[Meleagris1]

I have/had the same type pup. Last spring I went to a Lardy Seminar as an owner/handler primarily for line manners/noise. I can say at least for that seminar, my dog became the poster child of bad line manners. She had a huge problem with whining and even barking in the holding blind, on the way to the mat and while the birds were going down. Mike tried several things on the dog to get a handle on the noise part (she also had a creeping problem) and finally hit upon putting a bumper in her mouth from the truck all the way to being released from the mat. They can't bark or even whine very much with the bumper in the mouth. I continued that for a LONG time after the seminar until I think the dog forgot about making noise. A year later I rarely have a noise issue and if I do, a simple quiet and a nic from the collar quiets her right down. Mike also solved the creeping problem too...at a field trial last summer one of the judges mentioned to me that my dog was one of the best mannered at the trial. Thank you very much Mike Lardy!

The bumper in mouth technique sounds like a good idea! What was the creeping fix? Thanks for posting that.

 

[Stan b]

On the noise issue, single marks only.
Noise, no mark.
Re throw until quiet, then dog gets mark and praise for quiet.

May have to do this several times until dog is quiet at line.
But eventually he will get it.
IMO praise reinforces the experience.


It worked for me........but I am not an expert trainer by any means.
I do know a little about this issue.

I would also add that if this issue is somewhat rooted in genetics this could be around for the dogs entire life.

We run lots of singles until quiet is acheived, then run multiples.
Marking and memory are 2 seperate skill sets any way.
We run probably 80% or more singles.

Good luck...............

 

[D&S Retrievers]

I believe the dogs name is "Butter" or "Jelly"??????? Pretty calm to me! lol

Randy is being the Professor......he's the best at this problem......he is teaching through this thread!

 

[wetdog]

Meleagris, Mike first tried the conventional stuff like "sit, stick, sit" or "sit, nick, sit" and various other things that didn't phase her in the least. The way Mike got to my dog on creeping was the instant she moved on the mat, he picked her completely off the ground by the collar and used the heeling stick across her chest several times while saying sit. He then put her back on the mat without letting her retrieve, and called for another bird and if she moved, she got the stick treatment across the chest again. All the while he was reducing the excitement on the throw, by removing the shot, shortening the throw, etc. He said he need a successful mark to teach her what we wanted, ie no noise, creeping and a retrieve. It must have taken 15 or more throws before she got sent the first time. Again, as with the noise, I continued the creeping work everyday for at least a month before I ever took back training with a group. I just used a remote launcher and worked alone on this. She is pretty solid now on sitting still on the mat, but even a year later, I still have the heeling stick and am still watching her close for movement. Once in a while I will still get a correction on creeping and still do the stick on the chest thing and denying the dog the retrieve. Also, I train once in a while with Jerry Patopea and he is well aware of her line manner issues, so when I am with him, the dog still spends a good 30-45 minutes in a holding blind while other dogs run before she is allowed to the mat. Hope this helps.

 

[Meleagris1]

Meleagris, Mike first tried the conventional stuff like "sit, stick, sit" or "sit, nick, sit" and various other things that didn't phase her in the least. The way Mike got to my dog on creeping was the instant she moved on the mat, he picked her completely off the ground by the collar and used the heeling stick across her chest several times while saying sit. He then put her back on the mat without letting her retrieve, and called for another bird and if she moved, she got the stick treatment across the chest again. All the while he was reducing the excitement on the throw, by removing the shot, shortening the throw, etc. He said he need a successful mark to teach her what we wanted, ie no noise, creeping and a retrieve. It must have taken 15 or more throws before she got sent the first time. Again, as with the noise, I continued the creeping work everyday for at least a month before I ever took back training with a group. I just used a remote launcher and worked alone on this. She is pretty solid now on sitting still on the mat, but even a year later, I still have the heeling stick and am still watching her close for movement. Once in a while I will still get a correction on creeping and still do the stick on the chest thing and denying the dog the retrieve. Also, I train once in a while with Jerry Patopea and he is well aware of her line manner issues, so when I am with him, the dog still spends a good 30-45 minutes in a holding blind while other dogs run before she is allowed to the mat. Hope this helps.

Helps greatly, thank you for taking the time to post that!

