Thursday, May 7, 2009
Question - Pressure Oriented Training
A couple of days ago, I received an email from a Boykin owner that lives north of the Mason Dixon Line. He is experiencing something that is not uncommon when Boykins are trained by trainers unfamiliar with the breed, so he was seeking my advice. He has his Boykin in training with a trainer who primarily trains labs. His letter will better explain what he has seen in the dog and is experiencing.
Dear Mr. Black.
I have had the pleasure of talking with you when you were with Wildrose. Congrats on your own operation. I have the best Boykin in my State. And you can ask me that any time and you will get the same answer.., but I have a concern. He has been my buddy and best friend for the last two years. I have trained him so that he has an HRC started title. Then others told me that the dog can go a long way and you should get him to a pro. So we sent him out and he has not come very far as far as I’m concerned. He is unbelievable as far has his feelings for me. When I go to the kennel to see him he goes crazy and a lot of what they are trying to do goes out the window. I didn’t use a lot of e-collar. Just a lot of reps and love for him. The pro is wonderful but he is a lab man and uses a lot of e-collar work. At a fun test my dog didn’t work for him at all in the first round but tore the test apart while working for me in the second round. Great enthusiasm while he was with Dad. I don’t want to upset anybody but think its time for my boy to come home might I get your opinion. He has been there for three months. I don’t want him broken either.
Yours Truly
M.R.
Before addressing the issue of pressure oriented training, I want to first address the use of an ecollar. Ecollars are not bad, people are bad. The ecollar does not ruin a dog, it is people that ruin dogs. An ecollar, when properly used can be a very effective training aid. Ecollars, in my opinion, should never be used to train a dog, instead, they should be used only to correct known obedience commands Therefore if you are working on casting drills and you send your dog out for a retrieve and the dog gets off line, you blow the stop/sit whistle and the dog ignores you. Since the dog is far out, the ecollar can provide you instantaneous ability to correct the dog at the exact, precise point of the infraction. While I will always prefer training dogs without the use of the collar, I do on occasion have no other option. Had the dog been raised properly as a pup, then the dog has all the obedience commands engrained to the point of habit which is required if you do not want your dog trained on an ecollar.
One should never allow their temper to control the ecollar. Whether using an ecollar or not, when you find yourself loosing your temper, the training session should end for the day right then and there.
At my recent “Raising Pup” seminar, I had my daughter voluntarily hold the ecollar in the palm of her hand while a client controlled the transmitter. As soon as he went from level 1 through level 3, everyone in the group wanted to try it. My point was to show them that with ecollars, at levels normally used, the actual shock is very mild. While they can be turned to a level that is not mild, I am not an advocate of using the collars on these levels. So just because someone uses an ecollar to train with does not make them a bad person or trainer. Further, I want to clarify that the use of an ecollar I do not consider to be pressure oriented training. It is not any different than using a slip lead or choke chain in order to get the dog to sit, heel, or recall. They are simply learning about how to turn the pressure off.
Pressure Oriented Training: The best description of a Boykin Spaniel I have ever heard was made by Pam Kadlec of Just Ducky Kennels. In fact it is the tag line on the cover of her book, “Retriever Training for Spaniels”. The description is: Boykins are Soft Tempered, Hard Headed, Intelligent Dogs”. This hits the nail square on the head when talking about Boykin Spaniels. I only wish I had been the person to first come up with that description.
The part of the description that is too often overlooked is the “Soft Tempered” part. With a soft tempered dog, too much pressure through correction or force to retrieve can cause them to shut down on you. Total refusal is where they will cower and lie down in many cases. In comparing a lab to a Boykin, temperament wise, the average lab in the United States is far from soft tempered. In fact, there are breeders and trainers that prefer to cull out the softer tempered dogs. While over in Britain, they tend to cull out the dogs of stronger temperament and keep the softer tempered dogs. For the American Field Trial Labs, I do not disagree with their approach to breeding and training. It is what is required to develop a line of dogs that will perform to these extremely high levels. Levels not required for the average person wanting a good hunting dog and family companion. This soft temperament in a Boykin Spaniel is what we have all fallen in love with in the breed. It is something that we do not and should not breed out. We just have to realize it takes a different approach to training.
