RetrieverTraining.Net - the RTF banner

Drills

5K views 16 replies 7 participants last post by  mostlygold 
#1 ·
Ever had certain drills that your dog just doesn't understand or the drill seems to confuse the dog no matter how you simplify it?

I have done wagon wheel drills with all my dogs and they did very well, actually seemed to like it. The last dog I trained did not understand the drill at all. The more we tried the more confused she got. It really killed her attitude and she started bugging. There were no corrections, just call backs and moving up trying to get her to understand. I finally gave up on it and just ran cold blinds and big memory blinds with her. Wondering if anyone else had a particular drill that just didn't work for one of your dogs.

Dawn
 
#2 ·
I had this one, I started working on the remote sit and no matter what I did she would avoid the board. I did everything to get her to do it move up and send she would run right over it, but I would move back 10 yards she would run over it, I would stop her and say place, she would go right to it. I would be thinking OK she has it "NO" move back another 5 yards back to square one.

I tried everything, Finally I just sent her out stopped her, went out and put her where I wanted (With the here command )and then fine tune it with the come in whistle. It took a little longer, but we got through it.

The real funny thing is when I stopped her and sent her on an angle back she would go right to it.

Go Figure.
Keith
 
#3 ·
It happens. But I believe most of the time when a certain dog has a problem with a given drill it has far more to do with how it's done than with the drill itself. That and lack of balance in overall training. Sometimes you have to know when to back out of it for a while, and just mark the dog...sometimes a week or two, and then ease back into it.

Evan
 
#4 ·
I do not want to get off topic, But I have a question for Even. I feel if the balance between, fun bumpers, retrieves and praise is maintained within the training session there should not be a reason to move off task or the flow chart.

I would greatly appreciate your opinion.

Keith
 
#8 ·
I had several dogs that ran the wagon wheel and liked it but I had one that hated it.
Which one? Lining, casting, or two-hands Back?

Evan
 
#9 ·
For the most part dogs that appeared to hate wagon wheels that I have trained had the best carry over to working the dog on line. Dogs that had "fun" with wagon wheels considered it a fun game and noticed not much carry over to the line, except for perhaps here/heel. Just an observation. My six year old and just turned two year still think wagon wheels are fun be they eight hand casting or 16 bumper wagon wheels. They are both very high drive dogs. The fun girls profit more from no no drills over jumps, brush piles , chair drills, etc. The wagon wheel in my opinion is a form of a no no drill calling back if they take the wrong bumper. There are many versions of the wagon wheel drills. Most drills you really don't want to turn them into tricks that dogs learn, drills for the most part are teaching concepts, conditioning a dog to pressure and showing the dog how to handle/get out of pressure then transferring those concepts to field work.
 
#10 ·
Hi Earl

The dog that I had did ok on the initial 4 & 8 bumper part of the drill,but not on the 16 bumper. It was the lining that did not go well. Trying to work with her to look where I wanted her to go, she more often went elsewhere and had to be stopped and called back. We would move up and repeat, but 2 or 3 times of being called back and she started worrying. She did much better on the casting part of the drill. I just felt that I was creating a bigger problem trying to work thru the lining and just moved on to cold and memory blinds. Se can take and hold a good line for 100 yds or so, but I still have trouble when the lines are very tight to each other.

Dawn
 
#11 ·
Hi Earl

The dog that I had did ok on the initial 4 & 8 bumper part of the drill,but not on the 16 bumper. It was the lining that did not go well. Trying to work with her to look where I wanted her to go, she more often went elsewhere and had to be stopped and called back. We would move up and repeat, but 2 or 3 times of being called back and she started worrying. She did much better on the casting part of the drill. I just felt that I was creating a bigger problem trying to work thru the lining and just moved on to cold and memory blinds. Se can take and hold a good line for 100 yds or so, but I still have trouble when the lines are very tight to each other.

Dawn

That is the purpose of the the WW with the extra rings ...to build team work and convince the dog to go where sent....I have had some people that just couldn't get themselves to a state of perfection to do the extra rings..It wasn't the dogs couldn't do it, the handler wasn't exact enough to communicate with the dog ...Steve S
 
#12 ·
Well we worked on it for quite some time. I trained 5 previous dogs and had no trouble working with them and getting them to understand what was wanted. She just seemed to get more bugging/confused the more we worked at it. I have to think there are some things each dog is very good at and some things they struggle with, just like people. She went through T, TT and swim bye with no problems and those lessons stayed with her well. She understood pattern blinds and handling came very easily to her.

If there is any correlation, she gets nervous with tight lines on marks also. Possibly a confidence issue and I do a lot of singles or single/double combinations with her to work through the tight line nervousness. She has gotten much better in the past year and her confidence levels this year are better.

Dawn
 
#13 ·
Dawn you obviously have trained a few dogs past the JR level and have trained one that just doesn't fit the round hole peg and making widgets that your other dogs have. Presently I have one of those I am training now, I understand.
My training partner has a very nice QAA dog with a couple of MH passes. He has the tendency as you have described.
What we have done isn't really a drill but has helped. He uses remote dummy machines (Max thrower) quite often, a lot when the dog in the derby. On the machines he is perfect, blinds under the arc, diversions etc. On double blinds he flares. We started using bird techs. (17 year old grandson with a terrific arm) and doing under the arc blinds, sometimes a poison bird, sometimes pick up mark do blind, some times double blind, under arc, outside the thrower. We have set up a quad, two or three machines, a person or two throwing, shot a flyer, do ABC drill, under arc of flyer, then on the outside. It seems to help with a person standing, as you do blinds. As Steve indicated the W drill is good too. I have done a short blind 25 yards, then a blind over the top pf the picked up short blind, driving another 200 yards plus.
I have also set up a permanent land blind 300 to 400 yards run it the entire life of the dog, sometimes only a few times a year, all kinds of wind, no real factors of land just flat. Helps with a dog that gets lax on it's land blinds. Hope some of this helps no quick fixes, as you already know. Advanced work is tough progress is measured in months or even years.
 
#14 ·
Thanks to everyone who responded

Many good suggestions, especially the multi throwers (ABCD) drills and W drill. Another note regarding this dog. She was absolutely hell to FF. It was a fight from the beginning and she is really not a tough dog. I had never dealt with this amount of avoidance prior in a dog. Once we got through the FF, all else seemed to flow seamlessly along until we hit wagon wheel drill. Due to my work schedule, I do most of my training alone with either walk out throws or using BB and Gunners Up electronic throwers. I also started doing a "key relationship" drill with her involving 1 thrower and 2 blinds, one tight behind the gun and one under the arc of the throw. I do this 3-4 times a week in different combinations (throw mark, pickup mark, run blinds; run one blind, throw mark, pick up then run other blind or throw mark and use as poison bird in any combination with the blinds). The mark is short maybe 50-75 yds, the blinds are 200 + yards. This has helped on many levels.

Dawn
 
#15 ·
Hi Dawn,

Thanks for starting this thread.....learned alot from you and the posters!

Chris
 
#17 ·
Your welcome Chris
There are always good suggestions and it keeps me thinking about new ways to approach the problem.

Dawn
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top