 

[Steve Shaver]

Randy I am anxious to hear just how you fixed this in just 5 days. Dont know for sure what you would do in a step by step procedure. Some of what has been posted I like some I dont.
I have some knowledge of what you do through someone else that you have helped. I think it stems from ob. Dogs such as this need to be held to an extremely high standard of ob and need to trust and respect the handler as part of the team. Basically I consider it indirect training. By working and perfecting one thing it gives the dog more to concentrate on so if the dogs mind is occupied with the task at hand it forgets about the noise. Dogs such as this need to be challenged. With my dogs (one of which I have this problem) it starts at the kennel. She is 2 1/2 and is occaisionally slightly noisy in training but explodes at a trial, I might ad that she is a pretty talented little girl. She basically doesnt make a move unless I give her permission. She sits and doenst leave her kennel until released. She sits and doesnt touch her food until given the ok. There is a routine for everything. Out training when it is her turn the crate is opened in the truck but she does not come out until I go to the tail gate and call her. Then she comes to the tail gate and sits to have the collar put on then she is called to heel then released to air. At any of these steps if there is noise or if I have to give a command more than once we go back a step and do not progress until it is done right and without so much as a whimper. Right now I am working on a linning drill and perfecting pushing and pulling on line with me as this is mostly where the noise exists. She moves with me well but not to the level she needs to. I am guilty of accepting less than perfection. I am also working on this with my 5 yr old. I have jammed a few opens with her but she has developed a creeping and breaking problem. I am hoping that perfecting her manners on line through this linning drill will translate to a trial by creating team work by perfecting disapline. I believe that the noise, creeping, breaking etc. is all about the dog being self employed more than a team player. So I am hoping teaching the dog to become more of a team player it will indrectly take care of my problems. Hope this makes sense as I am not well versed at putting my thoughts to words.
I am seriously watching this thread trying to learn all I can on this issue because I have two very talented dogs that would be much much better without these problems.

 

[Justin Allen]

FWIW I was joking about selling the dog. I have one of these dogs and I have tried everything under the sun to get a handle on it. I've spoken with Randy more than once over the phone about the issue. I have highly considered putting rowdy with randy to try and get the issue resolved. Like others I am interested in knowing what was done to help in such a short time. Noise is not my dogs issue but creeping and line manners in general. To me they are pretty much one in the same though. Bring on the answers.

 

[Justin Allen]

For the people in this thread that mention there dogs having creeping and breaking problems--how did it get started. What did you do (or not do) to allow the behavior to become ingrained. I was anxious to get an HRCH title on the dog I mentioned. I was successful with that and we never dropped a test in HRC--the problem is he got away with creeping and bouncing around at the line. I could control it to an extent because you can talk to your dog in HRC. He has broken in the last couple of master tests we have run. I created the problem, not the dog. I would gladly give back that HRCH title if I could undo the monster I created. On the bright side it taught me a lesson. I learned that is not a road I'm willing to go back down with a dog. My next dog juice has had excellent line manners, he ran 7 derbies in 5 or 6 weekends this fall. He sat nicely for 6 of the 7 and at the most would pick his butt off the ground a little. That was the worst of it--in the 7th derby things changed. He seemed a little higher than usual, he stayed on the mat in the first but I could tell we were getting loose. My mind set went from wanting to win the derby to making sure we got out of there without causing any problems that would haunt us down the road. He crept off the mat with the first bird and by the time the second bird hit the ground he was about 2 feet in front of me. We picked up and went home--everyone including the judges wanted to know what I had picked him up for. It was simple, I've ruined one dog and thats enough for now. Disclaimer: if it had been the 4th series and we had a good chance to win--I still like to think I would have picked up. I don't know that for sure though, haha.

 

[gdgnyc]

PM sent re my solution.

 

[RetrieverNation]

Just recently addressed this issue with my pup and much of what I did came from the original post.

Pup started barking, biting and doing back flips for puppy marks in the hall at 12 weeks. Kept giving marks until he did not want to bring them back at approximately 16 weeks. Stopped all marks and did 100% obedience for 2.5 months with the occasional test mark to see if problem persisted and it did.

At seven months started re-introducing marks. Good results with heavy pre-training exercise and obedience lesson(mostly stick work) prior to marks. Only a few marks and re-bird for any noise or movement while on lead.

Now almost at nine months and the pup is as steady as I want him at this stage but still a little cautious about using bumper boy (gun fire) or duck calls (so far all hand thrown marks by me or a helper).
Mostly yard mark with a few test marks in the field.

May be taking it a little slow but I am very concerned about the noise issue. Not sure if I created the problem with the puppy bumpers. Pup was pick of the litter and I chose him because he blew all the other pups out of the water (11 of them) with his desire to mark and retrieve at 7 weeks.

 

[TBell]

PM sent re my solution.

Please try and answer on the board to help others.

 

[Stan b]

I wanted to post this.
There is no 1 easy fix for a true Hi-Roller.

You have to change everything and have patience and persistance.
They do what we teach them to do.

 

[DarrinGreene]

I left it go as long as i thought i could still fix it ..fine line when to fix and not fix with a baby dog...older dogs are lots easier but puppy brains work differently.... Randy

I assumed that much but what I was really asking was WHY? Puppies work differently, of course. BUT why can't it be addressed early on? or... why shouldn't it be?

