My youngest daughter Payton has been wanting a German Shorthaired Pointer for a long time. Two weeks ago while we were camping the people across from us were walking one. So she starts talking to them. It was his brothers dog as his own GSP was at home with her puppies. She got their contact information and on Sunday morning we went and looked at them. So meet Rebel. He's 5 weeks old now. We met both Mom and Dad and they are AKC registered GSPs. We will pick him up in another four weeks.

Cool!

Awwe, puppy poops aplenty in your future!!!

RJ

:sweetheart:Cool:biggthumpup:

Good looking pup, Pat .

Do you have a quail wing? You can start right now with a fly rod and wing.  Pheasant, Chukar and Grouse work too. Find a game farm and you will find 'um! I love German Short Hairs, they are powerful and never tire.

Quote from: sakorickDo you have a quail wing? You can start right now with a fly rod and wing.

I don't but one will be acquired. The breeder had one and was working with them already. I am strongly considering paying to send him to a bird dog training for a month. I could probably do it but I'm afraid that I'd screw it up and end up with an expensive lap dog.

Quote from: Hunterbug;149178. I could probably do it but I'm afraid that I'd screw it up and end up with an expensive lap dog.

Yes, you can do it, you and Peanut. The dog has more natural instinct than any trainer and the key is to bring out the instinct. ANY  bird feathers work. Little denim bags full of unwashed feathers work. Pointing is a natural instinct as is retrieving. The denim bag full of feathers, great training aid, so have several. DON'T let the puppy have them for a toy. Tennis balls are toys.

Training the dog to follow the  three most basic one word commands is key. Sit, stay, here ( not COME or HEAL). A coaches whistle (if you can't whistle loudly and shrilly) to get his attention. Short one word commands that the dog hears everyday from the family will be what he keys on. YOUR voices, not just words.

I've hunted behind dogs that were trained to death and watched as they and their "masters" were made into fools by "lesser" dogs with no pedigree or papers.

HERE!! Sit, stay . . . .  treat ah ah, take it nice. If you are calm, so is the dog (see above, trained to death)

RJ

Quote from: recoil junky;149179Yes, you can do it, you and Peanut. The dog has more natural instinct than any trainer and the key is to bring out the instinct.

I've hunted behind dogs that were trained to death and watched as they and their "masters" were made into fools by "lesser" dogs with no pedigree or papers.

HERE!! Sit, stay . . . .  treat ah ah, take it nice. If you are calm, so is the dog (see above, trained to death)

RJ

Sit, Stay, Here and Fetch. You can do it!

I'm afraid I have to vote for "pay for it". I have trained my own dogs and been VERY happy with the results, but... I was young and had A LOT OF TIME! "Paying for it" doesn't mean that you have to go the full 9 yards and get the dog trained for field trial competition. Furthermore, you won't be training JUST the dog; you'll also be training Payton and yourself. You get the professional trainer to get the dog AND YOU the fundamentals, then you, Payton, and the dog know exactly what's going on for the rest of the dog's life. "Basic" training SHOULD BE inexpensive, and I would argue-and am- that it will be some of the best money you ever spend.

I rarely get time to pop onto THL but now and then something grabs my interest and I throw in an hour or two of keyboard exercise…..this is one of those times I think!

Quote from: recoil junky;149179“Yes, you can do it, you and Peanut”