Millie Latimer of Rock n Creek Kennels in St. Matthews, SC has often stated that Boykins do not take to the drill sergeant approach to training. I agree, the approach has to be more fun for them, but that does not omit obedience. I will fully explain my approach to training with a template in a future article, which tells how to take a Boykin and get the required work in, while keeping the dogs’ spirit high the entire time and always ending on a happy note.
When taking a dog to a professional trainer, regardless of the reason you made this decision, the less you have done with the dog as a pup, makes the trainers job all that much harder. This is the single biggest issue professional trainers have. If you have done little to nothing with your dog, or gotten the obedience part of the way engrained then just let it go out the window during the teenage years, and then the trainer is required to apply a given amount of pressure in order to get the dog to perform. This level of pressure should vary according to the individual dog. Since we live in a society of instant gratification, people want instant results out of their dog. We often are expected by owners to train into a dog (obedience) in 30 days, what should have been done over the course of 6 to 8 months. Knowing that you will only have to dog in training for a limited amount of time, this is where the pressure starts coming in and dogs being forced to perform.
Boykins and their softer temperament need a different approach, still using pressure, but in smaller degrees. I like to use the concept of showing a dog what I expect of them. For example: If I have a dog that goes out and picks up the bumper and wants to run off or play around before coming back, instead of applying pressure to recall through the use of the ecollar, I prefer to stop them and show them what it is I expect. If using the ecollar, I will blow the stop/sit whistle and if the dog does not stop and sit, then the collar correction is applied. Now I blow the recall and have the dog come back into me. If the dog has dropped the bumper, then I will walk out to the dog, place them at sit facing me and put the bumper into their mouth and command “Hold”. I will walk back to my original location and recall the dog into me. It may take numerous times to get this habit started, but by doing it this way and showing them what I expect, I am eliminating the possibility of shutting a dog down through the use of too much pressure. Sure, it may take longer to accomplish this, but I have eliminated the possibility of shutting the dog down.
Another common aspect of retriever training that has grown more and more popular is the use of Force Fetch and Force to Pile. First, if my entire goal was to obtain field trial and hunt test titles, then I most likely would consider this method. Since that is not my goal, then I prefer not to follow this line of thinking and training and have found that my methods do in fact work. I have trained with the Force or higher pressure methods, but once I learned the alternative, I found it a lot more productive for my dogs and more conducive for the Boykin Spaniel.
Force Fetch: In its’ origin, Force Fetch was developed by the bird dog trainers, primarily for the English Pointer. While there is not a better dog in the world for covering large tracts of ground and locating birds than the English Pointer, they are terrible retrievers. So the trainers devised a method they referred to as Force Fetch, in order to be able to get their dogs to retrieve on command, without fail. As it turned out, it worked great for them. In the retriever world, primarily the Field Trial World for retrievers, they found that this worked well for them, especially with some of the jacked up lines of dogs their breeding programs produced for the purpose of field trialing. With most of the professional trainers heavily involved in these trials, they started applying it to their hunting dog clients as well. Now for the lab world, this worked out fine. Many of them use this as a guideline of whether a dog will make it in their program or flunk out. Many of these trainers (not all) feel that if the dog cannot stand the pressure then the dog is not worth training or not capable of being trained. I am of the opinion that these trainers should be bending their training method to match each individual dog, not making the dog bend to the method. This line of thinking is what makes it hard for a lot of lab trainers to successfully train a Boykin Spaniel.
