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Picking up a Dog, to teach her a lesson

4K views 22 replies 18 participants last post by  PennyRetrievers 
#1 ·
Right now I'm in the middle of a major battle of the wills with my 4-year-old BLF. She is extremely talented, and has all of the skills to be able to pass a master test. She also posesses an immense will, and every test becomes a battle to do it her way. So far this season we've run 4 Master tests. She broke on one, two fails were my fault, and this past weekend I picked her up halfway through the second series because she blew off two casts. The judges probably wouldn't have let that slide into the third series (even though her work in the first series was very good) so I made the decision to pick her up.

My question is this - does picking up a dog in a test, really send a message? I'm willing to bet that picking her up at the beginning of the first series for whining, or creeping would probably send a message, but if I pick her up halfway through the second, after she's already retrieved a blind and a mark, have I already lost to her? In training, she's a total princess; does everything I ask, and is totally quiet, steady and follows directions. When we get to a test though, she feels this urge to assert herself and do the little things, like creep out just past me, bark when she's given a cast, which leads to her getting more and more defiant as the test goes on. Then, she's blowing off casts and generally doing what she wants.

I'm willing to pick her up from more tests, but I'm afraid that maybe it isn't doing any good.
 
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#9 ·
I agree with others in that though picking her up is minimizing the opportunity for negative behavior to continue within thar specific venue, it probably does not teach her anything.

Train as much as you can in a number of different settings offering conditions similar to actual hunt tests. Though hard to duplicate exactly, it seems that her negative behaviors are relative to the hunt test venue, that is where they will most likely need to be corrected (that is at a training session duplicating the HT envirnonment).

Irishwhistler
 
#10 · (Edited)
Does picking up a dog send a message?

Heck Yes it does; it sends a message to the judges, other contestants, and yourself that you have personal standards for your dogs performance that she must play by your rules in order for you to continue to run her, and that a losing a $4 ribbon and a chance at a pass; doesn't issue into that equation. Always nice to have standards ;)

Does it send a message to the dog. No not really, there's no correction and the only thing your doing is taking them out of a situation where they might be allowed to get away with something. Something that might become an ingrained habit if you were to let the dog continue, doing it in a test where you can't address it properly. Whether they care that you pick them up? Certain dogs, I believe know they are in trouble, and feel a since of guilt for a bit. But there's not a real message unless you are able to correct the behavior. You can't correct improper action at a test, (they'd throw you in HT jail ;)) but it's easier to address it in training if they didn't run multiple series-multiple tests, where they were allowed to get away with it.
 
#11 ·
This......

"If a trial or test problem does develop, your best bet is to quit running competitions altogether for quite some period. You'll want to completely eliminate the problem and have new ingrained habits before you run your dog at a trial of hunt test." The Retriever Journal.....Mike Lardy"

The bold section is the most difficult part to come to grips with. It is almost never a two week fix. Several months might be enough (with the emphasis on might).

Defining the "quite some period" is difficult because duplicating the issue, de-programming and creating new expectations in training often requires unrelenting patience.
 
#13 ·
Instead of picking up the dog in a test, would it help to take the dog to a test that you volunteer to work? After the dog has sat in the kennel for a little bit (similar to if you were entered), you then get them out to air on leash as if you were running, and the instant they start acting up they go back to the kennel with a verbal 'NO' and get no birds while you go back into the field to help at a gunner station? You get them out a few times throughout the day and the instant they act up, back to the kennel.
 
#14 ·
Don't let her "perfection" in training stop you from constantly reinforcing your commands. If you train all week with no reinforcement then all you're doing is playing. Your set ups or your standards may not be challenging enough or... you may simply need to reinforce more commands even if she's doing them.

The more reinforcement she gets in training, the more likely she is to obey you in a test.

Just be careful to keep her in balance and not knock all the drive out of her in the process.
 
#16 ·
One of our dogs had a level of 'drive' that she just could not always control. One of the trainers watching us run her suggested that we give her a good 'work out' in the morning before coming to the hunt test. From that point on we ran her on 4-6 singles of 100yds or so prior to any test. I was amaze how much calmer she was, and she then started passing the tests....

Just a thought....Good luck
 
#17 ·
I agree that picking her up during bad behavior will not send a message generally, other than not getting away with switching/blowing sits/casts,etc.
But what about a creeping dog at a hunt test.... Not letting that dog creep and just picking them up, ? Any benefit to that for future ?
 
#19 ·
Not sure taking her out solves anything other than you were dissatisfied with her performance. Not sure she understands and bets she would continue the behavior until corrected when teaching. I wouldn't run another test until she is going to listen. IMO Good luck
 
#23 ·
She loves marks from the popper, and just this evening (since I started this thread earlier), she has come in and out of the box 5 times unsuccessfully, not yet getting a retrieve. Four of the five times she wanted to creep, and once she decided to try and beat me up the hill to the "line." It's going to be a very long next few weeks...
 
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