I would love to say something so positive (and perhaps wishful), but I don’t know that you can do it at all. I know I can. I know some professional trainers can if they have a track record of doing so. I know some owners can too, but I also know 99% of normal/average owners can not. Of course it depends exactly what you wish to achieve with your dog, whether that’s just some basics or some very accurate training for very specific and important functions where mistakes must not happen. I am assuming you want a working dog (when being worked) which does the work WELL, every time, without a coin toss being involved in whether he will do exactly the right thing at exactly the right time. If you want that, my vote would be “take no chances” and get some professional help. Not necessarily having your dog trained “for you”, but trained “WITH you” would be my preference. Doing much of the shaping work yourself is definitely good (and wise) but the actual implanting of each command/function is best done by someone who does this stuff full time in my opinion. It’s likely that after that experience, you could approach another dog in years to come with a more confident attitude and perhaps do it all yourself second time round, but for now I would want it to be done right and the best way to do that is to have a professional show YOU how to train the dog, even if that means paying them to train the dog but with you being able to watch and see how they do it. Even then, I would say 90% of owners can’t just walk away and do it themselves, there is a lot going on which most people won’t even see let alone understand, but you have a better chance of being able to take the training further and train on your own in future.  If you can’t do that, but you can send the dog be trained for you by a reputable trainer, that’s not my ideal approach but it’s certainly better than taking a chance on being able to do something pretty **** complex on your own without any guidance from those who know this type of training inside out.

I cut all my children’s hair. I do a good job, FOR a novice. But if one of them wanted anything beyond “shorter hair which doesn’t get them beaten up when out in public” (which is my objective when I grab the scissors) then I would be happy to bung a few bucks at someone who does it day in day out, with an eye and skills honed over many years to do a much better job of it. It’s worth pointing out that if I do mess it up, it grows back. So I can’t do any more than temporary harm :). With a dog, permanent harm can certainly be done, or at least harm which can’t be undone without a LOT of expensive professional help to fix the accidentally or wrongly learned behaviours, responses, triggers, etc.

How much chance are you willing to take on getting it wrong? You have already invested heavily by choosing a pup from a reputable breeder of dogs which generally become the types of dogs you want in Rebel. Why spend good money on a good dog, and take a chance on what he develops into or how good his behaviour is? The training is more important than the dog. As RecoilJunkie alluded to, the papers and breeding is not the be all and end all of a good dog. I too have shown up some top dogs with a mutt from an accidental litter, no papers or pedigree to speak of. But the exception does not make the rule. So I would not choose to do that if I was getting a dog TO compete with (which I wasn’t), I just got lucky that the mutt in question had some awesome qualities which its 13 other litter mates did not possess and most went to rescue or were put down. In other words, LUCK plays a part. It plays a part in dogs from reputable lines too, but less so, therefore it makes sense to choose a dog based on its progeny. It sounds like you have done so there, and that’s a good start, but it is only a start. It’s equally important (more important in fact) that the conditioning and training is done well to ensure that the dog fulfils it’s genetic promise. If i had a choice of a dog from good lines trained by an average owner, or a dog from non-impressive lines but trained by a professional who had years of experience producing excellent trained dogs, the latter would be my choice every time.

I don’t know exactly what you want to achieve, or how important it is that you end up with a WELL trained dog, as opposed to a dog which just knows a few commands and occasionally comes shooting, making a few mistakes here and there. If you want a dog to perform well, it needs to be trained well. Can you do a GOOD job of it?  At this point it seems like we are discussing if you can do it at all. Maybe you can, maybe you can’t. But even if you think you can, can you do it WELL? I doubt it purely based on the fact that you are considering sending your dog to training. I wouldn’t consider sending my dog to training, for one reason and one reason only, I am absolutely sure I can train my dog to a higher standard than anyone I could pay. (Not for gun dog work I should add).  If I thought someone else could do it better, I wouldn’t hesitate to pay for that service and it would be silly of me (in my view) to try and do it myself just to prove a point, unless I was prepared to take a chance on the dog. Maybe you are happy to do that, if so that’s perfectly fine. But if you will be seriously disappointed if the dog doesn’t perform well, I would say take no chances and invest in some real expertise at least to begin with.

