-aways essentially mimic the above mentioned natural process one sees when a young dog is run to interact with wild birds that repeatedly escape. Whether this "teaches" the dog to point or "brings out" the innate point inherent in the dog is essentially a matter of semantics or word definition. As long as there is no human interference and it is all between the dog and the bird a point will develop - unless the balance between point and chase in the dog is too skewed towards chase. In this case, too much chase relative to the point, the dog may be one for which the chase is "self-reinforcing," and the dog will not naturally give up chase. In well bred pointing dogs this is rare. Still, it is recognized in pointing dog circles, that dogs with high chase (the vernacular term would be "high drive" or "high prey drive) require more work to establish good steadiness habits than those with lower chase. Dogs can be trained to stop and stand when they see or detect the scent of a bird. This is a trained obedience behavior not a natural point. But, in dogs with a high natural pointing instinct, handled by trainers/handlers who do not interfere with the dog's future interactions with birds in the field over a long period of time, the stand may eventually be replaced by a point. Folks with lots of experience have told me "long period of time" approaches a year in some cases, exceeds a year in most. They also seem universally to feel the dog trained this way never learns to handle (wild) birds as well as the dog developed in a more natural manner. In the case of dogs with a low level of natural point, it would appear unlikely that the stand would ever be replaced by something that really wasn't there to begin with. I have proposed, more than once now, the use of a strong force method to train a dog to sit rather than stand and layer the scent/sight of birds onto that command (just as described in a video produced by a well known dog trainer) to see just how readily the trained behavior (sitting birds) is replaced by the natural pointing behavior in a decent pointing dog prospect. How I would interpret "using a check cord and pulling the dog back" would have to depend on the details of the action and context in which this was done. In the context of the dog breaking point being corrected via CC (pulled back) prior to the bird flushing there is a real danger the dog will become a blinker or birds. Interestingly enough, CC stopping the dog from chasing AFTER the bird has flushed does not generally seem to have this adverse effect. The system I have learned to use to develop point and manners on game does not do this (pull the dog back) though a CC is used on birds to help train stop to flush and (some folks) use it very lightly to discourage the dog from breaking point. Because, in this method, it is used to stop a dog which has either rushed a bird w/o pointing or broken point AFTER the bird flushes it might appear it is being used to "teach" a dog to point. In reality, the CC here is used to stop chase and enforce stop to flush depending on when in the dog's development it occurs. The dog's natural alternative behavior to chase is point. I've been told even some springers, excessively pressured to "stop to flush," may begin "pointing." I've also been told "Those dogs are not bred." "whoa breaking" - depends on just what you do in the "whoa breaking" process. If all you do is train the dog to "whoa" on hearing the command; no birds involved at any stage, never use the command while the dog is interacting with a bird to establish a point; then "whoa breaking" is just an OB exercise. If you layer the sound/sight of a wild flushing bird (one that has neither been seen or scented by the dog prior to the flush) onto the "whoa" you are training a "stop to wild flush" which will have some value in establishing "steady to flush" when birds are flushed in front of the dog pointing them and tends to intensify the natural point of the dog. If you put birds which the dog detects by scent, sight or sound into the equation while the dog is on a commanded stand in an effort to "proof" the stand, you are creating an ambiguous situation for the dog. The dog will then be conflicted as to whether it should stand when a similar situation occurs in the field or it should obey its instincts and point. Using "whoa" on a dog that has established a point forces the dog to make a decision: remain pointing, fully aware of the bird and its actions and responsive to them; or stop pointing and stand giving the handler the attention demanded of the command. OTOH, using "whoa" to stop a moving dog after a bird has been flushed - either by handler or dog - is appropriate as decent "manners on birds" calls for a stand in that situation rather than a point. Bird dog fieldtrialers handle this strange situation by using "whoa" at some predetermined point while the handler moves forward to flush the pointed bird - usually the rule is the dog can transition to stand when the handler passes the dog's shoulder. This is a precaution on the handler's part and a fully trained, steady dog should allow the handler to proceed to flush without needing any "whoa" command. Some dogs (notable some versatile breeds) will naturally transition to a stand anyway somewhere in the process. My preference is to leave the whole deal between the dog and bird and only consider a purposeful flush of the bird by the dog a breaking of the rules. If one wants a naturally self-relocating dog which handles and pins moving birds one has to let the dog have its head. One needs to decide just what he wants to be between the dog and the bird and what he wants or needs to go to the trouble to train. I prefer to have the search, the location of suspected birds, the point and any necessary relocations of point which result from moving birds to all be between the dog and birds. All the "steadiness" stuff: holding on point at least until the shooter gets into decent shooting position, steady to wing, to shot, and to fall, and stop to wild flush are all, usually, trained behaviors which follow from a trained stand. The in-the-field cues (commands if you must) which require these "steadies" are layered onto the cue that originally demands the stand (if the training is done sequentially) or developed together (if the more efficient "parallel" procedure is followed) in a manner similar to the layering of a whistle blast onto the verbal "sit" which results in the dog sitting when it hears the whistle blast without the verbal. Ideally, backing or honoring another dog's point would be between the dogs but natural backing is not universal so this may need to be trained if it is a desired behavior. Jere