Force to Pile: This is a phase of Force Fetch. Where Force Fetch begins on a training table and then moves to the ground, it is after it is on the ground that Force to Pile comes in. A trainer will set out a line of bumpers spaced out 5 ft or so apart from each other. Using the ecollar, they are applying either constant stimulus through the collar or a series of repetitive nicks from the collar to force the dog to the first bumper and to fetch it up. They then apply the pressure through the collar again moving down the line to the next bumper. It is when the dog puts his mouth on the bumper and picks it up that the electric stimulus is stopped. The dog learns to turn the pressure off by picking up the bumper when commanded to do so. This is one area that many Boykins will fail. The level of pressure for this is often times too much for a Boykin. There are Boykins that can deal with this level of pressure, but they are not the norm.
Recall: Often times when dogs come into training, this is one of the many issues we have to deal with since the owners either did not take the time to teach and enforce or they hit a road block and did not know where to turn for advice on how to overcome. So by the time the dog is 6 to 8 months of age, it only comes when it wants to. The dog has become self employed and does only what he wants to do and our opinion and commands mean nothing to him. So to overcome this, many times trainers will use the ecollar to teach recall. This is achieved by applying the electric stimulus much like with Force to Pile. With the dog on a long check cord (prevents the dog from running off), a constant electric stimulus or a repetitive series of nicks is applied while simultaneously recalling the dog both verbally and with the whistle. Only when the dog gets to the trainer is the electric stimulus halted.
There are other methods that teach this without forcing them to recall In these other methods, we are showing them what we expect. These methods take longer, but in my opinion, they are more thorough and the same is accomplished without risking shutting the dog down. The best thing to avoid the use of this pressure is simple. Take the time and teach it as a puppy. The more time you put into your dog as a puppy, the better the dog will be as an adult. Regardless of the method of training you use, without the groundwork at the puppy stage, this dog will never be a field trial champion, top grade hunting dog, or great family pet without the basics being thoroughly taught as a puppy. If you know on the front end that you are not going to have the time to apply to the dog as a pup, then consider purchasing a started dog that is trained and ready for his first hunt around 12 to 16 months of age.
Hold Conditioning: While I have trained using these various methods of force or pressure oriented training, I prefer a more natural method that shapes and molds what is already there genetically. If it is not there genetically, even with all the force and pressure in the world, you cannot put in a dog what is not already there. If a given dog is born without any drive, you cannot force this into them. Drive is a genetic trait. Drive is different than temperament and I fully believe that too many people in the retriever world fail to understand this. A soft tempered dog with drive, will still race across a field, through briars or across an ice covered rice field to retrieve a downed bird, and do so with gusto and style.
To retrieve a down bird or prey is a genetic trait for a retriever or flushing breed. I am of the opinion that if the dog has the natural desire to retrieve, then why are we forcing it. Too many feel that they have to instill the level of control into the dog that is obtained through these force methods that it gets the dogs understanding that they are working for them. On the other hand, if we take the time and train obedience to the point of habit, we form a nice social bond with our dogs and we can show them through a gentler approach that working for us is a good thing and they will be rewarded for doing so. We nurture our relationship so that they want to please us, and through this, they are dependent upon us. A dog that is dependent will require far less pressure to train than a dog that is independent. Independence is a learned trait that dogs pick up as a pup through lack of training or being allowed to much free time in an unstructured environment. All free time as a pup must be structured or the pup will pick up too many bad habits that can never be fully trained out, only suppressed through training and often times pressure.
So instead of using the more common Force Fetch methodology, I simply take and do what is called Hold Conditioning. Now this is actually the first stage of a proper Force Fetch program. There is some pressure used here but it is much lower and no ecollar or ear pinch required. You are simply opening the dog’s mouth and showing them how to hold the bird or bumper. If they have a sloppy or hard mouth, this can be corrected during this time. You are teaching “Hold” as a command. So when you do get to the field, a young dog will require a reminder here and there to “Hold” a bumper or bird. You are simply shaping or molding what is already there genetically.
The final stage of a good Hold Conditioning Program moves from the training table to the ground. Here we will teach the dog to walk down the street and chew bubble gum at the same time. They have to learn to walk and hold. There is recall work involved also where the dog is sat at a point, the bumper is placed in their mouth with the command “Hold”. You then walk out and recall them into you to make the proper delivery to hand. It is more involved than just this, but I will be covering this in depth in future articles.