I have trained dogs to do just about every kind of canine work, except for gun dog work where I do not have as much experience. I have confidence I could do a good job of it, but even I would still pay a professional to at least show me them training some dogs and give me some pointers because hunting dogs are not something I have as much experience in, and I KNOW there will be things the pros know which I would only learn from years of practice on my own and would rather know it sooner than later. These things are not dog things, but hunting things. It’s a specialist area and while I might know enough about dogs to train them to do anything (as I believe I do), I am sure I would lack knowledge of all the various problems hunters come across with their dogs, so I need more info there. There is SO much going on with dogs which SO many people do not understand. Prey drive is the most misunderstood characteristic of a dog, especially a working breed, and often not even known about by most pet dog owners To make matters worse, it’s usually by far the most powerful drive in any dog. So the dog’s biggest motivation is often not even known about by most owners, but for those who are aware of it, they rarely understand how it works, why it works, and how to USE it. For any working dog, especially security, herding and gun dogs, prey drive is absolutely critical to training as it is that drive which the dog will be using for ALL of it’s work. It amazes me how many people think Border Collie’s have an instinct to “herd” sheep. They do not. They have an instinct to HUNT sheep. A very strong instinct too, so strong that they develop that “Collie Eye” which many people think is “proof” of their “herding instinct”. It is not that at all, it is the same “eye” which a leopard gives a gazelle :D. The skilful trainer knows that his job is to recognise and use that genetically-based drive/desire to HERD sheep instead of to chase and kill them. This involves keeping the drive very much alive, but to morph its objective (in the dog’s mind) to HOLD sheep in one place or MOVE them from place to place, using the “bribe” of catching prey yet never actually allowing the dog to do so. Most puppy Collies, for example on a working sheep farm, spend their time chasing the back sides of sheep and biting chinks of wool out of them. The ones that bite the most become the best herding dogs (in the right hands) as it’s a clear indication of the level of prey drive in each dog and the more the better, again when in the RIGHT hands. If left to its natural state (just relying on the dog’s instincts) that same dog would be a useless dog for herding, and many a farmer has got rid of a dog due to “biting sheep” without realising it’s the entire foundation of a great herding dog. If only they had one hour with me or someone else who could explain this, they would often realise they have a superb dog, rather than a “reject”. These strongly-driven, bouncy and predatory pups should be taught NOT to bite when they get there (which takes significant time and skill). The end result is a dog which never gets what it naturally seeks, understanding this is crucial to making sure the dogs KEEP working, otherwise the intelligent Collie might soon learn the chase isn’t fruitful and therefore isn’t worth bothering with, or might start chasing birds, cyclists, cars etc instead! (Collie owners might be nodding their head at this point!). Convincing the dog it might one day catch it’s prey, but owning it for 14 years, chasing sheep every single day, without it ever actually “catching one”, is a huge skill in itself. Understanding the dynamics of prey drive, and using it to change the natural behaviour of a dog isn’t something I can even discuss with most owners, let alone expect them to be able to do on their own. Hence I will often just DO this part of the training for them as it’s simpler, or often the only viable approach to end up with a well-trained dog. But my ideal owner would be someone who wants to learn, who watches me do it, listens during hours of discussion explaining every single tiny detail, and leaves knowing EXACTLY how their dog thinks, and how to use those thought patterns for the benefits they seek, as opposed to the very basic (but natural) prize the dog is seeking through his very simple natural motivations to find food, stay safe, and breed.  Can some owners do all of this on their own? Hmm, after a LOT of guidance, reading, and watching others, yes some can. But very very rarely in my experience. It’s not beyond them, it’s not a skill they can’t possess, it’s just a skill they do not currently possess. Just as I can’t do hair extensions and highlights, but no doubt could if I chose to learn such a pointless (for me) exercise :D

Quote from: recoil junky;149179The dog has more natural instinct than any trainer and the key is to bring out the instinct.