rospigan

MH
Posts:372

07/10/2007 1:46 AM
Jere wrote: >>>>By request from a lurker on another forum, I send this which I put there. Some of you will see your own influences on my thinking. I thank each of you for same. on the subject: Training dogs to point, or not?>>> There is an interesting amount of variables to consider when discussing this subject. It is adventurous to try to split the problem into 2 main questions and I am probably doing wrong in trying to do so. Long ago, in 1993 I believe it was, we attended the first birddog class at the Swedish Dog Training Centre. It was from Monday to Friday, long but interesting days. Now, afterwards when we are instructors and perhaps understand some things better it is very educational to think back and see what kind of pre-requisite those instructors had. They had 5 days and 14 more or less wild dogs of 7 different breeds and 14 more or less stupid handlers and in that limited time with that huge variation in mentality among both dogs and handlers they had to show so much progress so that we pupils would recommend the class for our friends when we came back home from it! It is easy to understand that there was no room or time to coax very much with each individual dog and handler but the same comb was used to polish all of them. Of course, after that class me and Maud had a bit single minded view of birddog training. After some years and experience the view started to widen and finally it became so complex so today I personally am tempted to say that I know nothing about birddogs or any other dogs - at least not until I know the dog and its handler better. The two main questions are: Who are you and where are you hunting? Take two extreme practical examples: Are you an immensely rich man, living 120 years ago, who has dedicated his entire life for dogging the moors of Scotland for grouse? The environment you are hunting in decides the type of dogs you are using and how they are trained. In those days the Scottish moors were covered with game and there was no need for far ranging, hard going dogs with a lot of stamina, a lot of prey drive, lot of self-willed and independent action. You did not have one dog only but maybe 6, handled by servants, that could share the work of the day. You wanted style and discipline from the dogs, independent work was not needed due to the game density. The game density also allowed you to train the dogs to perfection on wild bird. On the other hand the moors are often soft and heavy to walk and run on so you needed a lot of dogs to share the strain. Whatever, no matter how many dogs you run during the day, all of them most likely got immediate reward for their work. It may not be entirely wrong to say that one particular type of dog was best suited for hunting in this very special environment, and this type of dog was the one you seek and bred. Or are you the ordinary working man in today's Sweden who can afford to have one or two dogs only, train them by yourself in your free time and run them on hard bare mountain terrain for a week in a row on ground where it might take 3 days to find the first bird or covey. Should your dog collapse due to mental or physical fatigue after the second day, then you have no changes to taste the wonderful meat of a grouse. What you need is a stubborn dog, ranging wide to cover as much ground as possible, with mental and physical stamina to do it every day of the week. Days might pass before the dog gets a reward, still this lack of reward must not slow the dog down the least, it has to maintain a positive attitude all the time. At least to me it seems quite obvious that these two types of dogs must be totally different to train. These two examples are fictive and within both of them, in real life, there is a huge variation of conditions that will influence both the handler and his ability/pre-requisite and how the ideal dog is bred and trained. It is sometimes immediately easy to see that the dog itself is a problem from birth but most often you have to poke in the background of dog and handler to find the root to possible problems. If a group of hunters hunt in a specific environment for any length of time they will consciously or unconsciously breed dogs that are more and more suited for this environment, and not to the environment but also to the culture they live in. Even in the same environment the general relation to a dog or any animal, domestic or wild, will vary a lot depending of the culture that thrives in this particular society, and that will influence how their working dogs are bred. What do I want to say with this input? I do not really know. I guess the internet and the vicinity to two other countries, Norway and Finland, has given me too much to think about, more than I can handle )) Torsti Borta Med Vindens Kennel "Ask not what your dog can do for you. Ask what you can do for your dog." www.rospigan.net

mcotton

MH
Posts:87

07/11/2007 4:14 AM
Whilst stamina is indeed important, all you really need is a dog that loves the hunt. We think "dog/bird" but I am sure there is much more going on. Maybe it can be likened to someone who talks of their hobby all the time, they are so wrapped up in it. I think it is a state of mind because dogs of so many different temperaments can all display this dedication to hunting. >>> no need for far ranging, hard going dogs with a lot of stamina, a lot of prey drive, lot of self-willed and independent action.

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