Even with all this said, even if you have taught all of the obedience as a pup to the point of habit, there are trainers that will still apply the pressure. It is the way in which they learned to train dogs and they are unwilling to bend to match a dog. It is their way or the highway. So the best advice I can give you is to do your research. What makes a person a great lab trainer does not necessarily make him a good Boykin Trainer. While there are not a lot of us in the United States that specialize in the breed, there are trainers that train other spaniels with similar temperaments. There are also a limited number of lab trainers that utilize a gentler approach. Do your homework and ask questions. You may find that you have to drive a further distance to find a trainer, but this is far better than taking the dog to a trainer that uses too much pressure and ends up breaking your dog to the point of no return.
Dear Mr. Black.
I have had the pleasure of talking with you when you were with Wildrose. Congrats on your own operation. I have the best Boykin in my State. And you can ask me that any time and you will get the same answer.., but I have a concern. He has been my buddy and best friend for the last two years. I have trained him so that he has an HRC started title. Then others told me that the dog can go a long way and you should get him to a pro. So we sent him out and he has not come very far as far as I’m concerned. He is unbelievable as far has his feelings for me. When I go to the kennel to see him he goes crazy and a lot of what they are trying to do goes out the window. I didn’t use a lot of e-collar. Just a lot of reps and love for him. The pro is wonderful but he is a lab man and uses a lot of e-collar work. At a fun test my dog didn’t work for him at all in the first round but tore the test apart while working for me in the second round. Great enthusiasm while he was with Dad. I don’t want to upset anybody but think its time for my boy to come home might I get your opinion. He has been there for three months. I don’t want him broken either.
Yours Truly
M.R.
Before addressing the issue of pressure oriented training, I want to first address the use of an ecollar. Ecollars are not bad, people are bad. The ecollar does not ruin a dog, it is people that ruin dogs. An ecollar, when properly used can be a very effective training aid. Ecollars, in my opinion, should never be used to train a dog, instead, they should be used only to correct known obedience commands Therefore if you are working on casting drills and you send your dog out for a retrieve and the dog gets off line, you blow the stop/sit whistle and the dog ignores you. Since the dog is far out, the ecollar can provide you instantaneous ability to correct the dog at the exact, precise point of the infraction. While I will always prefer training dogs without the use of the collar, I do on occasion have no other option. Had the dog been raised properly as a pup, then the dog has all the obedience commands engrained to the point of habit which is required if you do not want your dog trained on an ecollar.
One should never allow their temper to control the ecollar. Whether using an ecollar or not, when you find yourself loosing your temper, the training session should end for the day right then and there.
At my recent “Raising Pup” seminar, I had my daughter voluntarily hold the ecollar in the palm of her hand while a client controlled the transmitter. As soon as he went from level 1 through level 3, everyone in the group wanted to try it. My point was to show them that with ecollars, at levels normally used, the actual shock is very mild. While they can be turned to a level that is not mild, I am not an advocate of using the collars on these levels. So just because someone uses an ecollar to train with does not make them a bad person or trainer. Further, I want to clarify that the use of an ecollar I do not consider to be pressure oriented training. It is not any different than using a slip lead or choke chain in order to get the dog to sit, heel, or recall. They are simply learning about how to turn the pressure off.
Pressure Oriented Training: The best description of a Boykin Spaniel I have ever heard was made by Pam Kadlec of Just Ducky Kennels. In fact it is the tag line on the cover of her book, “Retriever Training for Spaniels”. The description is: Boykins are Soft Tempered, Hard Headed, Intelligent Dogs”. This hits the nail square on the head when talking about Boykin Spaniels. I only wish I had been the person to first come up with that description.