Natural instinct to do what exactly?
The dog has more natural instinct to SERVE ITS OWN OBJECTIVES yes. The trainer has more instinct to serve HIS. Do we want a dog which pleases itself? If so, why are we training? The “key” is not to bring out the instinct. The instinct comes out all by itself, no help needed, although it can be promoted and amplified with early conditioning, but that still doesn’t teach the dog anything, it just increases his instinctive drives. But the results we are after in a trained dog are often very different (i.e. exact opposite) to the dog’s own “natural instincts”. Retrieve training is a good example, although there is no shortage of good examples in any kind of dog training. The dog’s instinct is to chase the ball, again due to natural instincts to FEED (chase sudden moving objects which are likely prey in a canine historical environment). We adjust that, if we didn’t the dog (as many do) will most likely chase, grab, hide under a bush and chew the hell out of it, in some cases eating the tennis ball. Convincing the dog to NOT do what all it’s instincts dictate, but to do SOME of them, is one “key”. Controlling a high drive dog when you want it OUT of drive (laying silently and still, waiting patiently for a signal), is another “key”. Convincing the dog the object of it’s prey is not the reward of that specific hunt, is yet another “key”. Yet another huge “key” is in learning the dynamics of prey drive versus possessiveness, and how they interact in a linear fashion. High drive dogs naturally want to POSSESS (run off with, hide, or even guard in some cases) its prey item once “caught”. Learning how to keep a gun dog’s prey drive high, but avoiding the naturally-occurring possessiveness is yet another “key”.  I could go on, there is never one “key”. To say that a dog has all the instincts it will need to perform a VERY UNNATURAL function for the handler, is about as misleading as it gets, and further backs up the idea of learning from an experienced trainer.

Turning the dog’s perception of that ball (prey) into a REPRESENTATION (trigger) of a forthcoming meal, (or even a trigger for a forthcoming chase of ANOTHER prey item), but teaching the dog the ball itself is NOT the object of the hunt, is where it gets fun, challenging, and skilful. Many people can teach their dog to retrieve a tennis ball. Not so many can do a retrieve with a piece of meat dripping in blood, or a pig’s trotter (without any doggie tooth marks left behind). This is a great way to train the retrieve as it forces the trainer to FULLY learn how to intervene in the natural instincts of the dog, yes you can chase it, no you can’t eat it. Doing that without reducing the dog’s drive to chase the next one and retrieve it, is extremely challenging for anyone except someone who does this regularly, and even then a certain amount of talent and natural affinity for a dog’s way of thinking is ideally needed.  Without extremely good verbal corrections, it’s practically impossible. Oh, verbal corrections… another “key” to successful and accurate training.

Quote from: recoil junky;149179Pointing is a natural instinct as is retrieving.

Well that’s gun dog trainers out of business then. :D
Yes some things are natural instincts, retrieving is not however. Some breeds of dog have been selectively bred to have a higher propensity for retrieval of objects, generally breeds which are more biddable and have higher social drive and ‘natural obedience’ (which is simply a function of social drive - a group desire or desire to return the prey item to share with the social group, as opposed to a more ‘bullish’ self-centred solitary instinct). A bull-breed has very low natural propensity to retrieve. Labs have higher propensity. A well-trained dog of any breed has even higher :)
It’s interesting to note that Labradors and Bull Terriers didn’t just pop up out of thin air. They are the products of men. Generations upon generations of dogs bred and TRAINED and bred and TRAINED, selectively breeding them along the way to push the standards higher and higher, using the ones which respond and adapt best to the TRAINER’s chosen objectives, depending on the planned functions they had for each breed. Without good breeders AND trainers, we wouldn’t have all these wonderfully work-focussed breeds to choose from.

Quote from: recoil junky;149179DON'T let the puppy have them for a toy. Tennis balls are toys.

Ask a trainer about this. The feathers ARE the toy. A ball can also be. Although neither are actually a “toy” as far as the dog is concerned, they are a prey item, but for our human way of thinking and speaking, “toy” is a valid term. I suspect what RJ means is “don’t let your dog KEEP the item, only use it in controlled sessions”. If so, I agree. But not because it’s not a toy, it is precisely that, a toy but one which the dog doesn’t please itself with and keep in his bed etcetera. The reason is because the dog will destroy it. Why? Because it’s prey, and if a dog has prey, his instinct is to chew and eat it although most dogs know if something is edible or not, but that doesn’t mean they can switch off their desire to nail their teeth into it and rip it to pieces (with the aim of finding an edible part inside). Leaving any toy with any high drive working type dog is a recipe for buying more toys. Leaving toys with such a dog, replacing them repeatedly, can reduce their drive and make them far less responsive on the training field. I doubt that would be a problem with gun dogs but I don’t know, I know it is with some working dogs. If a bite sleeve is left with any security dog for 10 seconds after he ripped it off the guy’s arm, it’s time to buy a new one because it’s been shredded! He also might not chase the next guy quite so hard if he has the leftovers of the last one buried under a bush, as his instincts have already been at least partly satisfied. If he never gets to keep it and return to his den with it (like the Collie who never gets to shave the back end of a jumbuck) he will chase equally hard to do that next time, harder some people would argue, hence why most working dogs tend to get better with age until physical abilities get in the way.  

