Red Bumpers on Marks

[Hotchocolate]

How many people use Red or Orange Bumpers on Marks and if they do Why ?

[Jon Hass]

My guess would be not many use red for marks. To close to orange in the color spectrum. IMO it is setting the dog up to fail.

[Howard N]

I use them once in awhile. You've got to watch your backgrounds as red will be seen as grey to the dog and it won't pop out of the background as a black or white bumper will do. (black and white ones turn to grey with distance too) I mostly use them as close in birds where there isn't as much cover to hide a bird as I'd like. One good use with older dogs, would be as the check up bird in an indented triple when you don't have cover to throw the short bird into. Young dogs probably don't use them much.

[Mountain Duck]

I mark my 6 month old puppy with orange bumpers almost exclusively. Teaches a dog to mark a spot, but learn to use his nose to actually find the bumper.

[Howard N]

I waaay disagree with Mountain Duck. I want my 6 month old puppies learning to use their eyes when marking. They'll use their nose soon enough, but eyes are more important in marking.

I mark my 6 month old puppy with orange bumpers almost exclusively. Teaches a dog to mark a spot, but learn to use his nose to actually find the bumper.

[TIM DOANE]

I agree with Howard. Young dogs finding marks with their nose is a very bad way to start. Pups come from the womb knowing how to use their nose. Its how they find food.

[walt8@cox.net]

I waaay disagree with Mountain Duck. I want my 6 month old puppies learning to use their eyes when marking. They'll use their nose soon enough, but eyes are more important in marking.

This is how everyone I know starts a pup marking. Doesn't Bill Hillmann do the opposite? Orange first to get them using their nose, then white to help with multiples?
Walt

[Mountain Duck]

Using white bumpers to mark puppies and young dogs is the generally accepted norm for sure. Plenty people here on RTF with far more experience than me in developing young dogs, BUT having dug into a lot of Hillmann's stuff, and listening to him discuss his thoughts on developing marking at his seminar, I think there is a lot of merit to the use orange bumpers to teach a dog to use his nose in the proper way.

Here's a good post (#25) in a thread by Dennis Voigt describing the use of orange bumpers. (To me) it makes a lot of sense to develop a young dog in this manner. My pup seems to be developing very much like the pups Dennis describes. Still a young raw pup that's proven nothing, but I don't feel I have done wrong by him using orange bumpers.

http://www.retrievertraining.net/for...hillman+orange

[DoubleHaul]

If you watch the Hillmann stuff he definitely starts out with orange bumpers, but he does it at very very short distances. Distances that the dog easily can see the bumper in the air and fall. However, once it settles into the very short grass it isn't quite as obvious as a white bumper. The pup is still using his eyes to see the mark but may have to hunt it up a little more when he gets to the fall because it may not be visible every step of the way from the line. As he moves back in other videos he starts using white where the pup would not easily be able to see the fall of an orange bumper.

I don't think Mountain Duck and Howard are really that far apart on this.