The part of the description that is too often overlooked is the “Soft Tempered” part. With a soft tempered dog, too much pressure through correction or force to retrieve can cause them to shut down on you. Total refusal is where they will cower and lie down in many cases. In comparing a lab to a Boykin, temperament wise, the average lab in the United States is far from soft tempered. In fact, there are breeders and trainers that prefer to cull out the softer tempered dogs. While over in Britain, they tend to cull out the dogs of stronger temperament and keep the softer tempered dogs. For the American Field Trial Labs, I do not disagree with their approach to breeding and training. It is what is required to develop a line of dogs that will perform to these extremely high levels. Levels not required for the average person wanting a good hunting dog and family companion. This soft temperament in a Boykin Spaniel is what we have all fallen in love with in the breed. It is something that we do not and should not breed out. We just have to realize it takes a different approach to training.
Millie Latimer of Rock n Creek Kennels in St. Matthews, SC has often stated that Boykins do not take to the drill sergeant approach to training. I agree, the approach has to be more fun for them, but that does not omit obedience. I will fully explain my approach to training with a template in a future article, which tells how to take a Boykin and get the required work in, while keeping the dogs’ spirit high the entire time and always ending on a happy note.
When taking a dog to a professional trainer, regardless of the reason you made this decision, the less you have done with the dog as a pup, makes the trainers job all that much harder. This is the single biggest issue professional trainers have. If you have done little to nothing with your dog, or gotten the obedience part of the way engrained then just let it go out the window during the teenage years, and then the trainer is required to apply a given amount of pressure in order to get the dog to perform. This level of pressure should vary according to the individual dog. Since we live in a society of instant gratification, people want instant results out of their dog. We often are expected by owners to train into a dog (obedience) in 30 days, what should have been done over the course of 6 to 8 months. Knowing that you will only have to dog in training for a limited amount of time, this is where the pressure starts coming in and dogs being forced to perform.
Boykins and their softer temperament need a different approach, still using pressure, but in smaller degrees. I like to use the concept of showing a dog what I expect of them. For example: If I have a dog that goes out and picks up the bumper and wants to run off or play around before coming back, instead of applying pressure to recall through the use of the ecollar, I prefer to stop them and show them what it is I expect. If using the ecollar, I will blow the stop/sit whistle and if the dog does not stop and sit, then the collar correction is applied. Now I blow the recall and have the dog come back into me. If the dog has dropped the bumper, then I will walk out to the dog, place them at sit facing me and put the bumper into their mouth and command “Hold”. I will walk back to my original location and recall the dog into me. It may take numerous times to get this habit started, but by doing it this way and showing them what I expect, I am eliminating the possibility of shutting a dog down through the use of too much pressure. Sure, it may take longer to accomplish this, but I have eliminated the possibility of shutting the dog down.
Another common aspect of retriever training that has grown more and more popular is the use of Force Fetch and Force to Pile. First, if my entire goal was to obtain field trial and hunt test titles, then I most likely would consider this method. Since that is not my goal, then I prefer not to follow this line of thinking and training and have found that my methods do in fact work. I have trained with the Force or higher pressure methods, but once I learned the alternative, I found it a lot more productive for my dogs and more conducive for the Boykin Spaniel.
Force Fetch: In its’ origin, Force Fetch was developed by the bird dog trainers, primarily for the English Pointer. While there is not a better dog in the world for covering large tracts of ground and locating birds than the English Pointer, they are terrible retrievers. So the trainers devised a method they referred to as Force Fetch, in order to be able to get their dogs to retrieve on command, without fail. As it turned out, it worked great for them. In the retriever world, primarily the Field Trial World for retrievers, they found that this worked well for them, especially with some of the jacked up lines of dogs their breeding programs produced for the purpose of field trialing. With most of the professional trainers heavily involved in these trials, they started applying it to their hunting dog clients as well. Now for the lab world, this worked out fine. Many of them use this as a guideline of whether a dog will make it in their program or flunk out. Many of these trainers (not all) feel that if the dog cannot stand the pressure then the dog is not worth training or not capable of being trained. I am of the opinion that these trainers should be bending their training method to match each individual dog, not making the dog bend to the method. This line of thinking is what makes it hard for a lot of lab trainers to successfully train a Boykin Spaniel.