Quote from: recoil junky;149179Training the dog to follow the three most basic one word commands is key. Sit, stay, here ( not COME or HEAL).

Another key! Why “not COME or HEAL”?
Question - What does sit mean? This is where this stuff gets complex and interesting to see what each person wants from their dog. For instance, to most people I meet, sit means “put bum on floor”. To me it means ”put bum on floor AND DO NOT MOVE UNTIL TOLD TO”. I am yet to meet a person hear my definition, and not change their own. How many people want their dog, when hearing the word “Sit”, to tap its bum on the floor and run off? Me neither! So Sit means do it and stay there until freed from that command. For this reason:

1. One of the most fundamental commands to teach a dog is “FREE” (use whatever word you like, or visual signal, or whistle, or ……). For me, I use “GO” or “VORAN” but matters not what is used. The point is that SOMETHING is trained to tell the dog the last command has ENDED. This simple but crucial idea solves no end of behavioural problems in confused dogs who never seem to know when a command finishes, and making that clearly defined for the dog is “key” to making his life and his world simpler to understand, and thereby far less stressful.

2. If you teach your dog to sit or down, and assuming you want it to remain there until signalled to leave that position, what use is “Stay”? Food for thought. Sit means stay. Down means stay. Even Come means Stay. What I see at many training clubs, never mind households where it is even more prevalent, is dogs told to do something, and CHOOSE when to stop doing it. Sometimes they get no response (which becomes self-rewarding behaviour), sometimes they get “told off” because they broke too early. How can a dog know when something has finished, but because 99% of dogs are not taught a free command, they spend their lives trying to work out when the hell they are actually ALLOWED to leave a position, and always failing I might add. Confused dogs abound.

In my opinion, the first and most important commands any puppy/dog should be taught are, in order of priority:

NAME
YES (i.e. good boy)
NO (i.e. PSSSH, NO, STOP, AH AH……etc)

Until the dog knows those three, nothing else can be achieved with anything like the accuracy I would want in any dog I own. More importantly, it makes the dog learn much faster, and much more FAIRLY, it’s unfair to start training without a dog knowing when it did right and wrong by a verbal command, and leads to people using leashes and collars to try to transmit their disapproval which is when it begins to go wrong in my view. The NAME is not a tag (to humans yes, not to dogs). The name is a COMMAND. In my dogs it means “LOOK AT ME WITHOUT MOVING”. It’s just an attention-grabber. Some owners want their dog to come to their name (against my advice, but each to his own) and so this can be done instead, but what if the dog is sitting in the middle of the freeway and you want to get its attention to down the dog without it moving… thats my logic anyway. Name means “give me your undivided attention without moving” (and a clicker works wonders for this), YES means “you did good”, NO means “STOP THAT” - its not a punishment, it’s a POSITIVE command (takes some time to understand that!), which the dog is rewarded for obeying.