 

[DarrinGreene]

As far as the answer not letting it happen in the first place is really unfair.

Not sure what you mean Stan.

I have a yapper of a puppy myself, maybe not to the extent of Randy's but she is pretty high drive. I have, from the very beginning withheld any and all rewards, including retrieves, affection and food until she was absolutely quiet, still and focused in the sit position. I have never punished noise. I simply included silence as part of the behavior required to earn any kind of reward.

This goes against the "let them get wild about retrieving for the first 6 months" theory commonly employed by folks. I don't know if that's what Randy has done, which is why I asked for his reasoning over letting the behavior slip. My dog began collar conditioning at 5 months and began FF promptly at 6 months.

I honestly don't know what I'm gonna get out of this dog. She was excessively noisy in the crate early on and would bark out of frustration all throughout her early obedience. She is totally quiet, focused and progressing through basics nicely now.

I may get shredded by everyone (including Randy) for doing it this way, but we'll see where we end up.

 

[gdgnyc]

Not sure what you mean Stan.

I have a yapper of a puppy myself, maybe not to the extent of Randy's but she is pretty high drive. I have, from the very beginning withheld any and all rewards, including retrieves, affection and food until she was absolutely quiet, still and focused in the sit position. I have never punished noise. I simply included silence as part of the behavior required to earn any kind of reward.

This goes against the "let them get wild about retrieving for the first 6 months" theory commonly employed by folks. I don't know if that's what Randy has done, which is why I asked for his reasoning over letting the behavior slip. My dog began collar conditioning at 5 months and began FF promptly at 6 months.

I honestly don't know what I'm gonna get out of this dog. She was excessively noisy in the crate early on and would bark out of frustration all throughout her early obedience. She is totally quiet, focused and progressing through basics nicely now.

I may get shredded by everyone (including Randy) for doing it this way, but we'll see where we end up.

No, you won't get shredded.

Did you mark the quiet behaviot?

 

[Justin Allen]

I've noticed that trying to steady a dog up early can bring about some noise issues. I've had it happen with my shaq and Ali pups. Backed off the early steady work with both and eased back into it again a couple of months later. No issues at all since. Anyone else seen this?

 

[Justin Allen]

Sounds like a solid approach to me.

Not sure what you mean Stan.

I have a yapper of a puppy myself, maybe not to the extent of Randy's but she is pretty high drive. I have, from the very beginning withheld any and all rewards, including retrieves, affection and food until she was absolutely quiet, still and focused in the sit position. I have never punished noise. I simply included silence as part of the behavior required to earn any kind of reward.

This goes against the "let them get wild about retrieving for the first 6 months" theory commonly employed by folks. I don't know if that's what Randy has done, which is why I asked for his reasoning over letting the behavior slip. My dog began collar conditioning at 5 months and began FF promptly at 6 months.

I honestly don't know what I'm gonna get out of this dog. She was excessively noisy in the crate early on and would bark out of frustration all throughout her early obedience. She is totally quiet, focused and progressing through basics nicely now.

I may get shredded by everyone (including Randy) for doing it this way, but we'll see where we end up.

 

[DarrinGreene]

No, you won't get shredded.

Did you mark the quiet behaviot?

Yes, I mark before every reward.

 

[Randy Bohn]

Very true that most dogs are noisy for different reasons and if there was a step by step method we wouldn't have noisy dogs anymore.

Darrin........I choose to side with caution with youngsters, they can be forgiving BUT they also remember things you will forget down the road. I've seen people do some crazy things with pups and older dogs to fix noise issues, and guess what??? the dog looks like they were abused a few weeks later when you see them again. Right or wrong I watched the dog come in for training( day training) and watched him get higher and higher BUT was pretty sure it was still fixable. I asked how the basics were progressing and when I felt it was time to deal with the issue we did.I've seen people who are to strict with pups and transition dogs and they don't usually bounce back very well...I like a dog who likes to run hard on blinds and marks with good attitudes...to be continued

 

[Randy Bohn]

I watched the puppy come in for training 4 to 5 days a week for months, hardest part was not really knowing if the basics were solid but was 99% sure they were...
AGE: PRE 6 MONTHS
I watched the owners get yanked to the line for marks...(pup is running the show)
I watched the dog get pulled off the line back to the truck..(pup is to intense to be taught?)
I heard the dog barking in the truck when the owner would get another one of their dogs out to work..(intensity or disobedient towards owners??)
I watched the dog airing away from the line on a rope while other dogs are working...(pup didn't care one bit about the other dogs working at that time)
My attitude towards the pup prior to 6 months was that he was crazy to retrieve but I was not willing to do anything about it yet. Life for him was retrieving...retrieving..retrieving...he was the man to say the least! to be continued