Force to Pile: This is a phase of Force Fetch. Where Force Fetch begins on a training table and then moves to the ground, it is after it is on the ground that Force to Pile comes in. A trainer will set out a line of bumpers spaced out 5 ft or so apart from each other. Using the ecollar, they are applying either constant stimulus through the collar or a series of repetitive nicks from the collar to force the dog to the first bumper and to fetch it up. They then apply the pressure through the collar again moving down the line to the next bumper. It is when the dog puts his mouth on the bumper and picks it up that the electric stimulus is stopped. The dog learns to turn the pressure off by picking up the bumper when commanded to do so. This is one area that many Boykins will fail. The level of pressure for this is often times too much for a Boykin. There are Boykins that can deal with this level of pressure, but they are not the norm.
Recall: Often times when dogs come into training, this is one of the many issues we have to deal with since the owners either did not take the time to teach and enforce or they hit a road block and did not know where to turn for advice on how to overcome. So by the time the dog is 6 to 8 months of age, it only comes when it wants to. The dog has become self employed and does only what he wants to do and our opinion and commands mean nothing to him. So to overcome this, many times trainers will use the ecollar to teach recall. This is achieved by applying the electric stimulus much like with Force to Pile. With the dog on a long check cord (prevents the dog from running off), a constant electric stimulus or a repetitive series of nicks is applied while simultaneously recalling the dog both verbally and with the whistle. Only when the dog gets to the trainer is the electric stimulus halted.
There are other methods that teach this without forcing them to recall In these other methods, we are showing them what we expect. These methods take longer, but in my opinion, they are more thorough and the same is accomplished without risking shutting the dog down. The best thing to avoid the use of this pressure is simple. Take the time and teach it as a puppy. The more time you put into your dog as a puppy, the better the dog will be as an adult. Regardless of the method of training you use, without the groundwork at the puppy stage, this dog will never be a field trial champion, top grade hunting dog, or great family pet without the basics being thoroughly taught as a puppy. If you know on the front end that you are not going to have the time to apply to the dog as a pup, then consider purchasing a started dog that is trained and ready for his first hunt around 12 to 16 months of age.
Hold Conditioning: While I have trained using these various methods of force or pressure oriented training, I prefer a more natural method that shapes and molds what is already there genetically. If it is not there genetically, even with all the force and pressure in the world, you cannot put in a dog what is not already there. If a given dog is born without any drive, you cannot force this into them. Drive is a genetic trait. Drive is different than temperament and I fully believe that too many people in the retriever world fail to understand this. A soft tempered dog with drive, will still race across a field, through briars or across an ice covered rice field to retrieve a downed bird, and do so with gusto and style.
To retrieve a down bird or prey is a genetic trait for a retriever or flushing breed. I am of the opinion that if the dog has the natural desire to retrieve, then why are we forcing it. Too many feel that they have to instill the level of control into the dog that is obtained through these force methods that it gets the dogs understanding that they are working for them. On the other hand, if we take the time and train obedience to the point of habit, we form a nice social bond with our dogs and we can show them through a gentler approach that working for us is a good thing and they will be rewarded for doing so. We nurture our relationship so that they want to please us, and through this, they are dependent upon us. A dog that is dependent will require far less pressure to train than a dog that is independent. Independence is a learned trait that dogs pick up as a pup through lack of training or being allowed to much free time in an unstructured environment. All free time as a pup must be structured or the pup will pick up too many bad habits that can never be fully trained out, only suppressed through training and often times pressure.
So instead of using the more common Force Fetch methodology, I simply take and do what is called Hold Conditioning. Now this is actually the first stage of a proper Force Fetch program. There is some pressure used here but it is much lower and no ecollar or ear pinch required. You are simply opening the dog’s mouth and showing them how to hold the bird or bumper. If they have a sloppy or hard mouth, this can be corrected during this time. You are teaching “Hold” as a command. So when you do get to the field, a young dog will require a reminder here and there to “Hold” a bumper or bird. You are simply shaping or molding what is already there genetically.