Once a dog knows (and I mean KNOWS 100%, taking as many weeks as necessary to ensure before moving on) these basic foundations, it can then be trained with what most people think are the most important early commands. To me that would be a recall, down and/or sit (i find sit fairly useless and for high drive dogs a bit unfair to expect of them when in drive), and then the others as needed. Heel for some dogs is crucial (herding dogs or guide dogs for blind), but counter-productive for others (certain security, police or military dogs) so its then down to what is needed in each dog. But the NAME, YES and NO are three things I think every dog should know before attempting anything else. I am yet to meet someone (trainers included) who do this, so I know it’s not something you read/hear very often, but in my experience it makes a WORLD of difference, as much for dogs as for their handlers. When I have retrained badly trained dogs, I often change their name and start from scratch, just to remove all the negative connotations (mistakes) implanted by others in the past. With the new name and a newly trained YES and NO, the change in these dogs is incredible, often physically apparent in their coat condition and general demeanour within a matter of days/weeks, never mind the obedience and clear-headedness which transpires every time. It de-stresses the tasks, clears up the complex world of human emotions and confusing communication signals we humans inadvertently employ with these simple creatures, and gives extremely CLEAR boundaries. Dogs understand static boundaries, they do not understand (and suffer in my view) variable boundaries which are almost guaranteed if we don’t implant some crystal clear YES and NO signals. After that, the dog loves learning, and is keen to learn more. I have lost count of how many dogs I have seen at trials and obedience comps which look utterly introverted and “trapped” mentally, like the kid who is persistently bullied at school to the point he would rather sit in a corner and attract no attention from anyone. They are trapped because they were never taught clear boundaries, and therefore their attempts to get it right have been worn out, leaving a dog which would just rather do nothing than risk doing the wrong thing, which they usually only find out they have done when a load of (incomprehensible) negative emotion comes their way from the one person in the world they believe they can trust. I have many visual memories of angry handlers waving arms in the air while their dog bolts for a hiding place, usually the car. Yet a matter of half an hour training a clear and concise verbal correction would transform the life of the dog, and the ego-driven desires of the owner too! A lack of early-trained clear verbal triggers for when boundaries are reached, combined with an owner with a lack of understanding (or even awareness) of a dog’s natural and simple drives, these two things are I believe the cause of 90% of dog behaviour problems and obedience flaws. This applies as much to “top competition dogs” as it does to pet dogs, perhaps even more so due to the added “pressure” of humans who are competing rather than just living at home with their dog.



As to what words you use for commands….

Quote from: recoil junky;149179Short one word commands that the dog hears everyday from the family will be what he keys on.

