You don't need to throw from hidden guns to get dogs running at the bird and not at the gun. Field trial trainers (and many HT & gun dog trainers) use bird boys with white coats almost all the time in early marking. Those dogs learn to run at the bird and not the gun.
You just have to teach it like any other skill. Shorten the distance, use flat (90 degree) throws, run in short cover.
Some will tell you that visable bird boys etc. teach the dog to run at the gun, but that simply isn't true.
At an HT in Oregon this spring there was a hill with oak trees that came down steep to the back of a tech pond. The test was set up so that a super winger was set up on the hill and a bird came out of it and went about 30yds out and into the water with a big splash. A great amount of the dogs ran up the hill to the bird station and had to put on a big hunt downhill and into the water to find the bird or had to be handled.
A few FT folks(very few)(The only way I knew they were FT folks is they told me they were) were griping about the placement of the bird station on the hill claiming that the dogs just want to go to the bird station and it threw them off of the bird. According to them it was an unfair placement. I disagreed with them because the dogs that did well marked the FALL instead of the thrower.
Walking singles and hidden gunners/stations have helped me. Also, I've found that hunting with the dog can help in marking the bird.
It bothers me when my dog does this. But she is doing it less and less. I moaned and complained about it plenty on this forum. With her, it was never about marking, it was about fun and games and visiting with the gunner, and the relative freedom of being sent on marks, vrs. being under control on blinds.
At any rate, the pro never pressured her about this specifically. Said my pup would out-grow it if we did marks and marks and then followed up with some more marks. She's now 2 yrs and 3 mos. and doing credible triples.
Is there a certain distance that the problem arises or is it all the time? Best approach is to start short and give long flat throws with big white bumpers on short grass...once the dog is going at the bumper every time start to move the gunner away from the line ..Build with success and repetition ...As soon as you see the dog run at the gunner shorten the distance again... some times we throw a second bumper to keep the dogs focus on the mark ...Hidden gunners can work but not every field has an abundance of trees in them..This is one of those problems that probably developed because the habit of going at the mark was not ingrained before stretching out... We all want to see the dog do the big marks ...We create a lot of problems by our training methods and practices...Steve S
Walking singles with the gunner moving away from the the previous fall. The theory being, the previous fall will have suction away from the gunner on the dog's path to the next fall. There are some more advanced avenues that can be pursued, however, i was assuming the dog in question was a young one.
good luck
GG
I've seen this happen, even with singles, if the distance is greatly increased too fast. Especially, if whatever you are throwing (bumpers, birds), are hard to see due to background, size of bumper, etc...
Have the thrower throw a big white bumper and while the dog is still on a decent line for the bumper, have the thrower throw a second (and maybe a third) big white bumper to the same area or even farther away to influence the dog toward the initial mark and away from the thrower. You don't want to do this all the time but it can remind young dogs that the retrieves to be made are not at the thrower's feet.
You can also salt the area of the fall a bit with half a dozen or so white bumpers to help draw the dog away from the thrower and make sure that any hunt is short, successful and, again, not near the thrower.
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