The final stage of a good Hold Conditioning Program moves from the training table to the ground. Here we will teach the dog to walk down the street and chew bubble gum at the same time. They have to learn to walk and hold. There is recall work involved also where the dog is sat at a point, the bumper is placed in their mouth with the command “Hold”. You then walk out and recall them into you to make the proper delivery to hand. It is more involved than just this, but I will be covering this in depth in future articles.
Even with all this said, even if you have taught all of the obedience as a pup to the point of habit, there are trainers that will still apply the pressure. It is the way in which they learned to train dogs and they are unwilling to bend to match a dog. It is their way or the highway. So the best advice I can give you is to do your research. What makes a person a great lab trainer does not necessarily make him a good Boykin Trainer. While there are not a lot of us in the United States that specialize in the breed, there are trainers that train other spaniels with similar temperaments. There are also a limited number of lab trainers that utilize a gentler approach. Do your homework and ask questions. You may find that you have to drive a further distance to find a trainer, but this is far better than taking the dog to a trainer that uses too much pressure and ends up breaking your dog to the point of no return.
# posted by Clay Black @ 7:14 AM 
Comments:
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Great answer to a tough question. Prior to my Boykin (Tobey), I was a Lab man however; I have hardly ever needed to use e-collars. Though deceased, Richard A. Wolters book titled, Game Dog is an excellent book for training an upland and waterfowl retriever. The book concentrates on Labs but, more importantly, it stresses well developed non-force training techniques. Tobey's quick development using Wolter's methods has proven for me the importance of socialization, and the importance of starting training (via play) when the puppy first walks through your door. I'm just a plain old meat hunter but I am amazed at just how many hunters who don't realize that all polished bird dogs are masters of sit, stay, down, heel, and whoa. Everything else is built on this foundation.
# posted by 
: May 8, 2009 11:11 AM
: May 8, 2009 11:11 AM
There are many out there that consider Wolters books, antiquated. Simply being, those people have fallen into the rut of ecollar dependency.
While not all trainers are this way, I see trainers only do 2 weeks of obedience when a dog comes into training, even if the owner had not done a thing with the dog. Then after 2 weeks, they slap a collar on the dog and go to work. Just my opinion, but at that point I question if the dog truly understands the obedience commands well enough to accept and understand the collar.
It is not the collar that is bad, it is the method in which it is used along with the person using it.
While not all trainers are this way, I see trainers only do 2 weeks of obedience when a dog comes into training, even if the owner had not done a thing with the dog. Then after 2 weeks, they slap a collar on the dog and go to work. Just my opinion, but at that point I question if the dog truly understands the obedience commands well enough to accept and understand the collar.
It is not the collar that is bad, it is the method in which it is used along with the person using it.
This training blog was a extremely helpful. I too am a new Boykin owner (pup is now 14 weeks old)after having Labs. My last Lab was a great hunting retriever that i trained myself using Wolter's book as a guide. I also used e-collar training carefully and judiciously to enforce known commands as he got farther along in his training. However, I was seriously (though reluctantly) considering using the force-fetch technique with this Boykin thinking it would correct the one remaining problem I had with the Lab which was a failure to "hold" the bird until I had a firm handle on it myself and had commanded drop. The Lab would drop the bird as soon as he felt me touch a feather. This created lots of fumbles. I thought that force-fetch would help alleviate the problem with my new Boykin but I was concerned about losing that honest joy and enthusiasm that comes with the slower develoment of the natural retrieving instincts that you describe so well. Thanks for emphasizing that "hold" can be taught without going through the "Hell Week" for the dog that can be part of an intensive force fetch regimen.
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# posted by : August 19, 2009 1:16 PM
: August 19, 2009 1:16 PM << Home
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