I can’t say it any other way than this…. do exactly the OPPOSITE of that! Short one word commands - yes, agreed. Although they don’t need to be “words” at all, whistles work better in most cases. But “that the dog hears everyday from the family” - No I can’t disagree more. You want words the dog ONLY hears when doing the exercise. If he hears it “everyday” he will become desensitised to the sound, and be so “used to it” that it will not represent much spike in his attention and as such his responses will slow down accordingly. I am so against this idea that I actually train all dogs (mine and others) with commands in another language, usually german or french but sometimes russian and even japanese, all depending on which sounds sound LEAST like other already trained commands, combining the lingual abilities of the owner too of course which often doesn’t stretch beyond cockney london shpeak. :D Hearing some of them try and speak french (a la Del Boy) is more than a tad hilarious which adds fun for me if nobody else. The last dog I trained for someone else has “PLATZ” for down, “ALLEZ” for GO (free from last command), “YESSS” for good boy (verbal reward) and “PSSSSSSSH” for NO or STOP THAT. Not only that, but the owner’s entire family are NEVER to use them. The dog only hears them from his owner.
In fact they are forbidden from being used in the house at all which keeps the dog totally sharp to them out on the field. If they want the dog to lay down, they teach a “house down” which is a softer version, and the dog can stumble over to his bed, or make a few turns before curling up by the fire. Very different to DOWN (like a Collie, instantaneous and sharp/alert). Look how different the two behaviours are, hence it’s two commands in my book. “go and lay down” is one. “PLATZ” is another. (not shouted either, just a little more sharp and not surrounded with other wasteful words and background noise.
There are various reasons why this works so well, but the main one is the fact that the dog DOES NOT hear it very often, and that the handler will never use them “by accident”, or in conversation around the home etc. If you buy a new car, you notice them when you see them on the road, yet you don’t notice hundreds of other cars. This is because of your mental interest level being higher in the car you bought (to sub consciously justify your purchase, apparently). See “Scatoma” (EDIT - Read ScOtoma in place of Scatoma, oops!) - we have a mental scatoma for cars we are not interested in, but when we see one we are interested in (consciously or sub-consciously) we get a full clear and sharp view of it as our attention is drawn towards it. That’s the same for dogs and what they hear from us. We can create a scatoma for them by using commands they hear all the time, or we can make it as rare (and rewarding) as possible when they do infrequently hear it, thus making it far more attention grabbing and interesting. We want the dog to have HUGE interest in the chosen commands. Hearing them daily when they are NOT directed at him is a guaranteed way to REDUCE his interest in them, and thereby reduce his responses to them. It’s the best way to RUIN a well trained dog! It’s another reason I often change commands in a dog I am training (which has been trained by other people). i often start by asking the owner “what sounds or words do you NEVER hear in your house”? That’s the start of the choice of commands. There is one more very important reason why this works so well, for example the last dog I trained - his owner was a security handler and also did sport competition and competitive obedience. He wouldn’t mind me saying (if he read this) that he is not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Explaining his limitations was part of the first discussion with him! I don’t mean he isn’t intelligent, he certainly is. But his REACTION times and speed of thought are not great, pretty awful actually, painful to watch while imagining I was his poor dog at times! I listened to him using old commands with his dog and he would often mix them up, same with his body language and visual triggers (most of which he had no awareness of). So the choice of very different commands, and in another language he can’t even speak, means that he will NEVER use them “by accident”, in conversation, or when telling the kids to “SIT DOWN” or “STAY THERE” etcetera. To tell the dog to stay he uses “ATTENDS” (pronounced “ATTON”), to tell the dog to come he uses “VENEZ” (venay). It worked like magic, because as usual, there was actually no problem with the dog, the problem was with Dave and his constant misuse of the words when the dog “was not supposed to be listening”, whatever that means!! A dog is ALWAYS listening, that’s what makes them such superb and able creatures! Teaching HIM that his dog is always listening (and watching) solved a myriad of problems. But the new commands, trained positively with clicker, prey drive, food in some cases, all very positive and enjoyable for the dog, made him respond like lightning. While I did train the dog well, it wasn’t the training which made the dog a great dog (he is now the envy of every club he goes to and Dave is constantly being offered silly money for him to use as stud, go figure?!). What made him a great dog was de-cluttering his life of all the junk, and providing a handful of triggers which he has nothing but positive associations with (all except for the emergency stop, which has a negative association and must). In short, the dog was already a great dog as most dogs are, but his hundreds of hours of “training” in inexperienced hands (as well as some experienced but nevertheless inept hands) had imprisoned him in a fog of uncertainty and mixed messages. I simply freed him from those past experiences (by de training some things which is **** hard work), gave him some new commands he has never heard and will never hear unless Dave engages his brain fully beforehand! The superb underlying dog then just emerged as if by magic. Last time I saw him, I heard Dave a couple of times shouting the old commands. The dog just didn’t respond, perfect! Then I could actually see Dave turning his thinking wheels in his head, remembering what to say, and then using the correct new commands, to which the dog responded like a camera flash. The fact he has to THINK about the commands before he gives them has reduced the mistakes (badly timed commands) by 90% or more.
So when choosing commands, my advice would be use something you never ever say, nobody in your household ever says, and the dog will be unlikely to ever hear in his entire life, except when you engage your own mind in a deliberate effort to issue that command. Obviously other people can use those commands and they will work just fine, but they won’t accidentally shout them at the telly when they are watching America’s Got Talent (sorry, no offence intended :D).

Quote from: recoil junky;149179I've hunted behind dogs that were trained to death and watched as they and their "masters" were made into fools by "lesser" dogs with no pedigree or papers.

I think that simply translates to “My dog performs better than some dogs with better pedigrees who were trained to death” whatever the last three words mean. I am sure it’s true. But it isn’t proof of anything, it’s just an anecdote, and a risky one to read too much into. I have seen some women who can fight better than some men. Are women better fighters than men? I have seen female fire fighters pass the tests along with men, would I want a 5’5” woman fire fighter to run into my burning house to save my child rather than the 6’6” man standing next to her? Nope. The probabilities don’t favour her chances over the other guy, even though she may well be perfectly capable, but I would prefer to keep probabilities in my favour. It would be foolish to use this as evidence to support the argument that everyone should train their own dog and get dogs without decent papers which seems to be the intended implication.  

Quote from: recoil junky;149179If you are calm, so is the dog

Generally speaking this is a very valid point and one I totally agree with.
Some other truisms…
“If you are accurate, so is the dog”
“If you are talented, so is the dog”
“If you are disciplined, so is the dog”
“If you know what you are doing, so does the dog!”

If you are calm, but don’t know what you are doing, the dog will be calm, but won’t know what he is doing either. :)
(I am not suggesting Hunterbug won’t know what he is doing. I have no idea of that)



That’s my allocated forum time up for another month :D


I will finish with a simple analogy which I think is relevant here….

Do you want a pet dog which can do a bit of work, or a well-trained working dog which is a nice pet when not working?

A pet dog is a Toyota Prius, a finely-tuned and accurately trained working dog is a Ferrari.

I would service my own Prius using a handbook off ebay, and be confident in what I am doing but aware I might make a mistake or two, easily rectified with a trip to any cheap garage.

I would take my Ferrari to the most knowledgeable and experienced Ferrari specialist I could find, I can’t afford mistakes there.

The choice is yours and you will have 10-15 years to reap the rewards (or otherwise) of your decision. He’s a cute little feller and looks packed with working potential thanks to good breeding. To me that would be a Ferrari, so paying less than the cost of the dog to ensure it became the dog it was bred (and purchased?) to be for the next decade or more, seems like an easy decision to me! I wish you all the best with the pup whatever you decide.

P.S. As Paul said, you don’t need to spend a lot on a professional, just milk as much info from him as you can over a few short sessions, then you WILL be armed with many of the necessary tools to go and do most of the follow on training yourself. Yes training will take MASSES of time, but it will whether you use a professional or not, as a trainer will train a command, you then shape it continuously after that into something much more accurate and reliable. A trainer can’t be you, he can however cement the foundations in the dog, and that’s a valuable thing. So paying isn’t a way to avoid work or time invested between you and Payton, it is (in my view) simply a way to avoid as many early mistakes as possible, and get the relationship and training kicked off on the right foot. You will ultimately be the one who puts in the many hours of training this dog, but paying to make sure YOU get it right, that’s a very wise idea in this fairly experienced person’s opinion :)

Don't short-shrift it, SmokeyJoe, tell us what you really think. :D (I read every word.)

Hunting behind a well-trained dog is as close to heaven on earth I think I will ever see. Hunting with 'partially trained' dogs is, in my experience, exactly the opposite.

Paul

Quote from: gitano;149189Don't short-shrift it, SmokeyJoe, tell us what you really think. :D

Naah, I prefer the minimalist approach. :D

Quote from: gitano;149189Hunting behind a well-trained dog is as close to heaven on earth I think I will ever see. Hunting with 'partially trained' dogs is, in my experience, exactly the opposite.

Agreed there, doing anything with a well-trained dog is heaven, so long as it's the same thing me and the dog think we are doing!

WOW! There is a lot of information there and good information. I don't need a trials dog, i.e. a Ferrari. More like a Mustang, i.e. a dog that I can trust to return when I call it, will fetch, point, and retrieve birds. And not be gun shy or yank your arm off when you try and take him for a walk. There is a place locally that does gun dog training. They do classes on Saturday mornings or even individual trainings as well as a month long training where they keep the dog and you come out to work with them.

*Scatoma

https://www.merriam-webster.com/medical/scatoma

I'm sure you did not mean that....on the other hand...